Boomers Pension Gravy Train Finally To Be Derailed

lisyloo

ukcarper wrote: »

According to age UK there are 1.6million pensioners in poverty and according to BBC nearly 1million of those are over 75.

I wonder what toastie would have me do with my in-laws.
They are costing quite a lot of money in healthcare and benefits.
What would he have us do? Euthanasia?
They are costing more than they have paid in, but for the lower paid who live a long time that is somewhat inevitable.
Worked all their lives though and grandfather worked with 1 missing leg and arm, no work ethic issues.

steampowered

ukcarper wrote: »

Have you got the figures to back up your claim I don't mean a newspaper article.

Click the word in my post which says "source" for the newspaper article which sets out the details.

It wasn't like that in the 1990s. Private sector defined benefit schemes had surpluses. I recall the Major government introducing measures to stop companies from squireling away too much money.

https://worksmart.org.uk/pension-advice/workplace-pensions/how-schemes-are-run/what-pension-fund-surplus-what-contributions

It was that 'economic genius' Brown who decided to tax pension funds. And thus almost private sector defined benefit scheme is in deficit and closed to new entrants.

Brown's tax changes were certainly a contributing factor, but you cannot seriously blame them for the enormous pension scheme deficits which exist today and the closure of final salary schemes. This is simply a factor of people living much, much longer than anticipated when those schemes were established.

lisyloo wrote: »

They have not had throw WHOLE lives to save, some of it yes, but any who lived through the 1920's, 30s and 40s would not have had disposable incomes or have heard of concepts like savings, pensions, longevity etc.

Babyboomers are people who were born after the second world war.

I have no problem with the generation who were born in the 1920s/30s/40s. That generation funded its pensions properly (largely because so many of them have unfortunately died - life expectancies for people of that generation were much lower - the state pension age was originally set at 65 to give people a year or two to organise their affairs before they died).

The fundamental issue is that boomers are living much longer than expected, without that generation paying for their pensions or retirement benefits, and without taxes being imposed on boomer wealth to pay for it - instead the burden is falling entirely on Gen Y and millenials.

ukcarper

steampowered wrote: »

Click the word in my post which says "source" for the newspaper article which sets out the details.


Brown's tax changes were certainly a contributing factor, but you cannot seriously blame them for the enormous pension scheme deficits which exist today and the closure of final salary schemes. This is simply a factor of people living much, much longer than anticipated when those schemes were established.


Babyboomers are people who were born after the second world war.

I have no problem with the generation who were born in the 1920s/30s/40s. That generation funded its pensions properly (largely because so many of them have unfortunately died - life expectancies for people of that generation were much lower - the state pension age was originally set at 65 to give people a year or two to organise their affairs before they died).

The fundamental issue is that boomers are living much longer than expected, without that generation paying for their pensions or retirement benefits, and without taxes being imposed on boomer wealth to pay for it - instead the burden is falling entirely on Gen Y and millenials.

That's about underfunded defined benefit pensions not the figures you posted.

lisyloo

The fundamental issue is that boomers are living much longer than expected, without that generation paying for their pensions or retirement benefits, and without taxes being imposed on boomer wealth to pay for it - instead the burden is falling entirely on Gen Y and millennials

Seems fair enough to me.

Living_proof

ruggedtoast wrote: »

Yes. Why should just younger people live in poverty and then retire in poverty?

An increase in pensioner poverty would reduce poverty in others.

Pensioners had their whole lives to save. Why are they poor?

F3cklessness. Why do I have to bail them out now when I wont get a state pension myself?

Maybe it's because of the truly horrendous inflation and mortgage rates we had to contend with in our early lives.

Maybe it's because when marriages fell apart it took (in my case) 11 years to force any contribution out of my husband. You will appreciate I didn't have any spare cash paying the mortgage on a marital home and two children to bring up.

Possibly I expected to retire at 60 and it's now 64.5 - had I know this in good time I might have sensibly put money into pension rather than savings. And savings are producing no return at all right now and in the forseeable future.

The point is that everything keeps chopping and changing and there is no way of making good provision unless you are earning megabucks and have been able to take advantage of the tax breaks for higher earners.

