Triple lock

How come that DD ?- used to be 40 years contributions and you have done more. I think for a short while it went down to 30 but soon back up. Did you pay into SERPS? DH did and he gets some extra payment to reflect this and also Earnings related and Graduated but these elements of his pension have never increased in more than ten years.
Also just prior to receiving my State pension I had the option to pay in a small amount which gave me some catch up money on my pension - we took the offer but were totally mystified as to how that bit worked.
The whole things is a mess and could do with sorting out but giving people time to adjust.
I was reading on another European group who were saying that Spain. Sweden and other European countries have far higher pension payments than the UK. I had not realised that.

I actually don't agree with Waspi's aims. I find it incredible that women have lived for 25 years without knowing their pension age and don't agree that women that shouldn't have the same pension age as men.

What I do disagree with is the benefit changes which have affected women born since 1953, which weren't publicised and have caught many us unaware at very short notice.

I also object to the new state pension penalising people (men and women) who paid into occupational pensions. I don't think it's unfair in itself, because we didn't pay full NICs, but it was all done at short notice, not allowing any chance to make other arrangements. I also had some years when I wasn't paying into an occupational pension and was expecting to receive SERPs, but that's been abolished and I won't be compensated.

My state pension record says I will have 46 years of contributions, but I still won't receive the full flat rate state pension and I can't increase it.

I don't agree with the triple lock, but I was calculating on receiving at least a 2.5%pa increase on my current projected pension.

Quite honestly, I'm becoming reconciled to the fact that I was born at the wrong time and there's nothing I can do about it. It's bloody annoying though!

I will be sure to come back and tell you if I come across anything daphne. It sounds as if you were caught up in the Waspi debacle. Sometimes something does come out of the woodwork benefits wise. I only learnt by having a conversation with someone that you can claim exemption from Council Tax if you had severe mental disability which applies to a proportion of those with Dementia. I managed to get it for mum but it is hardly mentioned anywhere. I will have a little lurk on the benefits site I visit occasionally and see if anyone has come up with anything. It would be really good if something could be found for at least some of the poorer Waspi women although something really should be done for all of them - it was iniquitous.

The Council runs a benefit checking service. I went along a couple of months ago and was told that I'm not eligible for anything.

My retirement age is in 2021.

Older people (male or female) become eligible at the female age of retirement. If you were born before 6 April 1950 you are eligible for a concessionary pass.

www.essexhighways.org/Transport-and-Roads/Getting-Around/Bus/Fares-and-bus-passes/Concessionary-fares.aspx

I would have to look Daphne but you are unlikely to get many of them prior to SPA as you are a women. A lot of them had to be paid to men because women got the 'benefit' earlier. With the alignment of SPA this will be disappearing. I have a feeling that free bus passes are paid at a set age which applies to both.

Men who were/are unemployed could - and I think can still can just - claim Pension Credit (if their savings, etc., allowed) if they had reached the equivalent women's SPA and then claim their own pension when they reached their SPA. This would apply to Winter Fuel Allowance and Cold Weather Payment. Once the ages of men and women come together this will disappear.

If you know of anything else, please let me know.

No, I'm not eligible for a free bus pass. I enquired. I think it depends which county you live in.

Well, there you are ww ......sometimes waiting to see what happens is the best thing, otherwise it's just speculation.
dd you are eligible for the free bus pass,( I got it at 60) also reductions at cinema
Hairdresser etc.Sometimes you have to ask, but there are definitely things to claim.

I could be wrong, but I think minimum wage has gone up more than the triple lock, but working age benefits have been frozen and, in some cases, reduced.

It really irritates me that JSA is less than half the new basic state pension. If I were just a couple of years older, I would be receiving state pension. It seems ridiculous that people just a little older than I am are considered to need double what I need.

As a matter of interest, which benefits are given to some people who haven't yet reached SPA?

I'm 62 and my SPA is 66, so I'd love to know if there's anything I'm missing out on.

AFAIK the only benefits I can claim are free prescriptions and eye tests (which I get anyway, because I'm diabetic) and I have a Senor Railcard, which I had to pay for.

I think NI should continue to be paid as a Gracesgran suggests. National Health and Care Insurance. Compulsory.

Perhaps too minimum wage should be subject to the Triple Lock.

It depends how much the private pension is. If you look on your local council's website, there might be a calculation tool.

