General Chat

I’ve just been reading that a think tank thinks the pension age should go up to 71 this would be going back to when pensions started in 1910 I think the government are hoping that the younger generation might pass away before they reach 71 :-( I was one of the lucky ones I only had to wait two months after my birthday for my pension

It is, in my opinion, another way of hitting the poor, the sick, the disabled, the carers etc.

Those who are on a good salary, in a non-manual job, with a company or private pension will still be able to retire at a younger age without feeling the pain too much financially.

Those who are on minimum wage, will feel it most. As will those who are too poorly to work up to age 71 but have no private pension, a lower income for many of those years due to being ill or those caring for someone who is.

Of course in an ideal world the carer/manual worker who has possibly ruined their own health would be able to re-train as something that required only mental capacity not physical, but I know that re-training on offer often amounts to no more than remedial maths or english or how to do fancy sugar icing ( those actual examples were offered to disabled people who couldn't manage previous manual/driving work etc due to disability and who didn't at that point at least pass muster to receive personal independence payment or similar).

And that is all I'd better say, but being 66 myself, and knowing many others younger and older who just couldn't go on working to 71, there has to be a better way.

Putting aside the health issue I suppose the government thinks everyone will be ok as they will all have been compulsorarily signed up to the work place pensions.

But still, a low paid worker won’t have a big workplace pension.

My wife has family in Austria. One of her cousins there retired at the normal retirement age of 55, having made his living working in a garage. When he retired his pension was greater than his wages, and he was given a free pass for Austrian tarins for him and wife, plus once a year they could travel to and fro anywhere else in Europe for free. I think the various governments the UK have had should all be taking a long hard look at themselves.

This country really is going to pot I don’t remember this bad before maybe I’m wrong,without going into to much I have hard times in my adult life but glad to say I’ve come out the other side but even in those dark days it was not as bad as today it’s like living back in the 1880s

Apparently the expectations to live a 'minimum requirement' life as a single pensioner one would have £14,400

There is a breakdown of the figures here. https://www.lboro.ac.uk/media-centre/press-releases/2024/february/latestretirementlivingstandardsshowchangeofukpublicexpectations/ Sorry it won't let me copy and paste.

Categories are:

House
food
transport
holiday & leisure
clothing and personal
helping others ( incl birthdays etc).

It may be so that "£100" a year is enough to maintain ones home, DIY ( at age 66 plus?) but what happens when DIY just isn't an option?

But don't you get free prescriptions, free bus travel, free medical, cash to help with heating, and other free things?

You should include that in the "benefits" you get in England.

Many of us in other don't get any those free necessities. I bet agingrocker's relation in Austria doesn't get so many freebies.

Here in Canada, we have the Old Age Pension and Canada Pension Plan. We have to pay into those while working, and employers have to also contribute. What you get at the end is barely a living wage, just under $2,000 a month for a single person. There are no guaranteed "freebies", unless you have absolutely no other income, when you may get help with prescriptions, a cheaper bus pass, etc.

Sylvia, yes to the question re free prescriptions, bus travel, a winter fuel allowance.,and yes that must be included, if one uses them, eg bus travel in some areas is just not feasible, bus pass or not.

The employer pension scheme has to be offered but it is not compulsory ( as yet) and I am not sure that given the rise in rents for example, many people on zero hours contracts would feel able to contribute 8% of wages towards it?

I don't know, because it is quite hard to work out the calculation online, what actual amount you would get in say 40 years if you started at 30 and finished at 70, or thereabouts. Too many variables with the interest rates?

I can say I will be below the minimum as it states in the article, but there again I don't spend on some of the things that are included in that summary, I don't spend anything like the given amount on clothes, no streaming or paid tv channels, no takeaways, but I do have 2 cats who eat well :-)

"You cut your coat according to your cloth" as my mum used to say. It's different for everyone, I think the problem is less the amounts mentioned than the economic inequality. But that's another topic. (For anyone who likes a graph or two https://equalitytrust.org.uk/scale-economic-inequality-uk)

Maybe I'm too cynical but my thoughts are the government want to take your money, not pay you.

If there is no money in the purse then pensions can’t be paid. It already happens in other countries.

