Higher and Lower rate of State Pension,. This really needs changing

Brahumbug

There is a lot of nonsense in this thread about pensions. The new pension is not £221 a week, that is the maximum that some one starting contributing after 2026 can get. Currently most people are in transitional arrangements which will continue for decades. The basic pension of £169 could be topped up by SERPS and S2P which can take the pension to over £300 a week. Many pensioners get far more than £221 under this system. The new pension got rid of SERPS and S2P. Accumulated rights under the old system were reflected in the starting amount of the new pension, plus a deduction for any years that people were contracted out. If your starting amount was less than the full pension then contributions after 2016 would increase it to the new maximum but no further. Under the old system you would have been able to build further pension entitlement. So the new pension is actually worse than the old. If you get less than the full new pension then you would never have qualified for it anyway. I personally know several pensioners on the old pension who revive well in excess of £270 a week. The state pension in this country is actually generous considering the amount of money we pay into it in national insurance.

Your post is well worth repeating, Brahumbug. The situation is very complex.

I stopped work at 60 to help out my family with childcare, but finally got my state pension in 2021 at 66. I fell into the transitional arrangement period that must have applied to many others on here.

I had 41 years of contributions up to when I left work. Just before my 66th birthday I was sent a letter clearly detailing

a) what pension I was entitled to under the old system (including, as you say, extra payments for superann, S2P etc that I’d made) and

b) what I was entitled to under the new system (where the years I’d paid into a local govt scheme no longer counted).

The difference was less than £5 a week, and I was to get the higher of the two. Because I stopped work at 60 and my state pension age had been raised to 66 the amounts were both very low.

I boosted the amount to its maximum by claiming Specified Adult Childcare contributions for the six years I looked after my grandchildren, and I paid £3200 to buy in an extra 4 years. But my pension is still well under the new state pension sum quoted so often on here. That is the maximum anyone can get, as you say, and I’ve also read that only around half of claimants get it.

Mine on the old rate is rather less than £150 per week by the time I had four years short of 39 years, was contracted out for a while etc.

Receiving £169.50 pw for 35 years of contributions would be good!

Maybe those on £270 pw are widows getting extra because of their late husband’s contributions in addition to their own entitlement?

Brahumbug, it is interesting that you know several pensioners on the old rate who receive £270 a week. I am on the old rate, and no one I know on this receives anything like that: not one person.
To make it absolutely clear, I worked for forty years, taking just a few months out with each baby.
And, I am not complaining, simply stating facts.

Mollygo

There is a lot of nonsense about pensions on here. DSis on full pension receives around £170 PW. It doesn’t matter to her how many people say oh it isn’t true that the new pension isn’t more.

Sorry but you are wrong. The new pension is a maximum, not an automatic entitlement, only around half of claimants recieve the full pension. Many on the old pension receive far more. People's circumstances vary depending on their contribution history, if any is receiving less than the pension credit limit then they should check if they are entitled to any further help.

Brahumbug £884.80 is the state pension amount I (and several other people I know) every four weeks.

Allsorts

If you have worked all your life and paid all you NI contributions you are entitled to a pension you can live on.
Yes but some who have worked all their lives and paid all their NI contributions get a smaller pension to live on and a smaller amount than no-workers can get from pension credits.

If you have worked all your life and paid all you NI contributions you are entitled to a pension you can live on. However if you have not contributed due to a failure of not bothering to but picking up work here and there you cant expect the same. I know quite a few who fit into that category

Why does anyone expect to be paid for just being alive is a good question.
And for those who have worked all their lives, and paid tax and NI though possibly not in jobs which gave occupational pensions, the knowledge that people expect, and get pension payments just for being alive is hard to take.
Knowing that they will get more simply for being born later is even harder.
Pension credits, which you can get even if you haven’t worked, top up to £218.15 if you’re single, but someone who just has a state pension they only get around £170 pw if they were born before 1951.

But a pension is meant to be a payment for years of working that allows you to live past the age where you are no longer ‘serviceable’.

If you have never given service outwith your own home, how does that work? I don’t how anyone can expect ‘society’ to pay them to do nothing other than bring up their own children and clean/run their own home and then pay them a salary when they reach a certain age. We all do those things, but most people also go out to work.

Occupational pensions cost money. Those who have them have paid significant amounts into them, yet can find that this works against them as those who opted out of work, (and with that option stopped contributing by way of taxation) still get provided for, and can claim means-tested benefits whilst complaining that they don’t get as much as those who paid in for decades.

