How much state pension do you think you will receive?

[the wanderbus]

As long as youve been registered as unemployed it makes no difference if you've never worked a day in your life you will have been credited with your NI contributions for every single week yove signed on.

 

[beorhthelm]

Yep, work til you drop is the current ethos. Retirement age going up to 66 then 67, so won't be long until it's 70. Not sure where all these jobs are going to be for septegenarians!

the same jobs a sexagenarian do? its not a mgic cut off you know, you dont hit 65 or 70 and suddenly in capable of doing anything. so you might not be able to be a firefighter (they retire earlier for this reason) or a builder, but then many in their 50's or 60's would struggle with physical jobs too. less so if they've been doing them all their lives.

 

[KLUNK]

I've been looking at mine this week. I'm 52 and planning to retire in 5 years with a reasonable lump sum and around £1600 a month pension. I've recently started putting AVCs (Additional Voluntary Contributions) in too, to boost it a bit. As far as I can tell, I qualify for a full state pension of £155 but because I contracted out my company pension will be reduced by £40 so effectively I only get the state minimum.

You can check what youll get here : https://www.gov.uk/check-state-pension

Just checked (thanks for link happypig), and in the unlikely event I make 67, I'll receive £155.65 per week as of May, 2035.
It does state it does not include any increase due to inflation. So, assuming I'm reading it correctly, in 19 years time that will be err...not a lot!!! [emoji53]

 

[KZNSeagull]

As a matter of interest, given the fact that we are all living longer how do you think any Government can finance the state scheme if we have a population that may be drawing a pension for 30 or more years? Please don't tell me you would get Google and Starbucks to pay their taxes...

It's a massive issue. The way my father explained it to me was that any pension scheme was originally designed to pay out for 5 years as people would, on average, be dead by the age of 70. I am not sure how true that is, but it is certainly not that way anymore. He drew a very healthy private pension for 25 years which would have cost his old company a fortune. And a state pension, of course.

 

[cjd]

It is a huge problem how long we are now forecast to live.

I,m due to get a pension in 12 months, but in all honesty, the pension age should have risen a long time ago.The original idea of a state pension was to help people live for a few years after stopping work......a sort of reward for all the tax etc they paid in. It was never envisaged that state pensions should go on for 30+ years.

 

[beorhthelm]

It's a massive issue. The way my father explained it to me was that any pension scheme was originally designed to pay out for 5 years as people would, on average, be dead by the age of 70.

as an average, its around that sort of number. life expectancy in 1940-50's was about 70, its 82 today. pensions is one of the biggest problems we face in the future, as they are simply unsustainable but everyone has contributed. successive governments have ignored the issue as too politicaly sensistive when it wouldnt impact people for a couple of decades. the changes now are merely minor adjustments and we face far harder reform down the line because hard decisions were not taken in the 80, 90, 00's.

 

[KZNSeagull]

as an average, its around that sort of number. life expectancy in 1940-50's was about 70, its 82 today. pensions is one of the biggest problems we face in the future, as they are simply unsustainable but everyone has contributed. successive governments have ignored the issue as too politicaly sensistive when it wouldnt impact people for a couple of decades. the changes now are merely minor adjustments and we face far harder reform down the line because hard decisions were not taken in the 80, 90, 00's.

Quite. Are there still loads of private pensions schemes with huge shortfalls in the UK do you know, or has that been sorted out now?

 

[LamieRobertson]

i am 43 and an ex employer did not pay my NI contributions for 8 months and i was offered to top it up but declined due to lack of money many years ago,i have also missed 2 years since 19 as unemployed so mine will not be much but i have a private fund on the go although i only started that in 2012....

Don't worry by the time you get to retire it will be 80 ...so plenty of time to make up those missed payments

 

[Shropshire Seagull]

Agree, pensions are a ticking bomb ....

My dad [now 89] mentioned a couple of years ago that he had now been retired for the same number of years he worked.
He was a university lecturer and paid in to a superannuation scheme - aka a very good occupational pension scheme, so was able to retire early at 57.
I asked him how much income you need to live on in retirement - of course this will vary against personal circumstances but he said £20k allows you to be comfortable, run a car, 2 nice holidays per year, etc.

Currently, £155 per week gives only £8k p/a - that sounds a bit breadline to me .... need something to top that up if we are to continue living in the style we have become accustomed.
Or if there some mandatory cloth re-cutting required?

 

[KLUNK]

Agree, pensions are a ticking bomb ....

My dad [now 89] mentioned a couple of years ago that he had now been retired for the same number of years he worked.
He was a university lecturer and paid in to a superannuation scheme - aka a very good occupational pension scheme, so was able to retire early at 57.
I asked him how much income you need to live on in retirement - of course this will vary against personal circumstances but he said £20k allows you to be comfortable, run a car, 2 nice holidays per year, etc.

Currently, £155 per week gives only £8k p/a - that sounds a bit breadline to me .... need something to top that up if we are to continue living in the style we have become accustomed.
Or if there some mandatory cloth re-cutting required?

It is skinny, agreed. But this is basing things in the present. £155 pw is now, so it's value decreases through time, if I'm understanding it correctly?

 

[darkwolf666]

the same jobs a sexagenarian do? its not a mgic cut off you know, you dont hit 65 or 70 and suddenly in capable of doing anything. so you might not be able to be a firefighter (they retire earlier for this reason) or a builder, but then many in their 50's or 60's would struggle with physical jobs too. less so if they've been doing them all their lives.

You are just proving my point then. Where are all these jobs coming from?

 

[beorhthelm]

...I asked him how much income you need to live on in retirement - of course this will vary against personal circumstances but he said £20k allows you to be comfortable, run a car, 2 nice holidays per year, etc.

people will need to learn to have one holiday a year while working to save the money to have one holiday a year when retired. we are very unlikely to reproduce the lifestyles of the 50's and 60's generation that really have never had it so good.

You are just proving my point then. Where are all these jobs coming from?

the ones they are already in or others already out there. most jobs these days are not very strenuous, the minority in physical jobs will have to retrain just as they already do when they become unable to do them. this isnt a problem that emerges by extending the retirement age by a few years - and it is just a few years.

 

[Nottseagull]

Nobody seems to have mentioned that the number of qualifying years for the full state pension was reduced from 40 to 30 several years ago; I still have my letter to prove. But later, they moved the goalposts back again and made it 35, which I don't quite have. Maybe they'll move it all the way back to 40 when I'm 62, meaning I can't make up the difference.

 

[Worried Man Blues]

It's not necessarily whether you can or want to work up to retirement age. My CEO decided he didn't really want an old peoples home and sent me packing, I was 58. I had the highest bonus for the team that year, so was in a strong enough position to be able to take him for a few quid. Most are not lucky like that and will be removed before they want to and it's a big gap from being removed to when your pension kicks in, hopefully you have a pension starting before your money runs out.

 

[Shropshire Seagull]

It is skinny, agreed. But this is basing things in the present. £155 pw is now, so it's value decreases through time, if I'm understanding it correctly?

State pension is index-linked so will rise each year.

Can't remember if it's linked to retail prices or wages - IIRC wage inflation has been lower than RPI for almost a decade now.