Can someone explain why I don't get a full State Pension please?

SporeRB

Role

Doodledog well said! I had 37 years full contributions and receive the minimum. I was told that I’d paid in under one system and taken my pension under another. I keep thinking I should challenge it but it all happened during COVID and I’ve an occupational pension. But it really grieves me that I get £50 a week less than women I know who’ve never worked or only done part-time after starting a family.

My COPE amount is £42 / week which is not far from yours.

I managed to talk to a lady at the Pension Department and she confirmed what I thought all along. Since I have no gap years in my NI contributions and already have 35 years of contribution, I cannot top up my state pension due to the contracting years.

Both of my colleagues have never heard of contracting out. In fact, we cannot understand why I need 35 years of NI contributions, whilst my line manager needs 44 years when we’re the same age. His wife who only worked for 10 years and had to stop due to ill health will receive her full state pension at state retirement age.

The government gateway stated I have 37 years of contribution when I have only 35.

Re ‘cannot top up etc’. I was told that if I had issues with the amount I was receiving then I could top it up. This seems to contradict what you were told. I’d paid in for 37 years, I didn’t feel like giving them any more.

Role

Doodledog well said! I had 37 years full contributions and receive the minimum. I was told that I’d paid in under one system and taken my pension under another. I keep thinking I should challenge it but it all happened during COVID and I’ve an occupational pension. But it really grieves me that I get £50 a week less than women I know who’ve never worked or only done part-time after starting a family.

My COPE amount is £42 / week which is not far from yours.

I managed to talk to a lady at the Pension Department and she confirmed what I thought all along. Since I have no gap years in my NI contributions and already have 35 years of contribution, I cannot top up my state pension due to the contracting years.

Both of my colleagues have never heard of contracting out. In fact, we cannot understand why I need 35 years of NI contributions, whilst my line manager needs 44 years when we’re the same age. His wife who only worked for 10 years and had to stop due to ill health will receive her full state pension at state retirement age.

The government gateway stated I have 37 years of contribution when I have only 35.

Your pension statement will show how the calculation is arrived at. Due to the many contracted out years mine (the old pension) makes for painful reading.

Did you get the right HRP years for any years you were in receipt of Child Benefit ... (IF indeed that applied, which it sounds like maybe it doesn't apply?) ? Some people (women mainly) made the mistake of allowing HRP credits onto the main earner's records instead of the parent that needed the credits most (mainly the primary caregiver or parent on lowest income/most care gaps etc) . This could have created NI gaps which weren't necessary.
But it sounds like you were always in full time employment contractually.
Must be because of contracting out.
But thought it useful to mention HRP years in case it applies to anyone reading this thread.

Sawitch

I was a teacher and took early retirement at 58, so didn’t pay any further NI contributions after 2014. In 2021, aged 66 I received my state pension. It is a new full state pension, slightly reduced because of contracting out. The fact I didn’t pay NI contributions after 2014 didn’t affect the pension as I had enough qualifying years prior to 2014.

Thank you Sawitch. I definitely need to look into what I’m getting! You’ve made me realise that it can’t be right.

It would - those years count towards the number required to qualify for the SP, but when you receive the SP you will see the deductions for SERPS. However, your occupational/private pension will be inflated so you are not worse off.

I too was contracted out most of my working life and my record still shows all those years as full.

I was a teacher and took early retirement at 58, so didn’t pay any further NI contributions after 2014. In 2021, aged 66 I received my state pension. It is a new full state pension, slightly reduced because of contracting out. The fact I didn’t pay NI contributions after 2014 didn’t affect the pension as I had enough qualifying years prior to 2014.

Doodledog

There are men who are politically uninformed too. Why is a lack of knowledge 'because of other women'? And why do these people speak with Northern accents and eat at chippies?

The truth is that there are a lot of women who didn't know about the changes, and it is 100% true that the government didn't inform people, whether multisyllabically or in pictures. It really doesn't matter whether you, I or anyone else knew - many women did not.

