state pension - what do you need, and what do you get

aah

I am married, and wonder if I will get the state pension I have built up in my own right

- and also whether my hubby will get the state pension he has built up in his own right,

I always hear the SP described as £xx for single people and £xx for a married couple.

Is that right? If so then why? Surely our individual contributions count for us as individuals?

Can anyone help. I've got some more SP questions too....

emmal_3

Hi.Yes you will both get your own pension according to the amount you have each paid in contributions. My hubby and I both get our own pension.The married couples applies when only one spouse has paid cotributions.Hope this helps.Regards Emmal

EdInvestor

Actually there are 2 state pensions - the basic and the second state pension S2P (formerly SERPS).

If you've been paying NICS all your life (not contracted out)and get an average salary, you could get double the basic.Plenty of people now retiring with state pensions of 8-10k a year.

town.clerk

Thanks for that info on married and single state pensions, this had always confused me in the past.

Can I please ask some knowledgeable perison about Class C NICs. My wife has her online forecast state pension and will buy 10 years worth of Class Cs before she is 60 in Feb 2008. I have read various positngs and it does seem to be a no brainer to buy £3.5k worth to boost the pension by £30 a week.

However, I thought I heard a Pensions Minister being interviewed on a R4 Today Programme about the swell of complaints building up, from women retiring in the next 2 years who are complaining about the inequity of the new schemes. I don't know all the facts but those who reach 60 in 2010 will apparently receive a full pension. There seemed to a campaign to allow those affected to buy more than 10 years to be purchased. Does anyone know about such a campaign and whether any changes may be made?

Thanks
Alan

seven-day-weekend

Anybody (not just women) who reaches State Retirement age after April 6 2010 will only need to pay NI for 30 years to get the full State Pension.

Now, I reach 60 in January 2010 so am one of the people who will still have to pay 39 years. But I can still get my pension at 60, instead of having to wait. So, it's swings and roundabouts.

I have one more year's worth of contributions to buy to get full SRP.

I don't think it's 'unfair' - it will benefit a lot more people and there has to be a cut-off point somewhere. Wherever it was, someone would grumble.

isasmurf

To the OP. There is no such thing as a 'married persons' pension. The rules are the husband gets a basic state pension based on his contributions. The wife will get basic state pension based on her own contributions. This is topped up to 60% of the husbands basic state pension if the wife's basic state pension is less than this. It's this 60% topping up which is often referred to the 'married couples' pension. The wife will only get a basic state pension based on her husband's contributions when her husbands starts claiming his basic state pension.

margaretclare

isasmurf wrote: »

To the OP. There is no such thing as a 'married persons' pension. The rules are the husband gets a basic state pension based on his contributions. The wife will get basic state pension based on her own contributions. This is topped up to 60% of the husbands basic state pension if the wife's basic state pension is less than this. It's this 60% topping up which is often referred to the 'married couples' pension. The wife will only get a basic state pension based on her husband's contributions when her husbands starts claiming his basic state pension.

This is one of the things which constantly annoys me. And also the frequent reference by the Chancellor to 'pensioner couples', which assumes that they get all their income in one payment, for both. I think this harks back historically to the start of the Welfare State in the 1940s when it was assumed that the husband would earn a pension for himself and his wife, who wouldn't be at work - in Beveridge's words 'she has other duties - replenishing the population'. That idea has long gone, but echoes of it do linger a long time.

In the case of DH and me, I earned my own state pension plus SERPS, what's now called S2P. So did he, and he actually gets as much again in SERPS, total approx £170 a week rather than £87. We were already both getting our pensions when we married in 2002 and nothing changed - we both get the same as we did before. But I think his ex is getting her pension through his contributions, although she's his ex and they had a 'clean break' divorce - I think this is totally unfair. A clean break should be a clean break.

Margaret

seven-day-weekend

[quote=margaretclare;6176795]This is one of the things which constantly annoys me. And also the frequent reference by the Chancellor to 'pensioner couples', which assumes that they get all their income in one payment, for both. I think this harks back historically to the start of the Welfare State in the 1940s when it was assumed that the husband would earn a pension for himself and his wife, who wouldn't be at work - in Beveridge's words 'she has other duties - replenishing the population'. That idea has long gone, but echoes of it do linger a long time.

In the case of DH and me, I earned my own state pension plus SERPS, what's now called S2P. So did he, and he actually gets as much again in SERPS, total approx £170 a week rather than £87. We were already both getting our pensions when we married in 2002 and nothing changed - we both get the same as we did before. But I think his ex is getting her pension through his contributions, although she's his ex and they had a 'clean break' divorce - I think this is totally unfair. A clean break should be a clean break.

Margaret[/quote]

Yes Margaret, my mum and my one sister (a lot older than me) never went out to work once they were married and when their husbands claimed their State Pensions, they had a bit extra 'for the wife'. I can remember my mum saying that my dad got extra 'for her'. So I think this is where the 'married couple's pension' has come from, whereas it's not actually that, it is the man's pension topped up as he has a dependent spouse.

My friend who is only five years older than me, although she worked very hard all her married life (first of all running a large house for disavantaged young people, then in a position of leadership in a church), never paid any contributions and therefore had to rely on her husband's - but was nevertheless delighted when he got an extra £40 on his pension for her. She assumed there would be nothing!

EdInvestor

seven-day-weekend wrote: »

...when their husbands claimed their State Pensions, they had a bit extra 'for the wife'. I can remember my mum saying that my dad got extra 'for her'. So I think this is where the 'married couple's pension' has come from..

.... when he got an extra £40 on his pension for her.

I suspect what's happened here is that years ago, married couples were actually taxed as a unit (and state pensions may well have been payable in one chunk direct to the man).

Then the tax system was changed so that husband and wife's tax affairs were quite separate, allowances could not be transferred and state pensions were paid directly to each indivdiual (regardless of whose contributions the amount was based on).

So although there may now be 2 quite separate BSPs emanating from the man's NICs - one paid to him and another paid to her at 60% of his rate, people still think of the two amounts together in terms of a "married couple's pension".

It's unfortunate, because failure to realise that tax affairs have been split often leads to wastage of the wife's tax free age allowance and the withdrawal of some of the man's age allowance as too much income is in his name and not enough in hers.

I wonder what will happen after 2010, when a man can claim a 60% pension on the basis of his wife's contributions?Will people finally figure out how the system works?

margaretclare

I suspect what's happened here is that years ago, married couples were actually taxed as a unit

Yes, this was the case. It didn't change until the Budget of 1990. I recall speaking to Nigel Lawson, the Conservative Chancellor, on BBC 'Election Call' in 1998 or 1999. I'd been lobbying for this to change for the previous 20 years. I was often incensed when my husband would be written to by the tax office, about MY tax affairs! I was out at work, I paid my tax, but my earnings were considered to be 'part of his income'. There had been a loophole from the Married Women's Property Acts of the 1880s when it was assumed that most women's 'property' would refer to house property, investments etc and not earnings. I had a thick file of correspondence by the time that change came in 1990!

(and state pensions may well have been payable in one chunk direct to the man).

That possibly was the case, unless there's anyone around who's old enough to remember and tell us for certain. Women in those times were not assumed to need an income of their own - they got 'housekeeping' (I know a woman who still does!) and the man got the extra because 'he had her to keep'.

Grrrrr!

Margaret

seven-day-weekend

I'm pretty sure they were paid in one chunk to the man.
I hasten to add I do not know this first hand, I am only 57!