What do you consider a low income in retirement?

karmalady

DaisyAnne, what you say is a good way to reconcile the differences between renting and having your own property. Rent equating to maintenance would be a good starting point. Then the add-ons like council tax, food, energy, insurances, running a car for those without very frequent buses or perhaps running a car v paying for taxis (if available) Hobbies, holidays, entertainment

I think it is impossible to come up with a fair figure, we are not automatons nor directable robots, so free will comes into it too.

I don't think you could expect it to cover anything but essentials, and people will always make choices, even with a limited amount of money. We already decide what people need with the benefits system. It must be possible to do the same with a pension.

I read somewhere that, for a comfortable retirement, a couple would need an income of around £37,000 p.a. before tax.

£37,000 was the highest of three rates

Minimum: Single person £12,800. couple £19,900 'covers all your needs with some left over for fun.'

Moderate: Single person £23,300, couple £34,000 'more financial security and flexibility

Comfortable: Single person £33,700 couple £54,500 'more financial freedom amd some luxuries'
www.retirementlivingstandards.org.uk/ for all the details.

Considering how much many working families live on - and with housing costs, I think the moderate rate should be defined as 'Comfortable' and the top rate 'luxury'

How much older people need to live is as difficult to assess as the very well used, even more so in the current cost of living crisis, constantly thrown around comnent, families should not be struggling. How much does a family need? Overheard a conversation on the bus between two females that one had been award a benefit of some kind and was so pleased as could now upgrade her mobile phone. Desperate need indeed!

4allweknow

How much older people need to live is as difficult to assess as the very well used, even more so in the current cost of living crisis, constantly thrown around comnent, families should not be struggling. How much does a family need? Overheard a conversation on the bus between two females that one had been award a benefit of some kind and was so pleased as could now upgrade her mobile phone. Desperate need indeed!

Coming from someone posting online (presumably from a relatively modern smart device) that seems a rather short-sighted comment, 4allweknow. Was the 'female' a pensioner? Or someone who works but still relies on benefits for the decent standard of living her wages should provide? She does deserve to be referred to as a woman, either way - using an adjective as a noun when referring to humans is derogatory in the extreme.

Anyway, should benefits and/or pensions be based on 'need' only? That's the big question that underpins the OP, I think. Do we want people to have, by right, lives that allow for little luxuries, or do we think that basic survival is enough?

I paid 49 years worth….. so why the heck should someone who hasn’t contributed or contributed less years get the same… the system is immorally wrong.

GagaJo

Good point DaisyAnne.

It is interesting to see just how people prioritise when living on benefits - and how people feel it their right to criticise! If someone likes holidays they will go without something else. If they have enough to live on they would still be able to do that although I imagine if that were their only income the holidays would be cheaper.

My mum spent her whole life on a low income. She never had any money but managed to go on holidays. She did this by never having a car. She walked everywhere until the year before she died, so didn't even pay to take the bus. She didn't use the heating, ate very cheap food (living on beans and lentils long before it was regarded as healthy eating). She would unpick worn out clothes and make them into something else as well as reknitting wool. Her gas cooker when she died was the one she had when I was 17.

Her holidays, as DA said, were not lavish. Budget package hols to Spain etc. But as long as it was sunny she was happy. But I'd defy almost anyone in the UK to survive on her income, even without the holidays.

A few years ago I received a call from an insurance salesman trying to sell me life insurance. I told him I couldn't afford it - I'd made an enquiry out of curiosity. He then tried to tell me how 'affordable life insurance is these days'. At this point I decided to spell out to him some of my circumstances, including my need for a car to get to my low paid job etc, and my income. He went very quiet for a moment, then said "How can anyone live on £x,ooo?" I didn't answer him but the fact is you do it because you have no choice. You live frugally, and I wasn't really short of anything. Until I started receiving the first of my private pensions at 65 I received tax credits which enabled me to claim the warm home discount. Now I'm retired, with 3 small private pensions alongside the state pension, my income is higher than when I was working!
We all have to adjust our expectations to our circumstances. There is no 'One size fits all'. I may not be rich but I'm content!

Surely the fairest way to do things is to have a state funded pension that is calculated as social security and invalidity pensions are, as a basic minimum wage, or slightly more.

Private and occupational pensions should not be taken into account here, as those who have had such a well-paid job that they could afford to pay their own money into a fund, have been taxed on the money when they earned it, and may well be taxed on it again, when it is paid out to them.

Obviously, anyone in the highest income tax bracket may have a private fortune in the bank or in shares etc. so it might be necessary to deny these fortunate few the state pension.

Susie42

I read somewhere that, for a comfortable retirement, a couple would need an income of around £37,000 p.a. before tax.

That seems reasonable to me as well.

The chart seems very distant from reality, the numbers don't work.

My pension is £14,000.00 and serves me well. I am a widow house paid for. However, I do not smoke or drink and rarely eat out, have never had a takeaway, but I do like my motor car which is small city car, which I change regularly, love new clothes, and have a holiday every year.

Universal (not means tested) and at least equal to the minimum wage for full time work. The government has calculated the minimum wage as the amount a person needs in order to live so why should state pension be less?

