What to do without a pension?

"If you have received Child Benefit each complete year counts towards your pension. I’m not sure if this is Jan to Dec or April tax year."

This is only true if you were on the full NI contributions when working. I opted for what was then the reduced married woman's contributions which meant I'm now worse off, pension-wise, than if I'd never worked at all as those 21 years of Child Benefit don't count for us. I do get a reduced pension based on my husband's NI contributions but basically, if he dies, flogging our home and buying a teeny place will be my pension.

I too fell through many of these little traps - no one said I should claim for contributions while at university, I was told that 'you get your pension back' when I left my job to have my daughter (spent the refund on a push chair) etc. You should at least be eligible for income support, but be that as it may I'd get on the Citizens Advice site www.citizensadvice.org.uk/ and Age UK info and advice section www.ageuk.org.uk/services/information-advice/guides-and-factsheets/ and www.independentage.org/ . I don't know how much richer you will be but you WILL be very well informed. Good luck.

If you made welfare contributions in Portugal, might you be entitled to a pension there? Or anywhere else where you have worked?

Might your own chronic ill-health entitle you to some kind of invalidity pension?

Have you pensions through the unions you have belonged to?

What about social security?

Surely, you cannot be left to die of starvation, or be forced to marry in a great hurry, supposing you can find a man who can and will support you?

I read recently about a care home run by the Sisters of the Poor who take in those who cannot afford to pay fees, perhaps you should contact them.

Did you ever pay tax in the uk??

keepingquiet

I think you should still be eligible for pension credit- I think you must be entitled to something even if you've paid nothing in.
Contact Age UK or Citizen's Advice if you are coming up to retitemement age now.

I agree with keepingquiet, I feel sure that you are due to some kind of payment. Do contact Age UK and find out.
Good luck

And you do receive full time education credits but again I’m not sure how these are recorded

knspol

As usual a lot of differing 'facts' on here. The only definite info I have is that you do get a credit of NI conts when claiming Jobseekers benefit. I also know that if your earnings were below the lower earnings level you USED TO be able to also get a credit although this could have changed.
Go to citizens advice as others have advised and get the definitive picture and some advice about alternatives you might claim.

NI Conts. If you were unemployed for a complete year you would be credited with 52 NI credits. (I can’t remember about incomplete years and working). The exception is Invalid Care Allowance where each week of NI credits counts but not if you are paying NI.

If you worked but paid no NI you were not credited NI credits. The NI year runs from Jan to Dec not the tax year.

If you have received Child Benefit each complete year counts towards your pension. I’m not sure if this is Jan to Dec or April tax year.

Each employer has an NI number and your NI record can be checked. This is how you can receive a pension forecast.

Just demonstrating how complicated our system has become. I worked for Dept of Employment from 1980-1995.

Have you checked with the country abroad to see if you are entitled to a pension from them?

If you are a student, you should have got your NIC credits. I really think you need to ensure that everything has been credited to you which should have been. It is possible that things go awry. My husband found that he hadn't been credited for some years when he was entitled to some but wasn't earning enough to pay some from his part-time job but was a student. The system wasn't always as joined up as it should have been.

Sorry I don't think that worked I was trying to attach two leaflets on pension credit. I have tried to attach the links from the desktop using the choose file feature below, still not working, why is that I wonder??

Pension Credit is a meanstested benefit for anyone whose income is below the PC threshold. It is a very complicated benefit, and if people have health benefits the PC level goes up significantly. Plus they get rent, council Tax, Winter Fuel Allowance. I shall never receive it myself, but I have made sure my friends and family receive everything they are entitled to. I worked on PC from its introduction up to about 10 years ago. I would advise everyone to talk to Citizens Advice or Age UK.

here you are/Users/winniecameron/Desktop/Pension credit flyer.pdf/Users/winniecameron/Desktop/PC - A4 General Poster pension-credit.pdf

As usual a lot of differing 'facts' on here. The only definite info I have is that you do get a credit of NI conts when claiming Jobseekers benefit. I also know that if your earnings were below the lower earnings level you USED TO be able to also get a credit although this could have changed.
Go to citizens advice as others have advised and get the definitive picture and some advice about alternatives you might claim.