Many do get more, to the frustration of those who have paid in, as pension credit opens the door to so many payments denied to those who have contributed by working.

Why does anyone expect to be paid just for being alive? It seems to me that those who have this expectation are often the same people who complain about asylum seekers and others they perceive as taking rather than giving.

There is a lot of nonsense about pensions on here. DSis on full pension receives around £170 PW. It doesn’t matter to her how many people say oh it isn’t true that the new pension isn’t more.

The level of the pension has nothing to do with waiting an extra 6 years, that is a separate issue.

There is a lot of nonsense in this thread about pensions. The new pension is not £221 a week, that is the maximum that some one starting contributing after 2026 can get. Currently most people are in transitional arrangements which will continue for decades. The basic pension of £169 could be topped up by SERPS and S2P which can take the pension to over £300 a week. Many pensioners get far more than £221 under this system. The new pension got rid of SERPS and S2P. Accumulated rights under the old system were reflected in the starting amount of the new pension, plus a deduction for any years that people were contracted out. If your starting amount was less than the full pension then contributions after 2016 would increase it to the new maximum but no further. Under the old system you would have been able to build further pension entitlement. So the new pension is actually worse than the old. If you get less than the full new pension then you would never have qualified for it anyway. I personally know several pensioners on the old pension who revive well in excess of £270 a week. The state pension in this country is actually generous considering the amount of money we pay into it in national insurance.

I accept the point that younger pensioners had to wait longer for their pensions. It’s been a bitter pill to swallow, but is anyone seriously saying that some pensioners should be able to manage to live on £200 less per month or £3000 less per year?

Imagine having to work for so much longer if you have ill health and struggling!!

Imagine having to leave work in your late 50s through ill health.

Poppyred

Those on the lower rate were able to retire 6years (!!)before the ones on the higher rate and are able to get pension credit if you don’t have an occupational/private pension as well.

We WASPIs had to work another SIX years for the same state pension and the higher amount reflects this. Imagine having to work for so much longer if you have ill health and struggling!!

I totally agree with you as another WASPI woman

rafichagran

Basic state pension rate x 6 years. Waspi have said this us what people on the new state pension lost waiting to get their state pension.

Plus if you chose not to retire at 60 under the old system, and carried on working your NI contributions ceased.

Doodledog

Women who paid a lower stamp get a lower pension. That's fair enough, but I understand that many didn't have that made clear to them at the time, which is not fair at all.

On the other hand, people on the old pension could top it up with SERPS, and could inherit their husbands' pensions, so many women, such as my mum (who didn't work for most of her married life but paid as much as possible into SERPS when she did get a job. She did this at about age 48 before retiring at 55 and inheriting my father's pensions at 57) yet has a higher pension income than I do. I am still waiting for a state pension and will have clocked up 50 years of working and paying NI when I finally get it. My occupational pension (which was not free) is taxed, as are my earnings.

I retired in my late 50s as my husband is older than me, and the plan had been that we would retire when I was 60 and he 65. I was able to do that as I'd saved enough to get me through to 60 when I could claim my occupational pension (which is much reduced because of the laws forbidding people without permanent contracts to join occupational pension schemes which were in place when I was younger) but many women are not in that position.

In order to get the full state pension I had to pay 8 years of voluntary contributions - about £6000 I think - as I was contracted out, and although I am still working now (and still paying tax and NI) I don't work every month, so don't clock up full years of contributions, and partial ones count for nothing. If (heaven forbid) my husband died, I would get some of his occupational pension, but his state one will die with him, which was not the case for women on the old pension.

The new pension is only a good deal if compared to those on the old one who didn't pay the full stamp and SERPS contributions, who don't claim from their husbands' pensions and who don't get pension credit. SERPS is no longer a thing, so however much NI you pay your pension is capped at £220 a week, you can't inherit someone else's state pension, and I don't think anyone on the new pension can claim PC. It's not just the few pounds a week that PC brings in but the gateway to so many benefits and allowances that are denied women on the new pension - so it's yet another example of how working and contributing counts against people in the end.

It's a mess. I would absolutely support the differentials if we'd all had a choice about whether to pay W or X amount in return for Y or Z pension, but that wasn't the case. All we can do is what is asked of us at the time, and whereas I don't approve of giving pension contributions to those who choose not to work, it wouldn't be fair to withdraw the payments those subsidies bought, as the claimants were led to expect the state to pay for their pensions, and acted in good faith.

