state pension NI contributions, and no job, problem

That is an awful situation to be in- I do sympathise. I think that you should go to your local CAB office and see if anybody there can sort out this awful financial muddle.

Thats sounds like a dreadful situation Lyndylou1 take Charleygirls advice and see someone at CAB.. good luck

I am sorry, I dont want you to get the wrong end of the stick. We are not impoverished , although I might be when my husband passes away and I am left alone. Whilst we have his pensions, I am quite financially OK.

The problem is what to do about the NI contributions I need to make and nothing more.

I just was looking for a way round the issue of signing on and being treated like dirt ? I dont get any beneifts as we are not entitled. I cannot get another job at my age - no skills and too old basically.

Can I go self employed or something?If so how? No skills, nothing, but I could afford the £2 a week for NI class 2 contributions to make up my state pension but I have nothing to be self employed at.

I would certainly go to AgeUK or CAB and make an appointment to see a benefits advisor who can explain the NI system clearly for you there is a lot of help out there from very experienced people who are up to date with the system,the stupid powers that be change the systems so much even the people in the Job Centres are clueless sometimes.
As regards to self employment keep that to one side for the minute until you find some specialist advice than maybe look into it.

Have you compared the difference between the pension you'd get for the 29 years you've worked and what you'd get for 35 years lyndylou?

It may not be as much as you think and you might feel it's not worth the hassle at the Jobcentre. Also, if you've claimed child benefit in the past those years would be credited - you don't mention whether you were bringing up children at any stage.

I agree that the CAB is the place to go to seek proper advice.

Here's the government pension calculator
https://www.gov.uk/calculate-state-pension

Definitely CAB. As to job applications. Write a CV. Email it to any job available ....say five a week. You won't be suitable but it will tick the 'applying for jobs' box that the Job Centre want you to tick. I know it's hoop jumping but that way you get your stamp and get the jumped up little Hitler off your back.

if your husband's state pension and works pension is more than £255 per week you would not get pension credit anyway.
if you have 29 years worth of NI payments you would get 29/35ths of the new flat rate pension - assuming you have not contracted out.
there is no 'married couples pension' only possibly partners can claim up to 60% of the pension on the basis of their OH's contributions (at least they used to be able to do so?)
I really find it difficult to understand why anyone who did not work full-time for most of their working lives (yes I worked full time (as a single parent in the 70s and 80s) and for most of the 90s and 00s to still not get my full pension as 39 years were needed then) still expects to get a full pension.

When you were in receipt of child benefit you would have been getting a home responsibilities stamp.

Why shouldn't a woman who took time off to bring up a family receive a full pension? Are our children so unimportant that only those who managed to juggle children and work deserve to have a decent retirement income.

I wonder if you worked through choice or necessity. I worked through necessity but given the chance I'd have been a full time mother who wasn't exhausted by working late into the night. In my opinion being a mother is a full time job which unfortunately has no value these days because there is no monetary reward and that's how our success appears to be measured.

I was a bit clobbered by all this and my pension is reduced because of the years I spent caring for children before this was allowed for.

I can see where you are coming from with the self-employed idea, bit you would have to do something that made some money (however small and amount).

I do think that CAB is the route to follow as they will have all this at their fingertips and save you agonising over it.

It is a shame that the Job Centre staff seem unhelpful and threatening - I am afraid it is a case of big fleas have little fleas upon their backs to bite 'em. The government is pushing them in this direction. It is interesting that the increases in the pension age also carry the burden of extra benefits as people will qualify for Jobseekers for longer, and at a time of life when they are less likely to find work.

If you can bear to read it, having nothing else to do, the Ageuk website has a fifty page document, but that's only until the next year comes in, next week, when things might change because of universal credit.
Personally I would contact Ageuk, as they are definitely on our side and deal with a lot of people in your situation.

My sister is in the same position, and being made to go to the jobcentre. She looks on it as a day out, and has signed up for computer courses to show willing. The daft thing is she paid full stamp for over forty years, but still has to jump through hoops. Fortunately she reaches retirement age next year, a full two weeks before she is 65!

Instead of being annoyed by the whippersnappers, feel pity for them. Most of them would rather do any other job, particularly in this climate.
Roll on the next government, when people like you will hopefully not be made to feel a drain on society.

Thank you for the helpfulreplies.

I really do not want to get into a debate about who is more worthy, whether those who have children, and are single working parents and have worked and paid NI are more entitled than those who were/ are not etc.

I am really a "cusp child" in this. The changes in the pension system have caught me three or four times in the last few years.

It is not about feeling entitled even though I did not worketc.
Like my mother and my grandmother and all my aunts and even my husbands sisters (and I think many mature women here - I mean those in their 70's, coming up 80 perhaps?) I grew up expecting to go to work for a few years, get married and have a family. The expectation too then was that you would/could be a "housewife" (or as the Americans call it a "homemaker") and there was no expectation either that the role had to include having children necessarily.

A man went to work and he paid his NI and the pension ( right up until 2013 in fact) included a "married couples state pension" which I think wasaround £66 a week extra and based on a man being married to a woman and therewere no rules about whether a woman had children or anything else. A wife claimed from her husband and that was the way it was. If she had worked and paid in her own NI,then I believe these discounted when the joint income statepension wascalculated anyway. ( My aunt was amarried woman who elected to pay full stamp and worked all her life and had no children and this is what happened to her).

That was what I was told by the ( now) DWPand it was the case until very recently.

Now it seems that what I did back in the 1970's /80's ( as a young woman who got married and stayed home because my husband said he could afford to keep me and it was better for me anyway, for reasons I will not go into) is to be judged by a different set of standards and I am now seen as a scrounger who should " not expect" to get out anything because I did not pay in.Yeah. Ok. Enough said.

