Food Banks and Poverty- was Nye right?

Thank you Tooting. At last, someone that reads what’s written rather than looking for where exception can be made. Apparently having a robust view to achieving a better life is being rude! Perhaps it’s very rude to wonder whether someone is returning her pension to the treasury.... at least I have conviction rather than a tendency to contradict myself.

We never know what life is going to throw at us.

Occasionally words fail me at the breathtaking ignorance of some people! I use the word ignorance not in a pejorative sense, but in amazement that people can be so unknowing of the wider context of many other people’s lives. There are people, many people, who live lives of desperation that are not of their own making. I could very easily have been one of them, but for sheer luck.

Yes, I have worked hard, but then so has my older brother, yet our paths in life diverged when he became epileptic and I did not. His (old fashioned) medication dulled his brain and left him learning disabled; nevertheless he worked as a gardener on basic pay. Our lives diverged further when he became unable to work due to having a crumbling spine. His disability is due to no fault of his own and yet without a huge amount of support from his family he could easily have ended up homeless.

In addition to his spinal problem he currently has a brain tumour, recently had a heart attack, has diabetes - and yet still has to go for medical assessments to see if he’s entitled to PIP payments (used to be DLA). My brother doesn’t smoke, but he goes to the pub once a week for a pint and to play darts (he’s in a team). It’s not a secret that he’s on Benefits so I would not be surprised if people make assumptions about his lack of an obvious disability and decry the fact that he can ‘afford’ to drink.

Yes, I understand now, thanks Doodledog

I think this happens in Australia but I hope it never happens here.

Well, bravo to you JenniferEccles. I expect a lot of us really appreciated that story of hard work and self-sacrifice.

I never used a childminder or nursery to look after our children. As I said, I gave up work just before my first child was born.

We had two mortgages because we bought another property as an investment having seen how the housing market was rising.

Even then we were thinking about ways to provide for ourselves in retirement, and property seemed the way to go.

We had to make a lot of sacrifices to save the deposit but once we bought the house we put a tenant in and the rent covered the mortgage.

Property has been a good investment over the years.

I am missing the point about occupational pensions too, Doodledog, subsidising state pensions for people who paid nothing in. Occupational and state pensions are separate.

Sorry if I wasn't clear. I meant that if someone has an occupational pension, the chances are that they would not qualify for a state one if it became means tested. This would mean that the fact that they had paid twice (both to the occupational pension and in NI contributions) would be used against them, whereas someone who had not paid in anything, because they did not have an occupation, would qualify for a means tested state pension.

GracesGran Has the term 'benefit' always been used as it is now, though? Genuine question. I don't remember people being 'on benefits' until relatively recently - there was 'the dole', or 'social security', but I wonder if 'benefit' is a more recent usage, which may well use a word that has been used in passing in the past, but not as the catch-all it is now.

I certainly don't think that my mum sees her pension as a benefit in the sense of a handout, even though she left work at 23 when she was pregnant with me, nor my grandmother, who also got a pension at 60.

This is probably because it has not been means tested, and so has been seen as a right after a lifetime of work (whether in the home or also in the workplace) allowing older people to claim it with dignity and without being made to feel like a drain on resources.

Surely no-one receives a pension they didn't pay in for do they?

I am missing the point about occupational pensions too, Doodledog, subsidising state pensions for people who paid nothing in. Occupational and state pensions are separate.

I've read it twice, but it is late so if I misunderstood please excuse me.

My employers did GagJo they were nuns and very kind to me and daughters . I wasn’t working before and when my husband died,

I think you may have missed this Doodledog

Use of the word “benefit” for retirement pension (latterly known as State Pension) has always been classified in law from the time of the 1946 National Insurance Act, which applied from the inception of the National Insurance scheme.

No one has reclassified it. What has been done is the word has been made a derogatory one and now those who use it in that way don't like it to be attached to anything the government pays them.

I REALLY resent having paid so much NI and getting no pension. I even paid Class 3 contributions while working overseas to ensure my pension was fully covered.

As it stands, I feel my class 3 contributions should be refunded.

Both my grandmothers worked and my mother worked. I was enormously grateful when my ex left me with three boys to bring up that I had qualified as a teacher and was able to earn my own living. It saved our family, we weren't rich but we managed. Happy New Year to all

I think that a lot of people who have paid NI for decades object to being told that the pension is a benefit. It is galling to think that something we were told would be paid to us on retirement because we had paid for it is now being sneakily reclassified as a benefit, with its connotations of a payment that is made to those who can't provide for themselves. We thought we were providing for our old age by paying in, but the goalposts have been moved before our eyes.

I honestly think that this is deliberate Newspeak to make it easier to means test it, so that yet again, those who have worked and make some sort of provision via an occupational pension will be subsidising those who chose not to contribute by not working and paying NI, who will be the ones getting a pension they didn't pay for. Ironically, these are often the people who could afford not to work when their children were young, so it would be very unfair if they get pensions that are denied to those who did pay in, as well as paying for childcare etc.

Yes, if the system continues young people will pay our pensions, but we paid the pensions of the generations before ours, and (in my generation at least) this included paying for a lot of women who retired at 60, despite not having worked or contributed at all. People may be living longer (although that trend is reversing) but it certainly seems as though the number of women working is much higher than it was when I was a child, so there are more people paying into the coffers.

I do get GracesGran's point though. There are a lot of pensioners.?

Goodnight. I hope you all have a good 2020.

How did you survive after you were widowed if you didn't work? Nice to not have to. Most employers would give you a couple of weeks off work at the absolute outside maximum.

Most employers would also not pay you for time off work with sick children. Of course, those on zero hours contracts would have no sick leave OR leave with sick children.

You have been a lot more fortunate than most.

I didn’t work , my husband worked shifts , then went on CID, and I loved being with our daughters. They were 5 & 7 when he died so certaintly couldn’t work then, my daughters were too young and had to work through their grief. I did work when they went to the high school , was given all school holidays off on half pay and if they were home ill the nuns had no problem with me staying home to care for them

Of course state pension is a benefit. I have paid a lot more contributions than I need to draw a pension, but currently my pension age is 67 and there are reports of it increasing to 75.

IF my pension was an entitlement, based on my contributions, I would draw my pension at a reasonable age (I accept not 65, BUT 75 is not reasonable).

Anyway!

Sorry.

I know that strictly speaking it is termed a benefit. But I feel it can only be termed a benefit for those who didn't contribute. And even if we paid for those who retired before us as one poster said, it is still paid for.
I just don't like how its perceived. My stepson told me his generation are paying for our big (?) pension. Actually those retiring now have a bigger pension. My BiL age 65 gets £175. Anywag that's off topic.

My mum didn't work, so it came as quite a shock to her when she was widowed young and got herself a job.

I think it was really important to my dad to be able to "keep" his family.

hettymaud good on your relative! I hope it works out and I'm glad he's had help.

Many prison leavers don't fare well though, which is regrettable as many end up back inside.

Funny old world...my Grandmother, a Victorian ( I kid you not) worked as a dinner lady, taking in washing and ironing. My mother worked part time. I cobbled together something that kept us together as a family, with no help and a partner who worked shifts.

I don't really know of any women who just stopped working.

My mother didn’t work, no brain washing, she didn’t go out to
work, I think the fact her mother died giving birth to her gave her the joy of mother and child/children relationship.She was unpaid carer for elderly family members. So worked very hard .

That includes mental health, and with 1 in 4 people suffering issues, it's easy to see how they can get lost, overlooked, dismissed and 'punished' in a way.