I know the threshold is low, but I can't remember the figure and I think it's different for pensioners. I know I'm not eligible for it, but I'm still of working age. It's assumed I can live on £73pw for everything (ha ha) after housing costs, but it's higher for pensioners and, obviously, more for couples but not double.

Would it be better if all basic state pensions were paid at the same rate so that there was no such thing as pensions credits, free bus passes and the winter fuel allowance.

I think we could certainly begin to role these extra 'benefits' into the State Pension (SP) Morethan2. It is complex though. Because the state pension is seen to have been paid for (a bit debatable but a strongly held view) we have a set age at which we receive it whereas the added extras are given to some who have not yet reached state pension age (SPA). The same happens to Pension Credit; it is a benefit in the widest definition of benefits. To tidy up SP, without pensioners feeling they have had something taken from them, you would have to stop the little (£10 at Christmas!)additions and directly increase the pension by the same amount. The losers would be those who get them prior to SPA.

Roses says we can't expect to keep it forever - the triple lock that is. I am not so sure. I have to admit that my first thought was that we should go to double lock but keep increasing the Pension Credit. On second thoughts I think, in the long run we should keep the triple lock until we have a 'living pension', i.e., one that requires no additional benefits in order to live. (Sadly I have to exclude housing benefit as that is a problem in its own right which can only be sorted from the housing end not the benefits one.) A living pension would be somewhere around £12,000. This would mean we could get rid of the idea that we 'paid' for the pension and make it a universal benefit. Obviously we would tax this off the high earners. I would also continue NI all the way through and - as it would no longer relate to SP - it could become a National Health and Care Insurance.

I just don't know if any of our current parties would feel politically able to do this though.

Thank you Rigby. I assume that's per household and that if a partner is receiving a private pension, a couple wouldn't be eligible for council tax payment?

Apparently May has been advised that she just as well keep the 2.5% it as she will actually save money as inflation is expect to be much higher in the years ahead. So all she has to do is fiddle with the CPI part and job done.

We'll wait and see what the manifesto brings- oh I sound like rose

I read it like djen did as well, but it is now clearer from your last post Rigby

I'll try again - if we compare the basic pension in 2007 with that in 2017, it is 40% higher. If we look at the actual annual amount in 2007 and compare it with the annual amount in 2017, the annual amount in 2017 is £1820 a year more. I'm not arguing that the basic pension is generous, far from it, but the way to help poorer pensioners is through pension credit and that the government should not be using the triple lock for pensioners when it won't use it for example with disability or sickness benefits. If you are on the basic state pension alone, your council tax will be paid and you will get pension credit. No one has just the basic state pension to live on unless they have a very good amount in savings

"an increase of £1820 per annum over the period"

Over the period, or per annum? I don't think I read it wrong.
An increase of £182 a year is not so impressive, is it?
£3.50 a week doesn't pay for your utility and council tax rises.

You're reading it wrong DJ as you did with MOnica - it's an increase over 10 years not each year - the figures compare the pension in 2007 with that in 2017.

Pensioners do NOT get pennies increase at all, that's ridiculous. Arguing against the triple lock is not pensioner bashing. It's arguing to be fair so that extra help goes to poorer pensioners through pension credit - which I would actually make more generous. I see no reason at all why a pensioner like me with generous occupational and private pensions as well as income from working still should be benefitting from the triple lock, WFA etc whilst all around benefits are being frozen and many workers are getting hardly any increases in pay. No one has said that pensioners are the cause of austerity but they sure are being shielded from it. No pensioner is just on the basic state pension - they would be entitled to pension credit

Rigby, you've got it wrong again.
An increase of £1820 per year for ten years means that every pensioner would be getting over £18200 per year now. I can assure you we are not.

It's just been said that May is taking a good long look at it, looking at the costings and the polling data.
So it's not really anything to do with policy.

There has been a lot of pensioner bashing lately. To attack pensioners as the reason for austerity and cut backs to the working population is ludicrous. And remember they too will be pensioners soon so it's like turkeys voting for Christmas. Pensioners who are only on State Pensions after paying in NI contributions for 40 years are still on borderline poverty rates. Getting a rise of pence per year even on triple lock. Percentages on very low incomes mean diddley squat. So don't be fooled. Pensioners who receive income over £10,000 pay tax. Getting old ain't for sissies they need all the help and dignity society can afford.