in the time period that this applies to and the age group that are effected, there is no way a man paying in, in the 60's and 70's on just his wage would be enough for him and wife to have two pensions at today's money so there is an element of state support in this one group case. It is this one off group being effected in a realignment that should not be repeated again and some support should be there to ease the transition a bit more than it has been
its not state support. thats calling it a benefit, when its called a benefit, a tory will attempt to paint them as scroungers while developing the notion within the nation that scroungers are bad. its payback for decades of service to the nation.
But the state pension is a welfare benefit - it's paid out of NI receipts, on the basis of age, and the amount payable is assessed on how many years of what sort of NI contributions or credits the recipient has made. Of course in most cases the state pension is well-deserved, and there have been "decades of service to the nation", but that isn't always true - the system does not make value judgements, it operates with a set of rules. NI is a tax on employment (and quite separate and different from income tax - after all, it is not paid by those over state pension age, and it's paid by both employer and employee), and it is mainly used to fund the state pension, because very few other benefits are now based on NI contribution record. There's no long-term NI "pension fund" and we all have to accept that when we pay NI, we are paying a tax, and what we are doing is paying for the current state pension paid out to those who receive it. Fortunately, in doing so, we obtain some potential future "credit" which will affect what sort of state pension we may receive when we're old enough - if we live to get there. And scroungers are bad, but we don't know how many there are - a good example would be someone who works for cash, but signs on as unemployed and in doing so receives NI credits (so "earns" state pension without paying anything); how many people are in that category, I have no idea, and nor does HMG.
@finm how can it be payback if nothing was paid in? I bet there are over a million in the U.K. who would fit that bill.
State pension isn’t a welfare benefit imo. It’s a promise of support for all in retirement in retirement fornsupporting those in retirement during their working life.
bearing and bringing up children isnt paying in to society? give it several years and we will be paying em double just to have kids. birth rates are dropping big time across the globe.
Muslim and Catholic and Protestant and Jewish and Buddhist and agnostic and atheist countries like the uk?. like most countries across the globe then. there was quite a lot of this i heard on my commute on the radio yesterday, (the only time i listen to the news now) it seems they are getting a lil worried about future birth rates.
... which is presumably why the system gives NI credits to women claiming child benefit for children up to the age of 12. And the birth rate in the UK is pretty static at present, although with wide variation.
quite possibly. not overly clued up, just picking up bits and bobs by following mhari black, she has been championing the waspi woman across the uk for a couple of years now, birth rates seem to come up in the course of the subject from time to time.
Populations in `Africa, Middle East, Asia continue to grow. China have removed the 1 child restriction.
because the number of girls born sugest there is a bit of gender related abortion going on. they predict a leveling out of births in 3rd world countries as education and mortality rates improve there.
Won’t happen. While contraception is banned and women are seen as bearers and home makers, which seems to be deepening not weakening,
Fairish point, how ever it is a benefit, the point of calling it that is that it should benefit those who are unable through multiple reasons. The fact it is a benefit and an agreed one time generational change to bring everything into legal equality, she be recognised as the one off attempt to balance and reduce those effected. It's not too much to ask
Indeed. Entitlement to the various types of benefits (including pensions) is decided on rules about contributions, means, age, availability for work, etc but not on the basis of being "deserving". The claimant does not have to demonstrate how deserving they are, nor are benefits refused because someone is "undeserving". The value judgements are made by politicians at the stage when the rules are being set, and apply to criteria and categories not to individuals. If anyone wants to argue that some aspect of the system is unfair, by all means let them do so. But they really need to say how the rules should be amended to become fairer and what the consequences would be. Just saying 'they won't give me any money so it's unfair' is not enough.
There is no long-term government fund for anything. All public expenditure in a given year April to April is paid out of receipts in that same year, or from borrowing. Nothing is "funded" in the way some types of private expenditure can be. This principle applies just as much to pensions as to everything else - health, education, defence, justice, etc.
The pensions equalisation process began with the 1995 Act (itself passed following much debate), and took over 20 years to work through. Are you saying that was too short a time? What would you suggest, 25 years? 30 years? More?
I am not the one complaining about the laws which we actually have - you are @portboy . When I asked you what you wanted, instead of responding coherently you offered only insults. So I tried asking @noobie on the offchance that he might have something meaningful to contribute. Aren't I an optimist?