I do find it hard to believe that people face their retirement having given little thought to how they will financially survive.

I can understand it up to a point. When I was much younger some of my friends and colleagues were already paying into private pension plans but to me it was always such a long way off! They didn't pay a lot and I could never see the point until someone explained how the earlier contributions would be worth so much more than later contributions.

I was very naive and - to be honest - totally disinterested in anything to do with money when younger. I very luckily had a saviour in MrA who had an accountants brain and when I was self employed made sure that I paid all my taxes and contributions properly. Left to myself I might have ended up in a pickle by the time I got round to thinking about it.

I only got pension credit because I get state pension. I have no private pension.

Appleseeds contact and get an appointment with Citizens advice they are brilliant and helped me get pension credit not hundreds like the adverts say but under £100 per week which with my state pension and my PIP means I don't have to touch my
little bit of savings I have .
Only got PIP because I went tribunal with add of a pro bono solicitor through the Brain Charity.

If you live alone you will get 25% off your council tax that's if you own your own home. Think there is more help available for renters but not sure about that .

But Citizen advice will make sure you get all benefits you are entitled to. Make sure you take all the information they need . So book an appointment and write down everything you need to take ..

I'm pretty sure you can't get Pension Credit without receiving the State Pension. It is, I believe, around £18.00 a week and designed for those whose sole income is their State Pension. I don't think it is a "stand alone' benefit.

Doodledog - I like your idea of a system that regularly updates us. I agree that it might not be too expensive to set up, but the expense would come in chasing up those who didn't respond - changed email / phone number - moved abroad etc.

In the end I think it has to be our own responsibility. When the 'welfare state' was set up, Unemployment & Sickness Benefit, and State Pension were considerably higher than National Assistance (the safety net). Over the years that has eroded, and sets up what is an unfair system (I assume that biglouis meant 'corrupt' as in 'broken' rather than its more usual current usage meaning deliberate fraud)

I have met a few people like Appleseed in my time, who operate off grid. I can see how they missed contributions whilst working abroad (sounds casual rather than 'in the system') and the 'caring whilst living off savings' (which sounds naive); but I don't understand why, once in the system, this wasn't picked up. For some years I worked on an occasional basis, but paid NI, and when I earned enough, tax as well.

Once again I find myself in agreement with you, Doodledog.
I do find it hard to believe that people face their retirement having given little thought to how they will financially survive.
When I was younger, I looked at the elderly in my own family and thought about how I would manage retirement.
Both our DCs have had pensions provision drummed into them, as I doubt there will be any SP by the time they retire.

Pension credits rules around savings. Any savings under £10K are disregarded. For any savings over that amount a formula is applied to give a “notional” income. the formula is quite simple. For every £500 over £10K, an income of £1 per week is assumed. E.g, savings of £25k = £15k over the disregarded amount. The notional income would be £30 p.w.
Savings of £15K = £10 per week notional income.
This is why there is not a specific cut-off point for PC. it all depends on total income. So different for everyone.

Doodledog

I don't think the system is 'corrupt'. That suggests that someone is making money from it, which I don't think is the case. It's a mess though.

In a civilised country we can't have people with no income, but there has to be an incentive for people to pay into pensions and all the other things that tax and NI cover. It is too easy for people to fall through the cracks or just opt out and let others pay for them. I do feel that if someone is caring for another there should be a system whereby you can be assessed and if the cared-for person needs care (ie would have to be in a home otherwise, as opposed to sharing a house with a parent or someone they would like to keep an eye on) then there should be proper recompense for saving the state money.

I don't know how expensive it would be to set up (maybe not too much as things can be automated now) but it would be good if everyone had a regular update on their financial situation that they had to sign or tick a box to say they'd read. It could spell out how many contributions people had made, what their projected pension would be, and how they could compensate for years out. The updates could come with a bill so that people could pay off their contribution to society as they go, instead of getting to 66 and realising they owe tens of thousands.

