Public sector monster needs to be tamed

littlemrtinkle

nice one donald, because your pension is knackered so should everyone elses!!

i dont even work for a council.

Lets be fair, these people deserve their pensions, binmen, cleaners etc all work very hard for very little money.

average pension is only £3600 a year and for women £1800

mumps

donaldtramp wrote: »

Once again, I am not jealous of the public sector (nor wish to work in it in any form)
Again, I just don't want to pay for the massive pension benefits.

Do you really think the public sector pensions are sustainable long term?
Do you have any idea what the statistics and actuarial calculations are looking like for this countries finances in the future?

You may not want to pay for the pension but the problem for you is that it was part of the deal, I signed a contract to do a job for a certain amount of money and membership of the pension scheme. Like I said earlier I had no choice about the pension scheme but that did change later. My pension will be about £5k a year (I left local govt and the pension scheme so won't get full pension). This pension isn't a gift from you, I paid my share of contributions and the employer (council representing people like you, maybe you I don't know where you live) had a commitment to pay the rest. In the 1980's the pension scheme I was a member of was "raided" by council as it had too much money in it (don't know who made that calculation) and subsidised the council tax bill (I suppose it was rates then but could have been poll tax) I don't remember anyone making a fuss about that.

Now I am in a position where I started work at 16 and paid NI on the basis i could retire at 60 (as I am female) but this has been changed, I don't get that pension until I am 63. I can get my local govt pension at 60 but i dont think I will be living a champagne lifestyle on my £5k. I think people believe alot of myths, someone talked about policemen getting pensions and that they earn good money and they could pay for their pensions, but as other people have pointed out they pay alot for their pensions. I worked as a Police civy in the 70s and alot of todays police pensioners were getting supplementary benefit in the 70s and free milk tokens for their kids because they were so badly paid. If they are doing OK now then good luck to them.

treliac

littlemrtinkle wrote: »

nice one donald, because your pension is knackered so should everyone elses!!

i dont even work for a council.

Lets be fair, these people deserve their pensions, binmen, cleaners etc all work very hard for very little money.

average pension is only £3600 a year and for women £1800

And a lot of those would be getting pension credits and income support, if they were not getting pensions. (May still be getting benefits to top-up low retirement income in fact).

littlemrtinkle

At least these people have worked all there lives, and contributed towards their retirement. unlike a lot of people who have spent their life on the dole scrounging off society..

bigheadxx

beingjdc wrote: »

It's a percentage of your final salary based on the number of years you have contributed, so yes I can opt back in, but yes I would get less - if I join at 45 and retire at 65 I would get exactly half as much pension as if I'd joined at 25.

But can you "buy" extra years?

My MIL was able to buy 3 extra years of NHS pension enablingher to bring her entitlement up to the maximum pension.

My point is that you can "top up" your qualifying years in the public sector but if you delay paying into a private pension you will lose out financially when you come to retire because your pension will have had less time to grow.

littlemrtinkle

i believe you can buy extra years, but as well as paying your contribution you also have to pay your employers contribution as well. But i stand to be corrected on this.

my personal opinion on all this is , if you have spent your life working you deserve a decent pension and retirement whether you work for the private or public sector.

beingjdc

bigheadxx wrote: »

But can you "buy" extra years?

My MIL was able to buy 3 extra years of NHS pension enablingher to bring her entitlement up to the maximum pension.

There's a thing you can do, but it's not cheap. If I were to opt back in at 45 then I could, under the present setup, pay an extra 1% per year, up to a maximum of 6%, and get 1 year's worth of contributions for that.

So opting in at 45 and paying 13% of salary would get me the equivalent of opting in at 39 and paying my "normal" contribution rate.

My point is that you can "top up" your qualifying years in the public sector but if you delay paying into a private pension you will lose out financially when you come to retire because your pension will have had less time to grow.

On the other hand anyone who has delayed paying in to a private pension over the last few years is probably thinking what a smart move they made.

bigheadxx

beingjdc wrote: »

On the other hand anyone who has delayed paying in to a private pension over the last few years is probably thinking what a smart move they made.

But in the long term you would expect that your investment pot would grow and anybody wise enough to invest now will benefit from pound cost averaging and take advantage of very low stock price. The risk is still with the individual though and not a burden on the taxpayer.

beingjdc

bigheadxx wrote: »

But in the long term you would expect that your investment pot would grow and anybody wise enough to invest now will benefit from pound cost averaging and take advantage of very low stock price.

While that's probably true (and at these prices I am a buyer of shares, not a seller) I can imagine people were saying the same thing in Japan in 1998, after the stock market fell from 40,000 to 15,000. It's now at 7,000.

donaldtramp

You may not want to pay for the pension but the problem for you is that it was part of the deal, I signed a contract to do a job for a certain amount of money and membership of the pension scheme. Like I said earlier I had no choice about the pension scheme but that did change later. My pension will be about £5k a year (I left local govt and the pension scheme so won't get full pension). This pension isn't a gift from you, I paid my share of contributions and the employer (council representing people like you, maybe you I don't know where you live) had a commitment to pay the rest. In the 1980's the pension scheme I was a member of was "raided" by council as it had too much money in it (don't know who made that calculation) and subsidised the council tax bill (I suppose it was rates then but could have been poll tax) I don't remember anyone making a fuss about that.

I'm fed up hearing this "but I'm low paid" moan!
What about the millions of low paid private sector workers who are subsidising your pension? They don't get your cast iron benefits, but they do PAY for them!!!
Woopydoo, you pay 6 % into your pension! The employer (the Council) pays in 18%!!!! (see below) This is absolutely outrageous.

Here is an exerpt from Aberdeen City Councils pension page about how they calculate pensions. The payments are increasing from the Council! From 2.5 times employers contributions to 3 times, by the end of this year!

NOBODY in the private sector gets that. and that goes for cleaners, bar staff and the millions of other "low paid" staff.

You are getting away with murder and you should at least realise you are.

Employee contributions are fixed by statute, with employer contributions
being assessed every three years by an independent Actuary, currently
Mercers to determine the level of contributions necessary by employing
bodies to ensure that the fund is able to meet all future benefits. The contribution rate, for all new employees as from 1 April 1998 is 6% of pensionable
salary. Any manual workers, in employment as at 31 March 1998
retain their 5% right.

The 2005 Actuarial Valuation indicated a funding level of 84% and an average
required employer contribution of 233% of employee contributions. As
a result a stepped increase was agreed over a three year period as follows:

Rate of Contribution

2006 / 2007 275%
2007 / 2008 285%

2008 / 2009 300%