I do not wish to sound aggressive but frankly that hurts. I did what lots of people did. Many are now covered by child rearing, I am not (I lost three babies in that time and I was not well. I did not sign on at any job centre, as back then you did not do such a thing anyway). I stayed home and my husband earned enough for both of us.
Working at that time was for a married woman a " choice", it was not a requirement. It seems too many have forgotten that in the charge to judge others.

The matter is simply, the rules have changed. Please can we not be judgemental about those like me ( and I am sure I am not alone) who were homemakers and later did parttime jobs and who do not feel entitled but were promised certain things ( like my husband contributions would be seen as covering me) and now those have been broken.

I cannot make back payments. I canot changedecisions and things that happened to me back nearly 40 years ago. I cannot change that no one wantsto employ me nowas I am too old. I do though, because of a broken promise need to make a different provision in terms of NI contributions, yet that is also proving difficult.

My husband didnt have a fancy job, just one that paid reasonably and I kept a good table, saved well , was frugal, and we did not indulge in lifestyle extravegances ( like holidays and smoking and drinking etc). I didnt make these rules. I didnt change them and I did not expect them to be changed like this.

I do not claim benefits and never have. All I am looking for is to pay my NI contributions at a rate I can afford or to get them paid so I fit into the rules. ( Were I 20 now, I could like so many younger people today, sit around on benefits, even without children, and have all my NI contributions paid and geta state pension out of credits because I signed on. But that was not the option in my youth).

Am I really so dispicable as to be told off for just wanting to find a way to pay my last 5 years of NI contributions? I am even willing to pay for them myself if the option were affordable. I am not scrounging.

Sorry , I am really hurt by some comments. Thank you to those who have tried to help.

The retirement age changes have clobbered me too, and I'm job seeking too, it isn't easy at all.
I do hope you manage to get some sort of resolution lyndylou, good luck!

There was only one slightly unsympathetic post, lyndylou, most of us were indeed trying to help. Have you considered any of the suggestions?

The only reason I mentioned bringing up children was because your NI contributions would have been credited for that time (after a certain date).

You would still get a reasonable state pension based on the 29 years you've worked. Is it worth putting yourself through the stress of having to sign on for the sake of a few extra pounds a week when you reach retirement age if, as you indicate, you and your DH are fairly comfortably off?

I hope this helps lyndylou1 and loopyloo. I retired from Nursing last year. Although I am old enough for state pension, because of DH we had to remortgage our house. (Long story). We were unable to manage on his shop worker"s salary. I managed to get a part time job with a cleaning agency. Not glamorous, but it pays well. I earn more than DH in the Co-op. I clean the offices and washrooms/toilets in Waitrose three hours a morning, five mornings a week. The hours are rubbish, I start at 04.00 and finish at 07.00. It's okay because the rest of the day is my own, I often go back to bed for a couple of hours.
What I am trying to say is, have you tried the Agencies? I was 62 when I got my job. The Regional Supervisor says he likes older employees as they are much more reliable than youngsters.

I'm nearing the end of a Return to Practice course hildajenni, which sadly has completely turned my intentions on their head.
I'm looking at any thing local so have a couple of applications awaiting replies. I'll certainly look at cleaning agencies, I don't mind silly hour starts.
Because our endowment policy hasn't covered mortgage I need to work- that wasn't my plan at all!
Ho hum.......plan B under construction

Durhamjen your post doesn't ring true, your sister if she is 65 next year would have been born in 1951 and would have been able to have retired with a full pension at 61 with 30 years contributions, I know this because I was born 1952 and I retired when I was 62.

Yes, it is odd. I was born in 1951 (65 next year) and became eligible for my state pension at 61 years 2 months, although I didn't retire from work at that time.

I was born end 1953, Pension Day 26 March 2019, aged 65yrs 3mths

www.uktaxcalculators.co.uk/state-pension-age-calculator.php

According to this, even if your sister was born right at the end of 1951 she'd still have been eligible for her pension at 61, durhamjen...

loopylou I feel for you, I was upset waiting to retire at 62. You must have just missed the cut off date. Hopefully you will get the higher pension rate when you do retire.

I'd just like to add that the self-employed idea, even if you had a genuine business idea, will not possible, as it was announced in the budget that class 2 contributions for the self-employed are to be totally scrapped later this year.
You almost certainly couldn't have done that anyway unless you genuinely had some self-employed income.

I think that your self-employed earnings would have to be high enough for class 4 contributions to become payable (nearly £8ooo for this coming year, I think) before you would achieve your objective. That is how it looks at the moment, anyway, though things might change again.

lyndilou I feel for your dilemma, but I think you have been a bit aggressive in your reply to people on here who are trying to help, and like you, are entitled to their opinion. I don't think you will like this, but frankly I think you are using the system by trying to sign on, whether or not you are receiving any payments of JSA, just to boost your pension, we all make our decisions, and they are not always right, and it is most regrettable that you feel you were ill advised by the job centre in the past ( although this may have been the correct information at the time). the bottom line is times are hard for most working people, and in your place, I would choose to take whatever pension I was entitled to which sounds as if it is quite a reasonable amount anyway, and save yourself the hassle of signing on. I have to admit, I lost my sympathy for you when you starting whining about young people sitting about on benefits, accumulating their pension rights, your views are a bit narrow, and young people are in fact very hard hit by benefit changes.

That's true Magpie, though far from happy when over a few years each time I checked the date kept moving further away! Hopefully this is the definitive date.

I was born at the beginning of '54. I haven't paid NI since '77 due to child care years and only being PT after that. I retired 2012, as far as I'm aware I have no pension.