It is galling when people work for decades and still find they are short because of opting out, so have to cough up thousands to get a full pension (or live on a lower one), when people who haven't paid in get it all free. There is no way that can be seen as fair, but what to do? We can't have older people on the streets with no money, and workhouses would be cruel. One way or another, though, as a society we need to give more of a message that we are all responsible for ourselves, unless there is a reason why we can't be.

Very well said 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

I don't think the system is 'corrupt'. That suggests that someone is making money from it, which I don't think is the case. It's a mess though.

In a civilised country we can't have people with no income, but there has to be an incentive for people to pay into pensions and all the other things that tax and NI cover. It is too easy for people to fall through the cracks or just opt out and let others pay for them. I do feel that if someone is caring for another there should be a system whereby you can be assessed and if the cared-for person needs care (ie would have to be in a home otherwise, as opposed to sharing a house with a parent or someone they would like to keep an eye on) then there should be proper recompense for saving the state money.

I don't know how expensive it would be to set up (maybe not too much as things can be automated now) but it would be good if everyone had a regular update on their financial situation that they had to sign or tick a box to say they'd read. It could spell out how many contributions people had made, what their projected pension would be, and how they could compensate for years out. The updates could come with a bill so that people could pay off their contribution to society as they go, instead of getting to 66 and realising they owe tens of thousands.

It is galling when people work for decades and still find they are short because of opting out, so have to cough up thousands to get a full pension (or live on a lower one), when people who haven't paid in get it all free. There is no way that can be seen as fair, but what to do? We can't have older people on the streets with no money, and workhouses would be cruel. One way or another, though, as a society we need to give more of a message that we are all responsible for ourselves, unless there is a reason why we can't be.

This stuff really should be taught in school - although exact conditions will change over time, the general principle that you need to check your rights & responsibilities should be made clear.
In conversation with WASPI women, I have wondered how I knew about the change in pention age, contribution rules and changes in NI payments over the years I was employed. I realised that my parents taught me to keep myself informed and check my situation.

It is very sad, as appleseed could have been paying voluntary & self-employed NI over many years. It is correct that they will not be completely destitute, but will be reliant on benefits.

I have come across a few people like this before - they are often people who hold themselves apart from a system they either don't understand or think doesn't apply to them (I don't know where appleseed is in this). Over the years that appleseed acted as an unpaid carer, they have presumably saved the State a great deal of money, but it sounds as if it was completely off the grid, with no formal recognition at all. I think it would be almost impossible to claim in retrospect. Please appleseed, contact one of the organisations that can help you.

Appleseeds

NotAGran55

If you were self employed Appleseeds you would pay NI through your self assessment at the same time as your tax.

This must have come to light during the last 25 years?

Also if you knew that your employer wasn’t submitting your NI contributions why didn’t you report it?

I only started working in a self-employed way about 8 months ago. That is how I began realising my situation. Before that I was on Universal Credit because of my health condition (and still am) but because I could earn around 1000 per month I received no money. I did not know that being on UC I had to pay NI separately. No one told me that. Some years ago I was on Job Seekers Allowance. It seems that JSA did pay NI for me. Those 2 years are okay.

I didn't know either that some employers did not submit contributions on my behalf. Must they? Is it a legal requirement, even if one works part-time or on a zero hours contract?

Your situation does seem very complicated, and as others have advised, Citizens Advice would be a good place to start to get help.

You must be very naive if you didn’t know that employers submit your NI deductions to HMRC along with your tax deductions. Regardless of the contract, provided you earn above the threshold you will pay.
Do you have your payslips or P45s from your employers to check back on?
If your contributions haven’t been handed over then your money has been stolen from you, and your employers were fraudulent.

Then this leads on to the accompanying benefits of winter fuel allowance, free NHS dentist( if you can find one) free spectacles, rent rebate, free council tax. All of which are denied to anyone whose sole income is their state pension.

No British born citizen should be entirely without an income and destitute. Not while we have outcomers in comfy hotels. But they should not be better off on "pension credit" than people who saved for a small occupational pension, which some of them currently are. It just shows how utterly corrupt the system is.