State Pension

gman said:
Reminds me of a quandary that some Catholic people may have. If your son becomes a Priest, do you call him son, or father? :D
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And if he becomes a monk, do you call him son or brother?
And would the daughter who became a nun be daughter or sister?
 
munch said:
And if he becomes a monk, do you call him son or brother?
And would the daughter who became a nun be daughter or sister?
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I think the joke is done lol
 
I had my yearly review at work today with my team leader.
I am 60 this year and apparently our manager just thinks I am cruising to retirement now.
Only one thing I could say to that.

Yes I am
 
Whereas my boss wants me to go permanent (at 68) after being a contractor for 37 years!
 
I shudder to think what the state retirement age will be by the time I reach 70, if it still even exists. Whilst I appreciate that the SP is a benefit, I do wonder if I'd prefer the relevant portion of my contributing tax (so to speak) to be offset into a workplace pension scheme instead.

Obviously those who never work or haven't contributed enough would still need to have a SP available, or maybe just continue it as a welfare benefit instead.
 
If the personal allowance doesn’t change over the next few years then the state pension will effectively shrink!

I’m not mathematician but if you factor inflation then in real terms the SP could be worth about £8000 a year!
 
lindsay said:
Whereas my boss wants me to go permanent (at 68) after being a contractor for 37 years!
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I had a similar offer at my last contract, before I, to quote the guy making the offer, "turned into a lazy git living on my pension and bored out of my skull".

More than ten years later, he's still wrong about the boredom... ;)
 
Norkie said:
If the personal allowance doesn’t change over the next few years then the state pension will effectively shrink!

I’m not mathematician but if you factor inflation then in real terms the SP could be worth about £8000 a year!
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Yep, fiscal drag and just like the lack of movement in the tax bands. I wish the legacy media and opposition made far more noise about this as it is effectively a tax increase (despite the promises not to raise taxes).
 
gman said:
...as it is effectively a tax increase (despite the promises not to raise taxes).
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I don't see it as any form of tax increase. All that happens is that you'll get some more money every four weeks and a small proportion of the extra money will be deducted as tax, I can't help but wonder why anyone sees this as a problem.
 
AndrewFlannigan said:
I don't see it as any form of tax increase. All that happens is that you'll get some more money every four weeks and a small proportion of the extra money will be deducted as tax, I can't help but wonder why anyone sees this as a problem.
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lol that's not how it works.
 
gman said:
lol that's not how it works.
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Please explain. I';ve always figured that if you get say £1000 a month, with a tax allowance of say £12k, then an increase to £1050/month means that you will pay income tax on the extra £600/year, ie you lose £120 of the £600. So you are still better off. If inflation takes another 2.5% of the total income (£300) then you are still better off, albeit only by £180/year. However the cumulative effect of frozen allowances and inflation could, I suppose wipe out pension increases in theory, but the triple lock should prevent that. Have I misunderstood or omitted something?
 
lindsay said:
Please explain. I';ve always figured that if you get say £1000 a month, with a tax allowance of say £12k, then an increase to £1050/month means that you will pay income tax on the extra £600/year, ie you lose £120 of the £600. So you are still better off. If inflation takes another 2.5% of the total income (£300) then you are still better off, albeit only by £180/year. However the cumulative effect of frozen allowances and inflation could, I suppose wipe out pension increases in theory, but the triple lock should prevent that. Have I misunderstood or omitted something?
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It's still fiscal drag. Yes going up to match inflation shouldn't make you any better or worse off, but there's also cost of living, which is related but not the same as inflation. I also mentioned the other tax brackets that could affect many who may have additional sources of income.

Edit: also the pa affects more than just people on sp and whist I appreciate that's not the specific topic here I do like to think of the greater group.
 
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gman said:
It's still fiscal drag. Yes going up to match inflation shouldn't make you any better or worse off, but there's also cost of living, which is related but not the same as inflation. I also mentioned the other tax brackets that could affect many who may have additional sources of income.

Edit: also the pa affects more than just people on sp and whist I appreciate that's not the specific topic here I do like to think of the greater group.
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Lindsay, is correct.

The proposal is not to increase the tax rate but is to increase the national pension in line with the rules already in existence.
 
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AndrewFlannigan said:
Lindsay, is correct.

The proposal is not to increase the tax rate but is to increase the national pension in line with the rules already in existence.
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You are implying that I said he was incorrect, which I didn't; just that there is more to consider.


Edited for the pedantic among us
 
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gman said:
You are inferring that I said he was incorrect, which I didn't; just that there is more to consider.
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I inferred nothing of the kind, only pointing out that Lindsay had (correctly) disagreed with your claim that..
gman said:
...it is effectively a tax increase (despite the promises not to raise taxes).
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I don't think it is useful to shift the goal posts around while the ball is in play.
 
AndrewFlannigan said:
I inferred nothing of the kind, only pointing out that Lindsay had (correctly) disagreed with your claim that..

I don't think it is useful to shift the goal posts around while the ball is in play.
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That's exactly what you were implying, otherwise your comment would not be necessary along with quoting my post and ignoring what was in it.
 
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Mr Bump said:
I'm about a year in to retirement now and I have to say Boredom no chance absolutely loving it :)
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I retired July 2022 and since then I've never been bored.....

Still got 4.5 years to go before I get my State pension.....
 
TheFiend said:
I retired July 2022 and since then I've never been bored.....

