£610 a week pension demand is insane

[Thisismyfinesthour]

Just read that there is an online petition doing the rounds for a £610 a WEEK pension demand to the government.
WTAF? Is the heat melting some peoples brains? It seems over 5000 have signed it.
Where do they think the money is coming from?

Neither parent working?

Only if you’re excluding the housing element of UC which is usually around an extra £250/week in average UK cost of living areas.

There is no housing element in the state pension…

Agree.

More people die every winter from cold homes than in these heat waves. And it’s usually pensioners because as we age, we are less able to regulate our body temperature. It’s over 5,000 a year are killed due to fuel poverty or fear to turn on the heat despite being able to afford it.

https://www.endfuelpoverty.org.uk/about-fuel-poverty/excess-winter-deaths-and-fuel-poverty/

These deaths are entirely preventable, but no one cares in the government because the sooner they get pensioners off benefits and into the grave, the better it is for the budget. The same attitude is prevalent in the government regarding disabled people unable to work.

£221.40 actually, with the potential to work.

Cat food for the cat, cheap sausages for them! But I absolutely agree.
I do understand in a way, because women of my mother’s age (90) were given ‘housekeeping’ money and just had to make do with the amount given. They’re now just making do, not seeing the alternative.

I’m not sure if anyone else has already spelled it out because it’s so bloody obvious but you know European pensions work totally differently to UK pensions don’t you?

In virtually every EU country all pensions savings go to the state (employer and employee) and the state pays it back on retirement as a ‘state’ oension. In the UK we have a state pension AND A SEPARATE OCCUPATIONAL PENSION SYSTEM!!! So when you look and think x,y,z country gets twice when we get, you have to compare your state AND workplace pension to their ‘state’ pension, and when you do the UK provision is bang in the middle of average in Europe.

You aren’t getting short changed at all! If you’re skint as a pensioner you should have put more by when you were working. It’s THAT simple. If you didn’t put enough by you’ll have to rely on family, friends and charities.

You aren’t getting short changed at all! If you’re skint as a pensioner you should have put more by when you were working

Thats great for people who started work only 14yrs ago, but for the middle aged there was no mandated occupational pension. Most workers had no access to one to put money by, especially if you were a married woman.

I don’t agree there.
It was the same before company pensions were made compulsory.
As far as I’m concerned,mthe push fur company and private pensions happened because the state pension is extremely poor. Theyre there to compensate fur how little the government is puttimg in compare to other countries. Not because that’s how our system was devised.

That’s odd, because my husband has been paying into a private pension for the past 29 years as he saw the need to save, an employer pension not being available, unlike for me, a civil servant.
Thus underlines what makes me feel savage hearing the pensioner bashing - when we had small kids paying towards the pension was bloody hard. But we did by going without other things. We later started two other schemes as well as building up a savings nest egg. Am I meant to apologise for doing that?

This debate is focused on dividing people and the way some describe "pensioners" or " young people" is really disappointing. It isn't a hard life for everyone some people are very well off, young or old. Some families newborn children are wealthier than me, my parents, our whole family combined life time income. Some are wealthy through no personal merit. Till we alter these unfairnesses debates about the differences between £195 and £241 a week are a diversion and a distraction, designed to be a distraction! I want to see my parents enjoy their last few years and have a few holidays and meals out. I want to see my kids have subsidised childcare and child benefit and a fair wage. It is also worth remembering that being poor in the UK is not the same as being poor in some parts of the world as this does give perspective to our hardships.

Personal pensions came in during the mid 80s. Literally anyone could set up their own personal pension plan. People didn't need to wait until workplace pensions became compulsory 14 years ago!

Me and my sister set up personal pension plans in the late 80s and continued paying relatively modest amounts (starting at £20 per month, indexed yearly), and now both have healthy pension funds in our early 60s, having massively benefitted from the compound effects of investment gains/returns over 30+ years.

What’s odd? I said there was no mandated occupational pensions and you have just corroborated it by saying an employer pension was not available for your husband unlike you as a civil servant. Well we all know civil servants have it good.

But the average worker, including your husband, would not have had an employer pension to access, there was law mandating it or matching contributions until 2012.

