To think when the state pension is removed, the social contract is broken?

[JulyJulyNovember]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c8e2yp1gg37o

It seems likely that in due course, the universal state pension will be withdrawn. At this point, I don’t see how there will be any incentive for young people to build wealth here.

I don’t think poor pensioners should be homeless, but I don’t think they should be provided for in large, unsuitable council houses or in nursing homes where places cost thousands a week. We are moving to a more individualistic world.

But who decides who hasn’t taken responsibility and who has? Where do you draw the line? Someone who has had 6 children and never worked so can’t save and is on benefits their whole life? Does their benefits stop at age 70? Or do benefits just not exist in this time line either? But if they don’t exist what about the children? It’s not their fault they were born so should they be punished? What about disabled people? Do benefits for disabled people exist? They can’t save relying on benefits so I assume they just continue getting benefits right through old age. What if someone is temporarily disabled or too ill to work for a few years in their life so are not able to save enough for pension? They don’t receive benefits in old age as they are no longer disabled but they also didn’t save enough to live in later life. So basically, again, only those who have not worked for whatever reason will be fine in old age and those who did work and paid in will not.

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/healthandlifeexpectancies/articles/lifeexpectancycalculator/2019-06-07

This is interesting. Apparently a British woman who is 76 today can expect to live to be 89 on average, but a British woman who is between 35 and 66 today has a shorter life expectancy - it goes back up for women under 35 today...

This is so ignorant.

The only way this works is if we introduce a utopian state in which people earn a salary based on effort not ability. A very hard working hospital porter or refuse collector/ bin person or street sweeper or childcare wprker should be able to out earn stock brokers and software engineers. A nurse should be able to out earn a doctor if willing to work harder.

Otherwise you're presumably suggesting that people should be punished for not being born into privileged circumstances - not only financially secure families able to support prolonged education, but also natural ability.

Plenty of people are born with below average academic ability and into underprivileged families. Presumably you believe that if they work hard in minimum wage jobs they deserve to be destitute at the end of it because they weren't able to afford to get a mortgage and a hefty private pension.

You are being ridiculous. The state pension will never be removed. The eligible age may change but that's it.

How old are you?

I am 36, and I fear I may never be able to retire.

Not if there are no jobs for them and they're net "takers" too from the public purse, i.e. a further drain on resources.

You’ve got your generations confused. It was my mother’s generation who stopped work after they had kids - I’m 72, by the way.

Pension contributions attract tax relief. If yours haven’t HMRC owes you a nice fat rebate.

Governments need to start putting more effort into getting people owning homes so they can be used later in life for things like care/ allow downsizing.

I am reliant on benefits due to being suddenly disabled. I living in a HA property. If I stay here, I’ll have no assets. I’m going to cost the council more. It also costs the HA to do work on the property. If you could get someone like me to own, I’d have an asset and be less cost for things like house upkeep.

I was first told that there wouldn’t be a state pension soon in 1985…

So it is in fact free money to someone who might never make any sort of contribution here.

How is your proposal better than the government keeping the money to invest in equities themselves, and using the investment growth to pay the pensions of people who meet the appropriate qualifying criteria when they get to 67?

My aunt was saying it when I was a child in the early 1960s. Yet here I am collecting mine.

If you have worked overseas for a British company, then your NI is automatically paid in the UK. Therefore you are entitled as a British Citizen to a state pension. Where you worked, and how much tax you paid is irrelevant. My sister and BIL worked all over the world for a British company for 35 years, relocating every two years or so. Some nice places and others pretty shit. Where, apart from the UK where the profits of their work were banked, would you expect to pay their pensions?

But you choose to live there. And if it's your area, you probably earned an income that allowed you to do so.

No government has that level of intelligence or foresight.

What pot of gold. Here we fucking go again. £965 every hfour weeks to pay everything. Luckily my dh is still alive so we have his pension which is less than mine. Whoever is left alone will really struggle and hopefully will be able to get pension credit.

I’m going to do the decent thing and stop taking anything that prolongs life once I get to 75. So, no antibiotics, antihypertensives for example. I don’t want to live with infirmity or dementia and the country can’t afford it anyway.

Same, “Get out while the going is good!!!”

As if

You can live too long!!!

My thoughts too.
Refusing antibiotics, even for something simple like an infected cut, could lead to sepsis and a horrible death.
My grandad refused dialysis, as he saw it pointless and too inconvenient for him. But he would not have turned down simple medication for infections, blood pressure etc.

People worry about unemployed people being "takers".

The real "takers" are billionares / trillionaires.

NI is a social contribution. Social contributions are for the good of society at large, not for oneself.

I am 43 next month, I very much doubt I will see the state pension. People need to plan accordingly.

Is yet another one way “greater good” thing isn’t it though? Like pp upthread has said at some point tax payers will get fed up with paying out to fund benefits, then continue to pay out to fund pensions of those who have never contributed but are still being funded by the state, and they are they only ones getting any “pension”