Yes!

4allweknow I know a pensioner whose phone is not a smartphone, she can only text or phone on it and I am very sure that if she had the money she would upgrade her mobile phone to a smartphone. So much these days is based on having a smartphone.

Years ago I helped an elderly man get a disability benefit and he went straight out and bought a new television. Why, because he was so crippled with arthritis, he lived and slept in the same room and struggled to get out of his chair. He had a tv with no remote control so the pain and discomfort of getting up to change channels made this almost impossible. His new tv had a remote control. He could now change channels from his chair.

Think things through before sneering at people.

2507C0

Universal (not means tested) and at least equal to the minimum wage for full time work. The government has calculated the minimum wage as the amount a person needs in order to live so why should state pension be less?

Agreed.

I'd say at least £18,000 p.a. before tax for SP.

I think you need a smart phone to access the benefits system now, unless you have a computer.

Germanshepherdsmum

I think you need a smart phone to access the benefits system now, unless you have a computer.

I assume more people have computers than smart phones. No?

I have no need to a mobile, I easily use a computer.

Germanshepherdsmum

I think you need a smart phone to access the benefits system now, unless you have a computer.

Yes, everything is done on line now, your adviser contacts you via a diary, and you inform them of any changes to your circumstances the same way. There is also another consideration which few mention; if you are in rented accommodation, getting a landline installed is a lengthy expensive process involving an installation charge of around £140, and often a deposit if you are not an existing customer, so it is obvious that a smart phone with a data package is not only a necessity, but cheaper as well. We have just got rid of our landline, it was costing us £20+ per month to just sit there, money better spent on mobile date.

Sorry to derail the thread a bit, but thought this relevant, especially for anyone who still thinks that having a mobile phone is a luxury, not a necessity

I suspect a lot of older people don’t have a computer. Maybe not a mobile phone either. We don’t have a mobile phone signal here but I have a car phone. Not calling you an older person Norah! 😊

Smartphones are computers Norah.
A home based computer is no good if you’re a carer, out on calls and a client cancels, one example.
I’d hazard a guess that smartphone ownership outstrips computers in the UK.
Sorry DaisyAnne another off subject.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=XkUlNY42QhI&t=68s

something uplifting to watch.

If you can’t save to boost your pension you just scrape by, I can’t see it altering. Everyone if they have worked all their life will get the bare minimum.

Well, I think people who want to take their 'talent and money' elsewhere had better do it, quite frankly. Hopefully there will be enough generous, intelligent and fair-minded people left to ensure that we approach a fairer society. We all work hard, I work massive hours as a counsellor and writer. I am lucky to have those skills, I do not believe I deserve more money than the hard-working people who empty my dustbin, and when I earn a lot (which I do, some years) I would not begrudge a penny of tax if I knew it was going to help people live better lives rather than being wasted by an unscrupulous, cynical government who care not a jot for fairness of any kind and only exist to line the pockets of the well-off voters who put them there. We will never have a totally equal society. Some people are better at managing their money, some work more hours etc. but despite the many difficulties of achieving it we all know more or less what a 'fair' society looks like - housing that is warm and dry, enough money for food and heating, health-care, education, some leisure facilities - and yes, the details can be fought about endlessly but surely we have to do our best to meet this minimum? Anything else is shameful.

What about the people that claim everything that's going. Then do 'jobs on the side' - 'cash in hand' etc. etc. while living the life of Riley. i.e. flash cars. UK holidays (paying cash). Coffee & Breakfast every morning in Costa's. Eat out 3 times a week. They don't have a care in the world, just don't have any money in a bank account that's traceable. I know of people that fit this category and I fume daily about it. My late husband and I worked all our working lives, paid into the system and now I spend the money that we worked long and hard for. When it gets below a certain level I could be asked what I've spent it on before being allowed any benefits. There needs to be a big check up on Benefit Fraud IMO.

grandtanteJE65

Surely the fairest way to do things is to have a state funded pension that is calculated as social security and invalidity pensions are, as a basic minimum wage, or slightly more.

Private and occupational pensions should not be taken into account here, as those who have had such a well-paid job that they could afford to pay their own money into a fund, have been taxed on the money when they earned it, and may well be taxed on it again, when it is paid out to them.

Obviously, anyone in the highest income tax bracket may have a private fortune in the bank or in shares etc. so it might be necessary to deny these fortunate few the state pension.

Pension contributions aren't taxed at the time they are paid.

grandtanteJE65

Surely the fairest way to do things is to have a state funded pension that is calculated as social security and invalidity pensions are, as a basic minimum wage, or slightly more.

Private and occupational pensions should not be taken into account here, as those who have had such a well-paid job that they could afford to pay their own money into a fund, have been taxed on the money when they earned it, and may well be taxed on it again, when it is paid out to them.

Obviously, anyone in the highest income tax bracket may have a private fortune in the bank or in shares etc. so it might be necessary to deny these fortunate few the state pension.

Exactly that. But I would think it should be available to all. People on the highest incomes would have it taxed off at the other end if they were earning enough and the tax system was truly progressive.