I’m happy to take your word for it but I simply googled “UK state pension 2024” and the government web site the search found stated £212.20 per week. It does highlight that not everyone has qualified for the full pension.
£212.20 is for those on the new state pension, those on the old state pension receive £167.
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Ok, so people born before 1951/1953. That is a double hit as that would mean a working life between 1966(ish) and 2015. And that often meant more people working without an employer run and contributed private pension scheme … and back in the 60’s and 70’s less information about the risks of not creating your own private pension pot. Thus a lower state pension and more likely to not have any other pension.
And its little consolation to watch house prices shoot up over that fifty years if you never had the opportunity to buy your own house.
So you have those who are a bit older being more likely to have some form of private pension, and getting a bigger state pension (even if you have to wait until your 67 to get it). Plus those who could afford to get on the property ladder at an early age reaping the benefit of house price rises (assuming they are smart enough to sell up at the right point and move somewhere with cheaper property - so means also buying in the right location). I guess if you tick all those boxes then you are in the half with above average pensions…
That’s not a luck of the draw thing, it’s just a set of linked up decisions through life for what folks see as important at any given time.
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Double eight hour shifts, and shifts at weekends to pay a mortgage, no one forces anyone to do this kind of thing but, anyone luckily enough with their health can choose to do so if they wish.
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I agree. It can be irritating to see one’s own tax revenue supporting people who failed to make provision for their own future. However within this group there will be quite a few who were never in a position to make the right decisions and arrange the necessary preparations.
I agree entirely, I was raised in a family with such restrictions
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MY state pension is £177 a week.
that would be the absolute maximum. It’s certainly not the average.
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putting all that aside, people contributed to NI in good faith that they would get a full state pension. Successive governments didn’t put that aside in a massive pensions fund, but instead rely on current year taxation to fund all the pension payments. The government have raided pensions and short charged pensioners for years until the triple lock. The triple lock is probably next in line.
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What worries me more than the fuel allowance is the talk of getting rid of the Freedom pass.
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On it’s own probably not, even though one of the largest coal fired power stations in Drax is sat upon at least 300 years worth of coal but has been converted to running on bio mass, or wood chippings imported from Canada?
Three coal fired stations have been closed down and demolished in Yorkshire. Thorpe Marsh, Eggborough and Ferrybridge, they were closed down prematurely in the rush to achieve net zero and build thousands of wind turbines and fields full of solar panels, and now massive banks of lithium batteries to supply limited power to a couple of thousand houses for one hour…Where do you suppose the money is coming from to finance these projects?
Sunak had given permission to re-commission the North sea oil and gas fields, Starmer has since closed the project down in an attempt to achieve Net Zero…Just madness!
it would take years to get that up and running. We should be focusing on nuclear, but not sure what Starmer plans for that
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The SMR installations are the way to go, but the orders need to go in now to avoid even more delays.
France has 56 operable reactors and combined they are the country’s largest generating capacity.
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Our electricity is probably nuclear generated in France. People who worry about the risks have no problems living or visiting French resorts and cities. We are right next door so any problem will be our problem too. It’s not a forever solution but it’s the best option until science finds a better way. Lithium isn’t clean energy by any means.
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Its an interesting question, why did governments rely on in-year taxation? My guess, and its only a guess, is that when NI was introduced it was first only to cover people when they could not work. Then it was hugely expanded in 1948 to also cover pensions and the NHS. I’d think that this meant for the first years of operation all the money taken from people’s earnings (and no doubt more) went towards paying for all those things that year. And the same the next year, and the next, and the next. So there never was a chance to create that fund.
I’d still point to rare periods of excessive tax funds (north sea oil, or profits from huge rises in global markets, selling off state enterprises) that these should have been used to create such a fund.
The general cost of living is higher in the south. Allowances are the same north or south but money goes further in the north.
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If you take housing costs out of the equation - is that true? Supermarket prices are the same, fuel prices are the same. If you’ve free public transport and own your own home - aren’t all other costs pretty much the same.
If money goes further in Yorkshire it might be for reasons other than what things cost…
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Because when pensions were introduced life expectancy wasn’t what it is now.
We all know Thatcher used the selling of nationalised industries as a one-off plug to bring the economy back from the 70s deficits. Even I remember how much she paraded her economic success. It was short lived of course.
I don’t know how other European economies manage their pension pot. I’m pretty sure we won’t be the only ones who haven’t saved up for it.
So anyone who has it in for big business doesn’t understand we are totally wrapped up in their success because we have to finance the living from the current year successes of the economy and that includes growth, large corporations, security and stability of the banking & financial sector. Our attraction for inward investment.
Financial stability = security of food, energy and other supplies. We are part of the system. There is no way to leave the merry-go-around.
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We have spent time in Yorkshire over the years staying with friends we met up with while holidaying in Jersey. They have spent the same amount of time here in Surrey. The last comment I made was agreed on by us all,
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