Possibility of claiming 60% of husband's state pension rights

Dinahmo

What about those women who stayed at home in order to look after seriously ill children or perhaps in order to look after a sick parent?

I think the carer's allowance includes an NI element, so they would be covered by that (rightly).

I do feel that some have an almost Cromwellian attitude to work on this thread. We know those getting the pension while "only" working as homemakers were doing nothing wrong. We know that society wasn't set up for women to earn the same as a man, have the same education or expect to climb up any ladder equally. Some women had to work, but those were the conditions under which they did it.

As I said before, social mores change; they could easily change again. The richer countries of the world have lower and lower birth rates.

Are you going to say the same about working as you have on here if the government nudges changes that can raise the birthrate but mean less working life? We don't know what the social norm will become for, say, our great-grandchildren. What will you say to them? Having a family has been what we did for thousands of years. Having education, equality and choice are new. Our GGCs may not give that up but they may choose not to make work their God.

One thing that people don't realise is that their NI contributions didn't go towards their future pensions. Beveridge's intention was that NI should work like an insurance scheme and pay for future pensions, but that was never implemented. NI contributions, if they were ever ringfenced for the payment of pensions (which I actually doubt) , went on paying current pensioners. There is no direct connection at all between what we paid in in our working lives and what we got out when we retired. It's a fiction which it suits governments to foster.

The essential thing to understand about national finances is that state spending is not constrained by the money the state takes from its citizens by way of taxation (and NI is just another tax). Since the UK came off the Gold Standard in 1972 it has been free to issue as much money as it considers necessary to cover state expenditure.

So the question of how much money is expended by the state in pensions (and other state benefits) has been as much a political choice as a practical one. A key consideration could be whether or not a government considers that it would be right or wrong to support citizens in their old age and those who are unable to earn enough to support themselves.

While I understand how people can feel resentful of those who haven't been in gainful employment, or who made smaller contributions in the past; seeing it as unfair that they have not, apparently 'earned' a pension I can see another moral dimension for the state. That of ensuring that none of its citizens live in extreme poverty. Though, once again,to ensure this is a political choice.

As others have said; there were different expectations of the financial relationships within a marriage at the time that the 'small stamp' was introduced. Even in the 70s expectations were that a married woman would work until she started a family and then give up work to rear the children, being supported by her husband. This has changed radically since then.

I'd just add that if a woman chose to stay at home to raise her family was she any less value to society than the person she would have had to have paid to look after them if she went out to work?

Doodledog

Dinahmo

What about those women who stayed at home in order to look after seriously ill children or perhaps in order to look after a sick parent?

I think the carer's allowance includes an NI element, so they would be covered by that (rightly).

It does now, but it didn't for the women who were paying the 'small stamp'.

Pippa
What do you mean by a 'cromwellian' attitude to work ?

Are we casting aspersions on one another's viewpoints, or debating the question of pensions?

It's a lot more civilised if digs and emotional language are left out of it.

I'm not sure who has suggested that work is their God. It was certainly never mine?. Most people work to provide for themselves and their families - it's not born of a Protestant Work Ethic if that is what the Cromwell dig is about. It's about contributing to society.

When we did the political compass quiz I had no hesitation in answering the question about 'From each according to ability, to each according to need'. I think that is a sound basis for a decent society.

I also think (although I can't speak for all on here) that most people are fully aware that their contributions don't go into a pension 'pot', and that we have already paid for previous generations. I just don't think that is relevant to this discussion. It is the system we have (not necessarily the best one, but there's not much we can do about that), and to expect to get something back is not greedy or unreasonable.

Not thinking that women (or anyone) who has chosen not to work because their spouse could 'afford to' pay for them (albeit on one set of contributions between two) is not at all the same thing as wanting or wanting to allow people to live in poverty, never mind 'extreme poverty'. That is another emotive attempt at undermining an argument, and is not a fair one.

It is not a binary choice, as I'm sure you are aware, Maisie. Those people who have been supported by their partners during their 'working lives' could continue to be supported by them in retirement for instance, or there could be a combination of pensions based on contributions and old age payments to all. There are various options that would be a lot fairer than the current system.

In any case, there could and should be a safety net for everyone to ensure that they nobody spends their old age in poverty, extreme or otherwise.

It is interesting that whenever the question of money and older people comes up there are those who want to means test everything so that older people who are not rich have 'extras' taken away until they are reduced to living at a very basic level, and yet these are often the very people who support paying to those who have been able to afford not to work when they could have done so. The two things don't sit right with me.

afaik Invalid carer allowance only came in, in the late 70s and didn't include ill children. Correct me if I am wrong, but I thought it only covered those children who would have been considered for institutionalised care?

One thing I do think, however, is that legislation should not be retrospective. If someone has lived with the expectation of a pension based on their husband's, it is unfair to remove that when it is too late for them to do anything about it.

That is the grounds on which I object to the raising of the women's SPA, and the prescription payment discussion, and I think it should hold true across the piece. People need to be able to plan their lives as far as they can, and abrupt changes in financial legislation make that impossible.