Still got 4.5 years to go before I get my State pension.....
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haha good for you i exited at 54 so i have a long wat to SP
 
Myself and the missus are constantly doing the sums to see when we can slow down.
We could probably just do it without working from 60 later this year, using cash from some of the pensions we have and saving the rest until we get the state one at 67.
We have both asked our works if we can go down to 3 days a week, financially this is the best option as it will give us another few years to leave the pension pots alone and we come out of work a bit slower.
Fingers crossed they say yes, although part of me hopes the say no, so I just try and get a part time job somewhere else.
 
leaky5 said:
Myself and the missus are constantly doing the sums to see when we can slow down.
We could probably just do it without working from 60 later this year, using cash from some of the pensions we have and saving the rest until we get the state one at 67.
We have both asked our works if we can go down to 3 days a week, financially this is the best option as it will give us another few years to leave the pension pots alone and we come out of work a bit slower.
Fingers crossed they say yes, although part of me hopes the say no, so I just try and get a part time job somewhere else.
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You should both check on line how many years of NI contributions you need to make to qualify for the State Pension

FWIW I had to contribute for 47 years to qualify!
 
I see Denmark is increasing their state retirement, apparently to the highest in Europe. I'm quite sure we won't be far behind.
 
gman said:
I see Denmark is increasing their state retirement, apparently to the highest in Europe. I'm quite sure we won't be far behind.
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I saw mention of that too.
 
gman said:
I see Denmark is increasing their state retirement, apparently to the highest in Europe. I'm quite sure we won't be far behind.
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Can you imagine being a bricklayer and working until you are 70! The physical demands will be enormous. Any physical work at 70 years of age will be very demanding.
 
Norkie said:
Can you imagine being a bricklayer and working until you are 70! The physical demands will be enormous. Any physical work at 70 years of age will be very demanding.
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This is something that a lot of people and maybe even most don't take into consideration. I had a chat with a young guy who wanted to go into a profession which is physically very hard, my question to him was "How long do you think you can do that?" and he did surprisingly have an answer, but no plan. My advice was to have a plan for what he was going to do when he reached the point at which he'd suffered an injury or it just became physically too challenging for him.
 
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I think elsewhere in this thread it has been said that in the future, and most likely the near future, there will not be a state pension. Or if there is it will have been frozen years ago.
What is £10k going to be win ten years time?
If I was young again I would buy two houses. That’s my pension fund.
 
The west is in trouble and trying to sustain a lifestyle which is in some countries including the UK and with the current policies in place simply unsustainable. We'll see the results of this in the coming years and as the effects become ever more visible and unpopular we may finally see real political change.
 
Norkie said:
Can you imagine being a bricklayer and working until you are 70! The physical demands will be enormous. Any physical work at 70 years of age will be very demanding.
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While this is true, there are people who carry on these demanding occupations even past 70.

However, the important thing is that everyone should have the opportunity to cease work at a reasonable age and receive a generous helping of retirement pay, if they have kept their side of the social bargain.
 
It certainly works in their favour by being classified as a social security benefit, rather than a defined contribution. For those who have worked and paid into the system, the latter would be a more suitable term.

It would be a interesting concept to allow people to take their state pension at the NMPA but at a lesser value to compensate accordingly. It would certainly help those in more physical type jobs or poorer health retire earlier and perhaps supplement a part-time job. I believe the police can retire a little earlier because of the physical nature of their job, so it's clearly a recognised hypothesis.
 
During the pandemic I think we came to reassess who the essential workers were. I'd therefore like to see essential workers receive a sooner and higher pension than non essential workers. For eg. Up for delivery drivers and food production and factory workers, down for diversity and inclusion professionals and Islington lawyers.
 
woof woof said:
During the pandemic I think we came to reassess who the essential workers were. I'd therefore like to see essential workers receive a sooner and higher pension than non essential workers. For eg. Up for delivery drivers and food production and factory workers, down for diversity and inclusion professionals and Islington lawyers.
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The difficulty with your proposal is other than for specific areas e.g. healthcare there would greatly difficulties in determining a cut off for defining essential/non essential.
Taking your example delivery drivers; how about the mechanic that keeps the vehicle on the road, essential or non essential ? Additionally how about IT staff ? We've recently seen the impact computer issues have with retailers, essential or non essential?
Another issue is how many years would you have to work in that role to qualify?
The world of work has changed so much with it becoming more unusual for people to remain in one role for their entire career.
 
I had my tongue sort of in my cheek but as a general point I do think that our society needs to think about what jobs are more important than others and how society should reward people. I was serious about countries living beyond their means and the need for change.
 
taxboy said:
The world of work has changed so much with it becoming more unusual for people to remain in one role for their entire career.
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In any case, the idea that one job is more important than another is questionable.

Of course, out will come the "so you think a bus driver is more important than a surgeon" arguments. Leaving aside the morality of such an opinion: if the surgeon needs to catch a bus to work, then the bus driver is just as important as the surgeon. At one remove, suppose the chap who services the power lines to the hospital can only get to work on a bus: if the bus is late and the power to the hospital fails, then the patients are put at risk.

Our society is a complex web and only so many connections can fail before the web falls apart. That being the case, we really need to abandon this idea that there are "important" people and "unimportant" people.
 
I recall that at the start of the first Covid lockdown, certain people were defined as key workers and this allowed to travel. Carers, Doctors etc - no arguments. Then it started with delivery drivers etc. I was defined as a key worker along with all my colleagues at (at the time) Fujitsu, simply because we were working on the dev and test of a new system to replace the police fingerprint/facial image identification system. I was happy enough to go along with it, but I felt an utter fraud because there was no way were essential to public health and safety. So I tend to agree with Andrew, that one persons important job is another persons not so essential job. It depends on where in the food chain you are and imho delivery drivers eg Amazon/Evri/etc are only important if you think consumerism is important. Delivery drivers to Tesco etc definitely are more important.
 
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