If you don't understand how they didn't, what do you think is going on? Do you think that thousands of women have got together to pretend? Or that they are all stupid? People have different interests, and not everyone is interested in the news. The changes to women's pensions weren't plastered over the front pages. They were in financial supplements that not everyone reads. There are lots of things that some people know and others don't. This is just one of them.

What I said is that women have a vote because of other women, ie the suffragettes. Not being interested in the news because you have other interests is no excuse for not knowing about the changes to pension age. There is no justifiable reason for not knowing.

Germanshepherdsmum

I believe many women were unaware of the changes because they took little or no interest in what was going on outside their bubble, didn’t read newspapers or listen to the news. Occasionally you see a news item where people are stopped on the street and asked if they can recognise a photo of a really famous politician and they have no idea. People do have to accept some responsibility for their futures.

I don't recognise "really famous" politicians even though l watch them on TV often. I do not recognise close friends and relatives (including my sons and husband). I have prosopagnosia, it's been a severe hindrance and caused offence and embarrassment all my life. There are many like me, good to raise awareness.

I think the new state pension from 2016 was an attempt to make the system more transparent and potentially fairer. I haven’t really studied it as it doesn’t affect me, but I have already urged my 18 year old granddaughter to be more financially aware, with regard to bank accounts, savings, NI, taxes etc. A pension isn’t generally something an 18 year old thinks about!
The old system was more complicated and not very transparent. I worked in education and was contracted out, but that is reflected in my occupational pension. We once had a talk from a financial advisor at work, and his information was invaluable. He also did a pre-retirement course which again was very informative.
I have five pensions: the State Pension, which is quite low because of missing years I could not make up, but as I did not draw my SRP whilst I was still working, I get extra pension now. I have stayed alive long enough to benefit from this, ie what I get is now more than I sacrificed.
I was not aware when I paid the “married women’s stamp” that it would reduce my pension. The information just was not readily available.
I get an occupational pension, again not huge as I only paid in once I worked full time.
I paid additional voluntary contributions, AVCs, with which I bought an annuity ( no other options were available at that time) which is index-linked so pays a little more each year.

I get a tiny French pension from working in France. The bureaucracy is crazy for £25 a month, but relatively speaking it is a huge return for just one year’s work.
These four pensions are almost equal in total to the amount my husband got from his full SRP and his full occupational pension, but only because I had advice and did my own research and applications.

And now I also get an increased SRP based on my late husband’s NI contributions, and half of my husband’s occupational pension, though it has caused me a lot of problems, especially complications with HMRC.
I have written all this in detail to indicate the complexity of pensions and the need to do your own research.
It is tax efficient to pay as much as you can into an occupational pension, if you have the choice, and before retirement, there is free advice from Pension Wise and other sources.
Everyone needs to be aware of their Pension Forecast, and if it is possible to take action to improve it, it is important to do so.

As I recall the person answering my call about my pitiful state pension couldn’t explain why, having 37 years full contributions, I was only going to receive the minimum. She kept insisting there must be something I’d forgotten about. She said she’d check and get back to me, which she did and this was when I had the ’paying in under one system and being paid out under another’. Hardly seems fair and I did not find this written down anywhere, so couldn’t have found this out for myself.

Doodledog

Maybe so, but surely a government has to accept responsibility for communicating things in such a way that everyone affected is aware of major changes that will affect their lives radically?

I don’t disagree, but I’m not sure that however much the government communicates something that everybody who needs to hears it. The change in the state pension age for women was on the news, it was in the newspapers, and was communicated by personal pension providers when it was first decided. I worked in the NHS, and we were told in letters attached to our payslips when it was first announced. Individual letters should have been sent, but even if they had been I suspect not everybody would have known. Knowing didn’t make it fair, but at least there was time to plan to manage.
I don’t blame anybody who was unaware, it’s so easy to be absorbed in day to day life and not plan, and even if they know not everybody has the means. I do feel very sorry for those who have lost out, but I think it should be a big wake up call to the younger generation that we all have to take full personal responsibility for our financial futures.