Doodledog the "digs" came well ahead of my post that was a clear view (not a dig) of what I think of those who see themselves as better than others because of how they worked, when they worked, etc.

Posters put those down who behaved as society had taught them: those were pretty low on the scale of unpleasant posts. We work to live; we do not live to work. Cromwell was a Protestant. On the continent, they don't seem to believe that work is a Godly virtue and not working a sin. They did not get taken over by Protestants (the Taliban of their day). It makes me wonder if having them did us any favours at all.

But you are deciding on behalf of others that 'they see themselves as better', which is a massive assumption. As is ascribing a religious motive for people's viewpoints. Mine, for one, is very much a political view, although I wouldn't presume to speak for others.

The Taliban dig is just offensive, particularly in today's climate.

Of course it isn't an assumption. Just read, in the posts on this thread, how people have described those who didn't work as they did.

I do think you need to read the posts more carefully. I did not ascribing any religious motive to people's viewpoints. I am suggesting it has gone on to affect our general outlook on life - paticularly what we should go without to be seen as being good and what we do which is often seen as being bad.

Perhaps you can tell me how Cromwellian Protestants differed from the Taliban.

mokryna, I started work in 1970 and finally retired just a few years ago. I juggled work and bringing up a child, working up to less than a week before my due date and not returning until 11 weeks later as I had to have a C-section. I was married but my then husband wasn’t a provider so I might as well have been a single mother like you. My employer knew my situation and that I was very much dependent on my job. Like you I was not treated equally. So I did experience those times and my experience at the time wasn’t so very different from yours. I also know contemporaries of mine who elected not to work again after starting a family. I resent subsidising those who could, but chose not to, work and pay income tax and NI once their children were old enough. The time would have come when your single parent status was no longer relevant when job hunting. The days of women not being expected to work after marriage had long gone. My mother had to give up her job when she married in 1949 but she returned to work in about 1960. However this is simply defending myself against what is said or presumed. It doesn’t advance the argument.

PZ, if you’re having a dig at what I have said, I have never suggested that I am better than others but I do firmly believe that all members of society should contribute according to their individual ability and not expect to feed off others, by way of pension, health and other benefits or otherwise, if they are capable of supporting themselves. Not everyone can do that of course, owing to disability or having to care for sick relatives. That is what ‘each according to his ability’ is all about.

Doodledog, as always, puts forward a fair and reasonable argument without accusing those who have worked and paid their way of having a Puritan work ethic.

Attack the opinion if you will, but not the person expressing it.

It isn't all about you Germanshepherdsmum.

Who else were you getting at then? You are being unnecessarily offensive. Suggesting that Doodledog doesn’t read the posts carefully, asking how Cromwellian Protestants differed from the Taliban - are you serious?

Yes.

I'm sorry if my post upset you, Doodledog. It obviously wasn't my intention.

It's late and I don't have the time to try and explain, but I can see where Pippa is coming from with the 'puritan work ethic', and I believe that this has a political aspect too.

I'd just say that when the ultimate freeloader now occupying No. 10 Downing Street says that it is right to remove the £20 uplift to UC because the people who are receiving it should 'work harder' it brings home the political divide very clearly. And that divide extends to those who judge others to be undeserving because they have taken a different path through life from their own.

I must go to bed but I couldn't agree more Maisie.

I worked for the DWP, formerly DSS and DHS for 30 years. I have never forgotten a couple appearing at the counter demanding that the wife was entitled to a full state pension because she had worked for a four week period in one qualifying year only. She had never worked previously nor after. They became quite nasty despite their ages and screamed and shouted at me that due these 4 weeks she was definitely entitled to a full state pension. It was just one of the occasions I remember whilst working for the Benefits Agency/Job Centre that I encountered.

Germanshepherdsmum I started work in’65 and thanks to the Dagenham woman I think those few years (70) make a large difference in how girls were treated. Also I wasn’t bragging how late I was working before birth but that the Gas Board didn’t want me, a pregnant woman, working as soon as I was ‘showing’.

Maisie
I'd just say that when the ultimate freeloader now occupying No. 10 Downing Street says that it is right to remove the £20 uplift to UC because the people who are receiving it should 'work harder' it brings home the political divide very clearly.

I support the calls to keep the 'uplift' 100%, so we are in agreement about that.

The fact that I don't think that people who choose not to work because they can afford not to should automatically get pension credits, however, has nothing to do with my thoughts on benefits like UC. You are conflating two different things and arriving at the wrong conclusion about my thoughts. I firmly believe that benefits for the unemployed are far too low, and I also think that Johnson and his ilk are quite preposterous in their attitudes to the unemployed.

And that divide extends to those who judge others to be undeserving because they have taken a different path through life from their own.
Here we have a massive logical leap. What have I said that suggests that I think people are undeserving because their lives have been different from mine? I suppose the fact that I don't think that those who can afford not to work should not get pension credits could be seen as me thinking they don't deserve one, but I wouldn't put it like that - in my opinion they just aren't entitled to one, which is different.

