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!

Well, it doesn’t seem fair, but that’s always been how it is. Even those younger, that never have never worked, get means tested benefits.

But, I paid in and got my pension via contributions. It’s topped up with private pensions, and savings, and I get no ‘extra’ help, with rent or anything, And I still pay quite a bit of tax. But, I’m quite happy that I don’t have to justify and prove things to officials because I need means tested top ups.

Plus, governments change, and I wouldn’t be affected if the rules around means tested benefits change.

The issue with pensions and benefits when looking at it overall has been the expected social contract between the state and individual changing.

People do not like the contract changing it brings uncertainty. To see why it’s gone badly you have to look way back when certain policies were introduced. Society constantly changes and evolves. What has happened over the last 50 years are the most rapid societal changes in a short time.

So what we have is a society that conceptually is doing far better overall, more rights for women, longer lives lived, the push for inclusivity in society, better medical care. Our own success will be our demise. It’s the unintended consequences of becoming more successful at being civilised. Just like the very obvious loss of the value of a degree when there was the push to up the numbers back in the 90’s.

Most of the posts on here when it comes to benefits are anecdotal and driven by emotion and it’s why any benefit thread always descends in to personal attacks and sweeping statements about how things should or could be.

Interesting
But we also have to pay all those civil service public servants’ pensions —that’s going to be huge too so it will probably happen sooner rather than later.

Yes, unfunded liabilities are estimated at over one trillion.

Well, NHS pensions and teacher’s pensions cost us a fortune as well, Do we want to curb those as well? 🤷‍♀️

I think it's largely people who have never had to navigate the system themselves. It feels to me like they're talking about a different world.

The DLA and CA we receive don't come close to making up for the loss of household earnings.

If you want to have anything approaching significant savings, you need to be working and not claiming UC. It's why I gratefully jumped at the chance of a part-time job. I want savings and the extra bit of security they bring, saving the majority of my redundancy payment is the best option for that given our low income.

I sometimes wonder what happened to all the thousandsj of pounds saved by the treasury by not paying pensions due to the increase in pension age. There should be something to show for this huge drop per year in those receiving pensions but it must have been used up as I've never heard it ever mentioned.

People live longer in our ageing population, we having fewer young people paying in per retired person claiming. The raise in retirement age was not about 'saving' money that could be spent elsewhere, but rather about cutting the costs of something very expensive.

No it wasn’t about saving money -but what happened to it - all those people born in ?1952 who waited another year, surely it was millions but never mentioned

The money was never there. By not spending as much it just meant the UK didn't need to borrow as much. We've been running an annual deficit for something like 28 out of the last 30 years. The cumulative debt is around £3TRILLION which means we spend more on interest on the national debt than on education! If the pension age hadn't been put back, we'd have had to borrow even more, meaning even more paid out on interest. It's all very bleak.

@Badbadbunny, you said it! The ‘saved’ money did not get ‘saved’, it was a matter of ‘robbing Peter to pay Paul’. But let’s take it one step further, Peter had nothing that could be robbed to pay Paul.

What do mean 'what happened to it'?
It was a large bill that was very slightly reduced.

There wasn't a bank account with lots of money sitting in it, waiting.