Yet they are already talking about increasing the retirement age again. Im not even 35 and its gone up 2/3 times since I have left education. At this rate i either expect the state pension to disappear completely before i can claim it or to be working until i am 85. Neither one of these options sounds fantastic.
Meanwhile, the boomers state pension is triple locked and their DB schemes gold plated.
Face it, we’re not going to be allowed to retire, they do not want us to have pensions.
The age keeps going up so taking more money from younger people that they’ll never get because they’ll be dead by then is not a good idea. Unless you’re the government of course
I really like this suggestion:
> Employers making pension contributions from the first pound earned by an employee, with the worker starting to contribute when they earn enough to pay National Insurance
That seems like a really good way to give a small boost to everyone that disproportionally benefits lower earners.
It also means that very young workers and the lowest earners get some contributions even before the NI threshold and don’t face the “cliff edge” where they see a cut in their take home pay when they pass the threshold!
Increasing the retirement age is just moving the issue from one budget – state pension – to another – Universal Credit benefit and / or in work benefits
As with the high instance of ageism and health problems, most people will be consigned to low paid work, at best.
Then there’s the coming tsunami of the housing benefit bill, given the massive increase in people who are trapped in the rental sector.
Tl;dr ageism and the housing market mean if you <55 you are fucked.
Why should we pay NI if we’re not going to get a state pension?
My workplace pension sucks. Aviva lost the employer and government contributions and started eating into my contribution. Would have been better off with the money under a matress pension plan.
Why do the bbc keep framing this as a ‘cost of living’ crisis when it is clearly a greed crisis.
Look up the ‘healthy life expectancy’ and realise most people in poor areas will never get a pension before they need it
Good suggestions in that policy change, I’d also add that employers have to pay in their 3% even if the employee opts out.
My private and public pensions were worth almost nothing before the government destroyed them. Now they are worth literally nothing.
Might as well have set fire to it or blown it on coke and hookers.
The problem is that the welfare state (pensions, benefits and the NHS) is a genuine example of a state run Ponzi scheme.
You do not have a personal account, pot or insurance policy. You essentially pay a menbership fee linked to your income, and do not have a limit on your consumption.
That’s what a Ponzi scheme is – money is passed up the chain, and you hope that people are recruited after you to replace your income once you stop contributing and start withdrawing.
​
Looking after people is a good thing. But the problem is there’s been no attempt to match input to output.
We have many, many more people drawing down on the welfare state than we initially did. And we’re seeing the sad reality that there aren’t enough workers to support the same level of care that our retirees enjoyed in the latter half of the 20th century.
We’ve been taking on debt every year for decades to fund our expenses, and the interest is now our biggest expense after the welfare state itself. We’re at the point where living off debt is becoming unsustainable.
​
So I do not know what the answer is. Personally, I have a rather large private pension as I expect the state pension age to be pushed back or abolished altogether.
But I’m 99% that the welfare state in the UK simply cannot continue as it is now. In fact, I think we’re going to see a very radical shrinking of the welfare state over the next decade or two.
I’m an academic, I’m on a USS defined benefit pension scheme.
I am contributing 12% of my salary and my employer contributes something silly in the region of 20% on top of that.
Yet using the USS calculator I am expected to work until I am 70 for a pension that in today’s money is quite a bit less than what I’d earn doing a minimum wage job.
The fuck is going on? I look at it every now and again and I just feel despair honestly.
It’s tough to admit but we are living far longer than pensions were designed for. Life expectancy going up is great but pensions were not designed with people living 30 years after retiring, only five to ten years at best in most cases. We need a massive reform in how pensions work to meet modern life expectancy and that means things like scrapping the triple lock and making it easier for young people to start saving and saving hard from the moment they enter the workforce.
15 comments
Yet they are already talking about increasing the retirement age again. Im not even 35 and its gone up 2/3 times since I have left education. At this rate i either expect the state pension to disappear completely before i can claim it or to be working until i am 85. Neither one of these options sounds fantastic.
Meanwhile, the boomers state pension is triple locked and their DB schemes gold plated.
Face it, we’re not going to be allowed to retire, they do not want us to have pensions.
The age keeps going up so taking more money from younger people that they’ll never get because they’ll be dead by then is not a good idea. Unless you’re the government of course
I really like this suggestion:
> Employers making pension contributions from the first pound earned by an employee, with the worker starting to contribute when they earn enough to pay National Insurance
That seems like a really good way to give a small boost to everyone that disproportionally benefits lower earners.
It also means that very young workers and the lowest earners get some contributions even before the NI threshold and don’t face the “cliff edge” where they see a cut in their take home pay when they pass the threshold!
Increasing the retirement age is just moving the issue from one budget – state pension – to another – Universal Credit benefit and / or in work benefits
As with the high instance of ageism and health problems, most people will be consigned to low paid work, at best.
Then there’s the coming tsunami of the housing benefit bill, given the massive increase in people who are trapped in the rental sector.
Tl;dr ageism and the housing market mean if you <55 you are fucked.
Why should we pay NI if we’re not going to get a state pension?
My workplace pension sucks. Aviva lost the employer and government contributions and started eating into my contribution. Would have been better off with the money under a matress pension plan.
Why do the bbc keep framing this as a ‘cost of living’ crisis when it is clearly a greed crisis.
Look up the ‘healthy life expectancy’ and realise most people in poor areas will never get a pension before they need it
Good suggestions in that policy change, I’d also add that employers have to pay in their 3% even if the employee opts out.
My private and public pensions were worth almost nothing before the government destroyed them. Now they are worth literally nothing.
Might as well have set fire to it or blown it on coke and hookers.
The problem is that the welfare state (pensions, benefits and the NHS) is a genuine example of a state run Ponzi scheme.
You do not have a personal account, pot or insurance policy. You essentially pay a menbership fee linked to your income, and do not have a limit on your consumption.
That’s what a Ponzi scheme is – money is passed up the chain, and you hope that people are recruited after you to replace your income once you stop contributing and start withdrawing.
​
Looking after people is a good thing. But the problem is there’s been no attempt to match input to output.
We have many, many more people drawing down on the welfare state than we initially did. And we’re seeing the sad reality that there aren’t enough workers to support the same level of care that our retirees enjoyed in the latter half of the 20th century.
We’ve been taking on debt every year for decades to fund our expenses, and the interest is now our biggest expense after the welfare state itself. We’re at the point where living off debt is becoming unsustainable.
​
So I do not know what the answer is. Personally, I have a rather large private pension as I expect the state pension age to be pushed back or abolished altogether.
But I’m 99% that the welfare state in the UK simply cannot continue as it is now. In fact, I think we’re going to see a very radical shrinking of the welfare state over the next decade or two.
I’m an academic, I’m on a USS defined benefit pension scheme.
I am contributing 12% of my salary and my employer contributes something silly in the region of 20% on top of that.
Yet using the USS calculator I am expected to work until I am 70 for a pension that in today’s money is quite a bit less than what I’d earn doing a minimum wage job.
The fuck is going on? I look at it every now and again and I just feel despair honestly.
It’s tough to admit but we are living far longer than pensions were designed for. Life expectancy going up is great but pensions were not designed with people living 30 years after retiring, only five to ten years at best in most cases. We need a massive reform in how pensions work to meet modern life expectancy and that means things like scrapping the triple lock and making it easier for young people to start saving and saving hard from the moment they enter the workforce.