A pension is something you get after a lifetime of work. Why should someone like my friend, (of whom I am very fond - I'm just using her as an example because I know her circumstances) have her NI paid for her for a total of 27 years when someone who can't afford not to work has to pay towards my friend's pension? That has nothing to do with her life having been different from mine. It has to do with basic fairness, and it does not mean that I think that anyone should live in poverty, as I said in my earlier post. Far from it - I think that nobody should do without in the fifth richest country in the world (or wherever we are in that league since Brexit). Again, you are conflating the two things and getting the wrong impression of what I am saying.

Pippa
I did not ascribing any religious motive to people's viewpoints. I am suggesting it has gone on to affect our general outlook on life - paticularly what we should go without to be seen as being good and what we do which is often seen as being bad.

Well, I think you can see from the thread about political parties' philosophies that there is not a single outlook on life. I am an atheist, and do not live my life by Protestant ethics, any more than I live it by other religious outlooks. I understand what is meant by the Protestant work ethic, and it does not describe my beliefs at all. As I have said, if there is a doctrine that describes my outlook it would be the Marxist 'from each according to ability, to each according to need', and that does not describe people being compelled to pay into a system that supports others who have more than they do. It's nothing to do with the Devil making work for idle hands, or the parable of the talents, sand I'd rather not be told what I think or why I think it.

Perhaps you can tell me how Cromwellian Protestants differed from the Taliban. Perhaps I could, but as I fail to see what either has to do with this thread, perhaps I won't bother.

that does not describe people being compelled to pay into a system that supports others who have more than they do.

That should read 'does not describe people on low pay being compelled to pay into a system that supports others who have more than they do'.

Why should someone like my friend, (of whom I am very fond - I'm just using her as an example because I know her circumstances) have her NI paid for her for a total of 27 years when someone who can't afford not to work has to pay towards my friend's pension? Doodledog Fri 03-Sep-21 02:05:44

Why should you denigrate your "friend" because her contribution was seen by the state and not by you?

Why do you continue to promote that NI is separate; that it doesn't go straight into the general tax balance. Why do you insist that your "friends'" pension came out of other's NI contributions? You must know by now that it actually comes out of general taxation currently being paid not past NI contributions.

If we were paid pensions on a balance of the tax people - or households - have contributed over a lifetime you might find a very different outcome to the one we have. The state, however, pays what is a citizen's pension to all, one way or another. Nothing you have done in the past will stop you from getting one as it is assumed you have contributed in many ways - not just the grand God "paid work", neither can you get more than a set amount. It is limited by what any current government says it can afford.

You are being snide and there really is no need.

My opinion is different from yours, and in a reasonable discussion that is fine.

I repeat - I am not denigrating my friend. I am asking a simple question about why she should be entitled to a state pension paid for by others - particularly others who may have wanted to stay at home but had no choice in the matter for financial reasons. That is not denigrating anyone.

As I have said, there is no great God work in my world - you are falsely attributing that idea to me, too.

PZ, Doodledog has not denigrated her friend (not “friend” with all those quote marks imply), she merely used her as an example of women who choose not to work because they can afford not to do so.

Why do you persist in denigrating those who have undertaken ‘the grand God “paid work”’? Many of us have had little or no choice in the matter. Many could have stayed at home but chose to have a career. Many have been unable to undertake paid work through force of circumstance. If everyone who could do paid work decided to stay at home, what levels of benefits and health care could be afforded for those who cannot work?

You asked me at the very outset if I was looking for a fight. I repeat that I am not and never have been, but there’s always someone on a thread with any possibility of controversy who will be aggressive, forcing others to defend themselves and preventing debate on the subject matter.

Doodledog

You are being snide and there really is no need.

My opinion is different from yours, and in a reasonable discussion that is fine.

I repeat - I am not denigrating my friend. I am asking a simple question about why she should be entitled to a state pension paid for by others - particularly others who may have wanted to stay at home but had no choice in the matter for financial reasons. That is not denigrating anyone.

As I have said, there is no great God work in my world - you are falsely attributing that idea to me, too.

Your opinion is different not to mine; it is different to the facts. If I was your friend I would be shocked to know this is how you talk about me. You are denigrating her choice and thereby denigrating her.

I am sorry if you felt you could not stay at home when you wanted to. Your friend decided she could and would. It may have been for the same level of high principle you have about working or out of necessity. You appear to want her to be punished for the choice she made by taking away some of the rights citizenship gives us.

You know this is nothing to do with NI payments. These payments in no way pay for the NHS, unemployment benefits, sickness and disability allowances, and the state pension. NI is a tax by any other name. NI goes into the "tax pot" at the time it is paid and goes out like any other tax at that time. NI is not accumulated for our needs or even just our pension* There would not be enough. It is a simple tool so governments can say they haven't raised taxes when they have by raising NI and acts as a tool, along with other markers, to check we have been citizens of this country for the required time.

You are, not perhaps deliberately, but you are saying you are better than your friend because you worked; she is less of a citizen. The system, which is always set up to get what government wants, does not agree with you.

*I know Maisie.