BTW Germanshepherdsmum, I wasn't in a bubble, was pretty well educated even at 16 and took a great interest in politics, as did my parents (I went on to work with some very famous politicians for 23 years) but not everyone can be an expert in everything. There are more than a few politicians around these days who don't seem to know their a***e from their elbow when it comes to what's going on with finances! And BTW we didn't have a chippy at the end of the road...

Thank you Doodledog - you have described exactly what happened in the past to many employees in the public sector! Who, at 16 in 1974 and from a very ordinary working class background, would have had the financial savvy or on hand advice from family, financial advisors etc. or the extra sensory perception to work out what was going to happen when they retired! I was in a union (NALGO - remember them?) but never thought to ask them about my future pension prospects as a young teenager as they and the Staff Association union that followed were pretty busy trying to save jobs in London in the 70s and 80s...no change there then!

It's really not sour grapes on my part. I'm not on the breadline, my OH was also in local government for all his working life so receives a work pension as well as a State Pension (he gets less SP than me) and as I said I'm pretty happy with my retirement payments. I just wish it was more transparent for the ordinary working person to know what they could expect so that planning was easier.

I'm very hopeful that my children and grandchildren will have more information to hand and will be able to plan properly.

There are men who are politically uninformed too. Why is a lack of knowledge 'because of other women'? And why do these people speak with Northern accents and eat at chippies?

The truth is that there are a lot of women who didn't know about the changes, and it is 100% true that the government didn't inform people, whether multisyllabically or in pictures. It really doesn't matter whether you, I or anyone else knew - many women did not.

If you don't understand how they didn't, what do you think is going on? Do you think that thousands of women have got together to pretend? Or that they are all stupid? People have different interests, and not everyone is interested in the news. The changes to women's pensions weren't plastered over the front pages. They were in financial supplements that not everyone reads. There are lots of things that some people know and others don't. This is just one of them.

I really don’t understand how anyone could be unaware. At what point do we stop saying that the government should have told everyone in words of one syllable, and start expecting people to take some responsibility for their lives and take an interest in what’s going on beyond t’chippy at t’end of t’road? What do they discuss between themselves? If one had cottoned on to the changes why weren’t they discussing it? These are women who, thanks to other women, have a vote but can’t recognise, in one example I witnessed, Starmer.. I despair.

Maybe so, but surely a government has to accept responsibility for communicating things in such a way that everyone affected is aware of major changes that will affect their lives radically?

I believe many women were unaware of the changes because they took little or no interest in what was going on outside their bubble, didn’t read newspapers or listen to the news. Occasionally you see a news item where people are stopped on the street and asked if they can recognise a photo of a really famous politician and they have no idea. People do have to accept some responsibility for their futures.

Callistemon21

^The alternative is to believe either than a whole generation of women was too stupid to make arrangements or that there is some sort of conspiracy of lies, and I'm not inclined to think that either is the case.^

I don't think there has been a deliberate conspiracy of lies by successive governments but it is all a muddle and they are guilty of lying by omission over many aspects of women's pensions or were disingenuous about the consequences of some schemes.

Sorry, my post wasn't clear. I meant that I sometimes feel that the implication is that women who were not aware of the changes are lying about it, as clearly some did pick up on it.

(I take it as read that successive governments have been 'economical with the truth )

welbeck

greater manchester police !! ??
uh, oh . . .
honest guv, it weren't me, or if it was i didn't mean it, whatever it was.

😃

Guaranteed Minimum Pension!

The alternative is to believe either than a whole generation of women was too stupid to make arrangements or that there is some sort of conspiracy of lies, and I'm not inclined to think that either is the case.

I don't think there has been a deliberate conspiracy of lies by successive governments but it is all a muddle and they are guilty of lying by omission over many aspects of women's pensions or were disingenuous about the consequences of some schemes.

greater manchester police !! ??
uh, oh . . .
honest guv, it weren't me, or if it was i didn't mean it, whatever it was.

Then there's GMP ....

Which can mean that some years there are no increases in part of a works pension

It's all very complicated and confusing.

i hardly ever opened a payslip.
i wouldn't have a clue what it should be.
i would have noticed through my bank a/c if i had not been paid at all, or it was obviously wrong.
had hundreds unopened at home.
threw most of them out recently.