Sylvia, the can. $ works out at around $2000 = £1177. British state pensions are nowhere near that. Any extra iincome from private pensions, (which not all older people have) will depend on the plan in place. If I was on my own I would have am monthly income of around £7-800.

My daughter worked for many years at P&O Dover and because of covid .like many, she worked from home which was extended even when covid restrictions were lifted

She was part off a technical team and was a team leader with a 40 plus team under her

Born 1958 she has been affected by the raise in retirement age to 66

So just before her 65th birthday she was made redundant and for the first time in her working life had to sign on

She only got six months unemployment benefit and had to show she was actively looking for employment.

She signed on in order to get her Nat insurance stamp credit,

But it finished in Jan

No one is interested in employing a 65 year old woman even with all her qualifications and computer knowledge because she will be 66 in sept

So now she wil be 8 months short on nats insurance contributions when her state pension is calculated

She did work when her children were small on a part time basis .plus her ex hubby was army so she was abroad for several years when he was deployed so wasn’t working
My granddaughter was born in Germany when they were there for 5 years

In the uk she has worked most of her life

The pension situation is different for everyone.

I was a single parent, and lived in a council house. i worked, but couldn't afford to pay into a private pension.

Then, they brought in an 'automatic' private pension, but you could refuse this, if you were willing/able to go through the hoops.
By now, I was in my 50's, and realised any private pension I could accrue before retirement wouldn't be worth anything.
I did temp work, and had to 'jump through the hoops' every time I took on a new job.
By now, my retirement age had risen to 66.

Now, as I'm a pensioner, I receive, I have to admit, a lot of Housing Benefit, and no longer pay Council Tax.
If I'd paid into a private pension, rather than spend my wages on basics for my children, this would have been taken away to pay rent etc. A 'lose, lose' situation.

I'm probably better off now, than when I was working.
The only bugbear I have, is that I'm paid a couple of pounds a week too much for pension credit, so have lost out by thousands of pounds in governent 'handouts'.

I can't understand why increases in pensions are paid as a percentage of your pension - thereby ensuring that those who received their pensions years ago get the least increase - rather than giving all pensioners the same amount, but 'handouts' are given in one amount, rather than as a percentage of your pension!

Shirley, your D can buy the extra NI stamps herself in order to complete the year. I did this many years ago when I worked part time. It was sacrificial at the time, and in the end the extra years weren't required as the number of full years requirement was reduced. But I got a full state pension at age 63.

And apparently other European folk pay higher taxes to get the better pensions/healthcare etc that we all seem envious of.

Thanks granny franny

It’s difficult for her to know how her state pension will be affected because of her moving around and being abroad
Even in Germany she worked in the naafi but this won’t have counted

She hasn’t had a pension forecast to know if any top ups would help

You used to be able to request a pension forecast, that's how I kept a check on where I was up to. Through the gov website I believe.

To check your forecast

https://www.gov.uk/check-state-pension

I have just checked my record and it says:
45 full years of contributions
1 year not enough
5 years to contribute before 5 Apr 2028

My max pension amount is £203.55( pw) and I cannot improve on that as that is the full pension amount.

But what I don't understand is that as I already have enough years to get a full state pension, its saying I have 5 years to contribute to before I retire?? I'm not working due to to my health so I get ESA contribution based. I like Maggie don't qualify for any of the government extras they gave out but it means I get my NI paid.

Florence in the hebrides

I don’t know about Florence’s situation but Shirley’s daughter MUST get her pension forecast.

She may be too late to pay any old missing contributions but she should really try and pay the recent missing bit.

If she was getting child allowance whilst based in Germany it may well count towards her NI years as it would here.

I paid for odd missing bits over a few years. A long time ago but I am sure I was written to each time and warned I hadn’t paid enough that year. Ranged from a few quid to a couple of hundred.

It used to be that you could back pay NI contributions for 7 years, beyond that they were lost.

Good news is that that has changed. Shirleys daugher has until 5 april 22025 to pay back any missing years back to 2006.

Read this Martin Lewis site - explaining it all:
https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/savings/voluntary-national-insurance-contributions/

Added. More good news
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/dwp-announces-extra-support-for-armed-forces-spouses-and-civil-partners-to-help-protect-their-state-pension