To think pensions need huge reform?

[aburrsir]

With all of the recent chat over changing politicians and big ideas that don’t go anywhere, I can’t be the only one who thinks that someone needs to bite the bullet with pensions?

It’s something ridiculous like 50% of the welfare budget annually, and this is never going to go away.

IMO the government need to hike up retirement age and scrap the triple lock. There can be provisions made to go along with this to phase this in for those in genuine need (e.g. for the next 10 years those with no private pensions can get a top up to cover the transition period).

I’d rather know “look you can’t retire until 75” now than this constant “it’s 67…. now wait it’s 68…..” that never ends.

It seems that all governments are scared to do such a big change as it will piss off older people (who are the primary voting demographic) but something needs to change as this is just completely unsustainable long term.

We’re better off making these changes to ensure the state pension can continue sustainably in the long term future rather than having this attitude of “as long as I’m alright I don’t care”

We need a gov with long term planning goals and not just short term firefighting. AIBU?

Prior to the baby boomers reaching retirement, pensioners were the group most associated with poverty. But between 1995 and 2010 pensioner incomes doubled in real terms and since then, they have stabilised at that new higher level.
That's partly because of the state pension, which now pays out vastly more than it did in previous generations, when measured as a proportion of median earnings.
Some of today's pensioners still receive money from the State Earnings Related Pension Scheme, a very generous programme that accepted new entrants from 1978 until 2002. It was scrapped as it was deemed unaffordable. Then of course, most receive a basic state pension - which has been bolstered since the early 2010s by the triple lock (a policy that cost far more than ever imagined).
But the other, and perhaps greatest piece of luck was that my generation worked in an era in which employers - public and private - offered membership of defined benefit pension schemes. That meant that through one's career, we earned entitlements to a decent pension set at a fixed proportion of salary.

MMT is a political manifesto, it’s not a serious economic theory as it is completely impossible to implement and is based on outdated concepts.

I don't think you come from the background I do though, leaving aside the aunties and uncles who have never had a job...lazy fuckers, many people I know who are my parents generation (80s) and slightly younger are struggling:
There were no private pension readily available for the working class, especially the manual workers and unskilled, in the 50s & 60s when they started work.

There were fewer jobs for women and many were very badly paid

The welfare state was new with promises of cradle to grave help so people didn't think they had to worry about a pension

So whilst the middle classes who worked for only a couple of companies, with their final salary pensions, a lot of the people I know, including my generation,50s,moved from job to job, couldn't set up a private pension or found regular payments hard...they will struggle.

Personally I am fortunate in that I was always financially literate... remember there were no adds for financial products in the last century... when I started working a lot of financial advisors were ruthless snake oil salesman only interested in commission..I once was told not to pay the poll tax (a crime) and put the money in the pension I'd bought when I asked if I could defer a payment as I was between jobs having deliberately taken a couple of weeks off before getting another job..full employment has always existed in Bristol

@T0mbellerr do you understand how those European pension models work?

Absolutely and you it’s not rocket science to work out there’s less younger people paying in now to pay for the older generation’s pensions.

It starts getting smaller if one parent has an income of £60k. A family on an entire income of £60k doesn’t need it, let alone a family with one parent on £60k.

Another major issue is the lack of economic growth

Not if you take all benefits away.

So crime and pressure on the NHS skyrockets. Sounds peachy!

I feel the number of years you contribute, to get a full state pension, needs to go up, not the retirement age. Make a full pension available for those who have paid 45 years and then start tapering it down.
Abolish the system where people can buy back years for next to nothing.
Make everyone pay NI until retirement age. At the moment it discriminates older workers.
This would be fairer

Why should someone on 60k not be entitled to it? Look at how much tax that person pays and the impact of fiscal drag.

Regardless child benefit money won’t resolve the pension issue. Look at the birth rates!

@cityliving99they should scrap NI and have one tax, it’s ridiculous older workers don’t pay Ni

Benefits should be based on need not nice to have and if we’re looking at pensions, child benefit shouldn’t be immune.

Who said anything about the NHS ? That's another benefit we can easily dump.

I mean all it's doing is keeping old people alive.

Barely.

(For the purposes of MNHQ moderation, this post is "7" on the snark-o-scale)

More joined up thinking is required.

We have a situation already where older people are forced to work to survive, exhausted after 40 years of working, whilst young people who want to work can’t get a job. This problem will get worse as ai embeds in more roles.

@T0mbell so you want to means test pensions?

Yeah Americans are loving their life without an NHS not!

The have sensibly avoided communism. We need some of that here.

Sorry what? All workers pay NI.

This thread perfectly demonstrates why we have had such political turmoil over the last decade. Don’t take if off me but take it off them & I don’t want to pay more tax but they should.

@loveawineloveacrispnope

You are being unreasonable to give special treatment to those who have no private pension by way of top ups. We saved for retirement and have encouraged our children to do the same. We retired at 60 on private pensions and savings/investments and state pensions didn’t pay out until we were 66. Maybe we should look at pension credit/housing benefit which subsidise pensioners who didn’t save for retirement or buy a house. I am all for pension reform to make it affordable but there needs to be a discussion of fairness of subsidising some while those who have planned and saved get no help. Most of us who have other pension means end up paying as much tax in retirement as we did while working. We paid into the NI system with the understanding we got something back. Breaking that promise seems unfair and many doing stressful or manual jobs would find it exhausting still working up to 70 or beyond.

🤣Hi Donald

Just make state pension means tested like universal credit. Will solve a whole lot of issues.

I'd like to see Pip replaced by a more sensible benefit.