What is the point of paying NI for 35 years to get a full State Pension, when people who have never worked receive Pension Credit anyway?

[Blondiebeachbabe]

I just cannot get my head around this. You have to pay National Insurance for 35 years, in order to receive a State Pension of £241 per week. However, if you have never worked (like my cousin), you will receive Pension Credit of £238 per week. So basically, having contributed for 35 years, means that you get an extra £3 a week. Woop de fucking doo.

Moreover, why did some people who didn't have the full 35 years, pay extra to top themselves up, when Pension Credit would have bumped them up to £238 anyway?

Not only this, but people on Pension Credit have access to things that people receiving the SP do not, such as :

Housing Benefit: Often covers 100% of your rent.
Council Tax: You may pay nothing at all.
Heating: Free Winter Fuel Payments and Warm Home Discounts.
Health: Free dental treatment and eye tests.
TV Licence: Free for those aged 75 or over.

Make it make sense!

There will be, yes. But you started this thread about you. So, you've got a private pension so earnt enough to be able to contribute to one, clearly. So your retirement will be better than those who worked but couldn't contribute to a private pension. So, you're a higher rate tax payer are you? Yes or no? Makes a difference to outcomes.

This mentality where work is about “paying in” is so pathetic and self-aggrandizing. Be honest: like all of us you work simply because you couldn’t have a decent quality of life if you didn’t.

This is absolutely insane and demonstrably untrue

I've been paying into my state pension for 32 years - every year. And the full amount every year for the last 26 years.

I have several private pensions and they're all absolutely rubbish. I think collectively they're worth less than £100 a month.

So no, this ludicrous and unfair system does not work this way because everyone who has paid into it has a massive private pension.

There is no incentive to work - only to be on benefits.

And what's even more crazy is I know people who work but should be on benefits but are too mentally ill or proud to apply, and people who absolutely should not be on benefits but get them because they know how to play the mental health game.

👏👏👏

So tired of the benefits bashers. Save your ire for the Tices of this world.

Yet everyone on here cries that people on benefits SHOULD have holidays/nice things because ‘why wouldn’t you want them to? Are you a terrible person?’

Go and demonstrate it then.

I have worked all my life in an arts / registered charitable sector on low wages with no employer pension contributions until the last legal moment and at the lowest legal level. No complaints - I knew what I was getting into and don't require a high-spend lifestyle. And I did make contributions to a SIPP.

Now retired on state pension with a small top up.

Even with the small top up I would be better off on pension credit because of the benefits already listed.

So many concessions now only apply to Pension Credit - not over 65s. The things you want to enjoy - I could afford the Pension Credit Price in lots of places - cinemas, galleries, attractions etc, but not the non-concession price.

I am, of course, glad that I worked - but for those of us on low salaries its about incentives. If you have had a good salary and now enjoy or look forward to ( as a result of prudent planning and a good salary) a very comfortable retirement then you enjoy the benefit of your work. If you have been on a low salary and have only a small pension you might look sideway and think 'why did I bother' because Pension Credit is practically the same. So where's the financial incentive?

I have found the opposite. 'No-one should have anything I can't have because shirkers'

Because everyone should pay their way in life and that includes providing for their old age and the support system should be for those who have not been able to do so for reasons beyond their control.

Also, anyone who thinks things will remain as they are long term is fooling themselves. Give it a few more decades and anyone who hasn't provided for themselves will be in the shit. This country is financially fucked and we all need to be preparing to take care of ourselves rather than wasting time fearing other people might get something for free we had to work for.

Allow me. We earn about 70k between us. We have paid off our mortgage. We run a four year old car, eat out often,holiday three times a year and give thousands to charity.
Not a single person or family I know on benefits can even dream about doing any of those things.
QED
The claim that you need 200k year to be better off than on benefits is peak MN fantasy land

I suspect the £200K lump sum from my private pension would stop the Pension Credit so I'll enjoy my full state pension thank you very much.

And the paupers can just die of cold a d starvation presumably. And you'll be fine with that.

OP is well known for taking a certain stance on benefits. Which of course she is fully entitled to.
And no, I have not advance searched - I read a lot of political threads.

Because without people working their whole life, and paying tax, there would any revenue to pay a pension to those who have never worked.

In what sense is there almost no difference?

So Oh and I earn £50/£60k ish respectively (massively less than your £200k). With that we can afford a 5 bed terrace house, to run a car, to send our 2 kids to multiple clubs/activities, to go on holiday a couple of times a year, to go out regularly, to never worry about putting the heating on or the kids having extra friends over for dinner or something breaking and needing to be replaced. In what sense is that the same life as a family who are not working or working in low paid jobs and claiming benefits?
Honestly I get in some parts of the country it’s expensive and the period while you can claim for your kids maybe it feels like there is a lot less difference but eventually they grow up and leave and then what you are able to claim changes significantly

But many people who get full state pension and maybe a small private pension will still also qualify for some help towards rent and council tax. Not paid in full like those on pension credit but still a significant amount of help.

Have we actually reached peak MN with this ludicrous comment??
😂😂

This poster makes a lot of ludicrous comments.

Don't be ridiculous I have never earned anything like that much. I was a teacher and was earning less than £40k a year when I retired 11 years ago. I have my teachers' pension and a state pension, mortgage paid off and consider myself quite comfortable. My husband earned similar in the NHS he is retired but doesn't have his State Pension yet.

If I had never worked I wouldn't have had a mortgage never mind paid it off. Some people on here have absolutely no idea of the real world just bitterness and pointless envy.

Recent CSJ research revealed that by 2026 there will be more than a £2,500 gap between earnings and combined benefit income. A full time worker on the National Living Wage (NLW) is expected to earn £22,500 after paying income tax and national insurance.
By comparison, an economically inactive claimant on Universal Credit (UC) for ill health with the average housing benefit and Personal Independence Payment (PIP) would receive an income of around £25,000, rising to £27,500 for those awarded PIP’s highest rate.
New analysis published today finds that, as of May 2025, there were one million people claiming a combination of UC health, housing and PIP, following a dramatic increase in awards for anxiety and depression since the pandemic.
Seven in ten new UC Health assessments now involve mental health conditions, and PIP claims for anxiety and depression are up threefold since 2019.

How many fucking times do people like you need to be fucking told. There are plenty of people claiming PC who worked damn hard and paid into workplace pensions that disappeared when companies went bust. There wasnt the regulation decades ago that there is now. Im fucking sick and tired of people trying to rewrite history

The key here is you ‘retired 11 years ago’. You were not subject to the crushing conditions workers are today. Comparing apples and oranges. How much did you buy your house for and in what year, out of interest?

The alternative is having starving pensioners living on the streets or maybe bringing back The Workhouse. Some people would be pleased with both of those of course.

Many people, who reached pension age before 6 April 2016 get state pension of £184.90 per week. to get this they had to pay NI for 44 years.

Many married women who reached pension age before 6 April 2016 get only £110.94.

You are misreading part of a much larger system