Going forward, I would love to see a proper binding contract, so everyone is told that if they pay £X for Y years they will get Z pension, with a review every five years so they can work out what to do if there is a shortfall. It should also be made clear what will and will not be available to those who opt out of contributing. I don't mean those who are ill or disabled, or those looking after the ill or disabled, but those who choose to stay at home with school age children and expect others to pay for it.

I agree, it’s a complete mess!

silverlining48

We didn’t retire early, 60 was the women’s state retirement age for years. 65 for men.
Then it changed slowly a bit at a time, to reach equality at 65. My friend retired at 61.5 years another at 62.75 years etc.etc so it was gradual, no one jumped from 60 to 67.
I don’t understand this lack of empathy for those of us who worked and paid 45 years, yes me, yet get so much less. It’s not our fault it’s not yours, surely we should stick together.

It didn’t change slowly for some of us! Mine went from 60 to 66 in one jump!

Are people on the newer state pension rate entitled to claim housing benefit? This is a huge help for people renting their homes.

Sorry if I’ve missed the answer in all the details.

Women who paid a lower stamp get a lower pension. That's fair enough, but I understand that many didn't have that made clear to them at the time, which is not fair at all.

On the other hand, people on the old pension could top it up with SERPS, and could inherit their husbands' pensions, so many women, such as my mum (who didn't work for most of her married life but paid as much as possible into SERPS when she did get a job. She did this at about age 48 before retiring at 55 and inheriting my father's pensions at 57) yet has a higher pension income than I do. I am still waiting for a state pension and will have clocked up 50 years of working and paying NI when I finally get it. My occupational pension (which was not free) is taxed, as are my earnings.

I retired in my late 50s as my husband is older than me, and the plan had been that we would retire when I was 60 and he 65. I was able to do that as I'd saved enough to get me through to 60 when I could claim my occupational pension (which is much reduced because of the laws forbidding people without permanent contracts to join occupational pension schemes which were in place when I was younger) but many women are not in that position.

In order to get the full state pension I had to pay 8 years of voluntary contributions - about £6000 I think - as I was contracted out, and although I am still working now (and still paying tax and NI) I don't work every month, so don't clock up full years of contributions, and partial ones count for nothing. If (heaven forbid) my husband died, I would get some of his occupational pension, but his state one will die with him, which was not the case for women on the old pension.

The new pension is only a good deal if compared to those on the old one who didn't pay the full stamp and SERPS contributions, who don't claim from their husbands' pensions and who don't get pension credit. SERPS is no longer a thing, so however much NI you pay your pension is capped at £220 a week, you can't inherit someone else's state pension, and I don't think anyone on the new pension can claim PC. It's not just the few pounds a week that PC brings in but the gateway to so many benefits and allowances that are denied women on the new pension - so it's yet another example of how working and contributing counts against people in the end.

It's a mess. I would absolutely support the differentials if we'd all had a choice about whether to pay W or X amount in return for Y or Z pension, but that wasn't the case. All we can do is what is asked of us at the time, and whereas I don't approve of giving pension contributions to those who choose not to work, it wouldn't be fair to withdraw the payments those subsidies bought, as the claimants were led to expect the state to pay for their pensions, and acted in good faith.

Going forward, I would love to see a proper binding contract, so everyone is told that if they pay £X for Y years they will get Z pension, with a review every five years so they can work out what to do if there is a shortfall. It should also be made clear what will and will not be available to those who opt out of contributing. I don't mean those who are ill or disabled, or those looking after the ill or disabled, but those who choose to stay at home with school age children and expect others to pay for it.

rafichagran

I am on the new state pension, I retired at 66. The last two years were a real slog, that's the reason, I feel we deserve more.

The pension system is a mess, I feel bad for women though who were born in 1953, who had to work longer but still recieved the basic state pension.
I get the new state pension but less money per week as I have occ pension which I pay tax on. The old state pension do not take your occ pen into account.
The whole system is a mess

Those born before April 1953 get the old state pension, but still had to wait several years to get their pension.

1953 women were particularly badly hit. Those born January 1953 received their pension several years before those born in December 1953. This was due to Cameron/Osborne changing the delivery of raising state pension age with the Pension Act 2011.

But it wasn't that amount years ago.
And for those with 35 years of contributions it s not thst much now.

The women who fall into that 3 year gap are the ones who most urgently need their case re-addressed.

Basic state pension rate x 6 years. Waspi have said this us what people on the new state pension lost waiting to get their state pension.

If you have had 6 years longer you have probably had roughly 45k more than the new state pension, this may not be the exact amount

Where do you get £45,000 from 😮