So only higher earners could afford to set up private pensions.

You are not meant to apologise for doing it, but to have a bit of empathy to understand most couples did not have one being a civil servant with a gold plated pension that’s as rare as hens teeth, and the other a high enough earner to open a private pension that also didn’t end up going bust due to Gordon Brown’s pension raid which left many with all their pension savings gone.

An acknowledgement that you a) didn’t have to save as much as one of you is a civil servant and b) some measure of luck paid into the fact your husband earned enough to be able to save into a private pension and that private pension company has weathered successive governments and economic crises.

@Badbadbunny Well done…

You realise that the reason why people didn’t was because a lot did not do that? Because when your on MW fr example, it’s still a lot of money?
That many people are/were self employed and there wasn’t something like SIP to get an equivalent?

I mean my MIL doesn’t get a full state pension because an accountant ADVISED her to not pay and (she earning below the threshold) for example
You have a lot of women in the 80s who were SAHM for long periods so no private pension etc etc

Thats wo talking about those who lost everything because there was no protection on company pensions…..

Of course they didn’t need to wait, but not everyone had the funds to start saving, and even some who did lost it all as not all pension fund brokers stayed solvent. Loads of people lost more money in their pension funds than they put in and some lost all their savings if the company went bankrupt. In this report, 96 pension funds went insolvent, the rescue schemes by the government often only repaid savers 2p for every £ they had saved,

https://www.personneltoday.com/hr/gmb-union-calls-on-gordon-brown-to-force-private-equity-firms-to-stump-up-cash-for-failed-pension-schemes/

Yes, my mum was advised to take the married women’s NI stamp so all the years she worked, she never got full NICs towards her own state pension. There were also many workers who were in jobs where the employer had gotten an exception from paying full NICs - SERPS- this affected many workers ability to qualify for state pension, the years under SERPS don’t count towards the full state pension. Thankfully it was outlawed in 2016.

@NullaEffugium

So only higher earners could afford to set up private pensions.

Utter crap. Me and my sister set up private pensions in the late 80s and we were on very low wages, just paid the minimum allowed of £20 per month. You don't need to be a high earner to pay a minimal monthly amount. Then let compound growth do it's thing along with indexing the monthly amount each year in line with inflation. Neither sister nor myself have ever been high earners, never been higher rate taxpayers, never even hit "average" earnings, but we've both got decent pension pots now we're in our early 60s, just by 30+ years of regular low monthly payments and compound investment growth.

SERPS gave you a higher earnings related state pension, or you could "opt out" and then some of your NIC went into your own personal pension instead, which again, gave you a separate earnings related private pension. Those who opted out now have a private pension. Those who stayed in SERPS but who took their state pension a few years ago, got an enhanced state pension.

Many pensioners have paid off mortgages. So irrelevant.

So if the pensioner is renting they can get housing benefits.

Over £200 a week after rent.or if mortgage free isn't bad at all for one person.

Ok but still less than the state pension which is for ONE person not 2

Only if single or both in a couple are over state pension age.

I would expect more people to have more money/assets at the end of their working life than the beginning. Been like that for years and will continue to be or what would be the point of working all those years. They wouldn't be rich though. Most would just be comfortable and the money will dwindle in a lot of cases.

Undoubtedly a bit more would be nice but £610 a week is ridiculous! Quite right, where would the money come from? Complete madness.

If you’re in a couple then you wouldn’t only have the £200 per week, would you? You’d also have the other partner’s earnings or pension.

Surely you must realise that there are lots of households that do not have £200 per person left after paying their rent or mortgage.

Remember as well that some older people may have been widowed and got a life insurance pay out, which they have probably paid a good premium on for most of their working lives, even paying when times were tough.

Gold plated pension!!??? The majority of the civil service is made up of worker bees earning slightly less than a commercial paid wage due to cabinet office pension contributions. When I left two years ago I was being paid around £34500 in exchange for a considerable amount of responsibility. Hardly gold plated, any part of it.
I must say your tone is rather unpleasant in your very obvious hatred for civil servants. It’s an unavoidable fact that someone has to do the nations business.