State pension

[blondeboobshell]

There’s concerns the state pension won’t be an option in years to come or will be means tested. Iyo what age group need to start not counting on getting the state pension, people in there 50’s? 40’s? 30’s? Or younger?

Who's going to provide for all the scroungers who have never worked?

One of my aunts was saying it when I was a child in the 1960s yet here I am 60 odd years later collecting mine. It’s scaremongering nonsense. No political party who suggested it would ever get elected.

@SurferRonawhen does it balance out demographic wise & how?

I’m on my forties and concerned. I didn’t think about a pension in my twenties started paying in in my thirties in a local government pension but also had three pregnancies and several years of part time working. Hit my forties and realised dh pays more into his pension than I earn in a month and suddenly realised I was quite vulnerable. Now I pay 75% of my earnings in to an arc so I’m hoping on the next twenty years I can build an ok pot. But the state pension would obviously help massively

Over decades, demographic changes do not continue with the older /younger numbers imbalance. It balances back. Changes to state and private pensions are therefore decisions which need to be taken across decades, not what is happening now or even over the next ten years.

As always, it will be those who work and contribute.

It will never change.

He’s got £152k in those 20 years. He’s getting the old state pension which is currently £9614.80 pa. It was £4381 when he started claiming it. So it’s nowhere near a quarter of a million.

I love it when people say everyone should make provisions for their future. There’s people out there on minimum wage who are paying the same for childcare, utilities etc as someone on £100k. How do they pay into a private pension, do they freeze or starve? Not everyone can afford the luxury of paying extra into a pension until the cost of living comes down.

Where did you see this?

They’ll be fine. They will get pension credit. Those who actually worked won’t get anything.

I'm in my late thirties, DH is mid-thirties, and we are planning for little to no state pension.

When does it balance back because looking at the ONS data I’ve made it to 2095 and there’s still a huge number of elderly people versus children and young people.

It is always, without exception, unethical to rely on government largesse. So all age groups.

I'm early 50s. We were told to pay into a private pension when I left school and then college as we couldn't rely on a state pension.

I'm surprised you didn't get same advice being younger than me.

My DC have just stated work and are paying into an employer pension now at 16.

Cost of living

but specifically house prices - buy and hence rent - have risen way faster than anything else over the last 50 years. Which is why pensioners are locked in with vast wealth ( homes) and no money to maintain it or sell it or heat it

people are paying money to the bank ( via their mortgage or the landlords mortgage ) and paying money to private landlords wealth funds. It’s money for nothing for those

Key costs like childcare and care homes would be substantially lower if the buildings were significantly cheaper - and you wouldn’t want to reduce those costs by reducing worker numbers or salaries? Reducing taxes won’t give you anything like as much savings but will continue the shift of money from the public purse ( ours to spend on our people and our schools and hospitals and infrastructure ) to the banks and landlords and wealth funds

Property may be a larger cost than wages for many nurserys - the banks getting rich at our children’s expense - is that right? And it’s certainly way more than the taxes on workers that the government gets

for cost of living generally to fall you are looking at food - and farmers and shop workers need fair wages, and clothing ( ditto) and pubs ( ditto). Ie you shouldn’t want COL to fall by falling wages and falling levels of employment

the other bit i would tackle is fuel - where again significant profits are currently being made. The move the country has made towards renewables has been too slow to protect us well. And currently the richer people see more benefit with EVs and solar panels . The shift to virtually free green energy it has been resisted by the money of the oil companies in various guises - “oh that’s not important, climate change is a hoax, we want to invest to make things better and safer for you so we need all those profits “

Do more hours, LG pensions are heads and shoulders the best, better than standard CS ones. Prioritise this. Even if that means DH dropping some for childcare so you can do more. Not sure what an ARC is, but if you have any disposable income at the family level, paying more into the LG pension to make up lost years and P/T work will benefit you long term.

Apparently AI is killing is all off in under 10 years anyway. And even if it doesn’t there won’t be any jobs (again apparently due to AI) so no one will be able to save for a private pension anyway. Oh or maybe climate change will have made most of the world uninhabitable so food will be scarce and in this post apocalyptic world I don’t think anyone needs to worry much about whether they have enough funds in the bank if there’s no food or housing.

Life expectancy in the UK hasn't really had any noticeable change in the last 10-15 years (covid asides). Health going into old age is a different matter though.

Which is why pensioners are locked in with vast wealth ( homes) and no money to maintain it or sell it or heat it

What is preventing pensioners selling their houses? They may not want to pay stamp duty on something they downsize to but they aren’t unable to sell their houses.

The move the country has made towards renewables has been too slow to protect us well. And currently the richer people see more benefit with EVs and solar panels . The shift to virtually free green energy it has been resisted by the money of the oil companies in various guises - “oh that’s not important, climate change is a hoax, we want to invest to make things better and safer for you so we need all those profits

To encourage investment in green technology the government has had to commit to above market rate pricing for wind etc. Green technology is not going to reduce bills for a long time.

This would solve the pension problem true. Swings and roundabouts.

Im in my 40’s and not hopeful….

The issue with means-testing is it removes the incentive to pay into a private pension. Of course, there are the fairly affluent who will do so regardless and the hard-up who wouldnt anyway. But, in the middle, there is the larger group of households who could prioritise pension investment - but could equally well use the money for other things. It would seem really tough to essentially penalise those who made sacrifices to build up a personal pension by denying them a state pension. Meanwhile other households, who had similar income levels during their working years but just saved less, would get rewarded.

But I think that is the way it’s going to go. Always best to prepare for the worst and hope for a nice surprise!

The wealthiest tend also to be the healthiest and have to longest life expectancy. I wish there was a way that people with physically demanding jobs could be transitioned to roles that are less so as they age or get less fit no idea how that would be done, especially in the age of AI gobbling up jobs that don’t need a physical presence.