To be fed up with the WASPIs' renewed campaign?

[Jane379]

I sympathise with people who genuinely did not know but hiw many was this? And how would we know who to compensate even if the money were available?

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/waspi-latest-compensation-legal-challenge-pension-b2976014.html

Ironically, NIC and state pension rules are pretty good for low earners as they can accumulate "credits" for state pension etc without paying any NIC if they earn below the thresholds.

I've quite a few clients who were low paid (mostly part timers) for most of their life, and actually have higher pension incomes than their average wages (adjusted for inflation etc) because of these rules for accumulating credits. Some basically got a "pay rise" the moment they retired, who'd previously worked part time (earning under state pension amounts) but then got full state pension. The position is even better for those, like part time NHS/school workers who also get a final salary public sector pension scheme and state pension.

That’s certainly an example of why the system needs reforming if people who worked part time were able to accumulate credits to give them the same state pension as someone who’d fully paid their NI contributions.

Public sector workers in defined benefits schemes are different because they’ll have paid a proportion of their salary as well as their NI contributions to get their occupational pension. To end up with a good occupational pension they’ll have likely been working full time and paying a pretty big amount, maybe 10% or more of their salary into it every month.

Obviously going back to NI and pensions origins pre 1925 people didn't get it until 70 years old. It was literally to prevent people too old to.work dying of starvation.

Wait until you hear about armed forces pensions …

Eh? I know they’re non-contributory but I wouldn’t imagine they’re that big apart from the minority of people in very high rank positions.

occupational pensions are a totally different kettle of fish from the state pension though

You don’t think they’re that big? You really haven’t heard about them, have you?

Ha! I know they’re linked to rank and years’ service so aside from the minority on good salaries; they aren’t that high. Although of course, what defines a high pension is subjective to the extent that people are likely to compare with their own situation. And of course any occupational pension is conditional to actually being employed in that occupation. The armed services is not something many people want to go into (look at the current recruitment difficulties) so imo they deserve the pension they get