Our problem is that we have no time to adapt to these changes. Hopefully you and my children will.

lisyloo

Living_proof wrote: »

Maybe it's because of the truly horrendous inflation and mortgage rates we had to contend with in our early lives.

Maybe it's because when marriages fell apart it took (in my case) 11 years to force any contribution out of my husband. You will appreciate I didn't have any spare cash paying the mortgage on a marital home and two children to bring up.

Possibly I expected to retire at 60 and it's now 64.5 - had I know this in good time I might have sensibly put money into pension rather than savings. And savings are producing no return at all right now and in the forseeable future.

The point is that everything keeps chopping and changing and there is no way of making good provision unless you are earning megabucks and have been able to take advantage of the tax breaks for higher earners.

Our problem is that we have no time to adapt to these changes. Hopefully you and my children will.

I'm a woman and although my pension age has increased from. 60 to 67 I think it's. Fair on 2 grounds.
Firstly parity with men is fair - why should we retire earlier if we live longer.
Secondly we are living longer - probably more than the 4.5 (your case) and 7 years (my cas) we are being asked to work.

Sorry about your circs - sh&t happens, but why didn't you know about the change in age in 1995?

Savings rates are poor, with a long time to go people should be investing, with a short time to go people should be sacricing returns for safety so I don't see this as an issue,
Returns on investments recently have been good, but of course one should take a long term view for pensions,

Moby_Tide

lisyloo wrote: »

I'm not sure what circles you move in, but many of today's pensioners are not well off at all although there are a section with gold plated salary pensions.

One thing I take issue with is the concept that "gold plated" pensions are rare, or that only large pensions can be gold plated. Large pensions or "fat cat" pensions are indeed rare but there is a much larger number of people with pensions that range from very small to very large that pay out way more than was ever contributed to them even accounting for market forces/investment performance. That is the "gold plating", it isn't what they are worth notionally, it's what they have managed to become worth compared to what was actually paid in. That "gold plating" exists for almost no one currently, certainly for new or existing entrants to schemes.

People can choose to ignore it as a concept but until we get some form of collective schemes across vast swathes of industries/sectors to help normalise the risk and encourage participation occupational pensions especially will continue to fall through the floor. Even if it's a temporary measure for a few decades it would at least change the mindset and help spread the risk

BobQ

ruggedtoast wrote: »

If a party were finally brave enough to campaign on increasing pensioner poverty they would pick up a lot of votes from Millenials and Gen X.

You seem rather vindictive. In seems your socialist principles are flawed.

ukcarper

BobQ wrote: »

You seem rather vindictive. In seems your socialist principles are flawed.

They only seem to extend to younger people.

BobQ

breaking_free wrote: »

45 year old person here.

There are a couple of specific monetary benefits that 'oldies' had access to which young people do not.

- Free tertiary education: today's new graduates start out their working lives with eye watering loans.

- MIRAS Mortgage Interest Tax relief for homeowners: prior to April 2000 a homeowner (yes, not a buy to let landlord) could get tax relief on the mortgage interest of their family home. There's a good article on MIRAS here . Home owners could save hundreds or even thousands of pounds a year in tax. Today's buyers don't have this advantage.

MIRAS was helpful but interest rates were much higher.
Its swings and roundabouts. But that change was to equalise the treatment of mortgages and rents, now both are aid from post tax income.

The real unfairness is that non house owners have difficulty raising a deposit. It would be better to require lenders to make 100% mortgages with say 30% interest free for those earning below a median salary and living in them for say 10 years.

Free university education when I went to university was only available to about 5% of those leaving school, selected on ability. The tuition was free but the maintenance still had to be paid for except for the very poor.

The university education of today involves a much higher percentage attending. People have not become cleverer, the exams have just been made easier and courses available have a large number of obscure names that are what was then called vocational training or have limited value to employers.

You can argue all the differences you like but the fact is funding 40% is not affordable but funding 5-10% was. I know several young people that go to university for a good time, and do just enough to pass. In my day I felt so privileged to be there. The social side was not that important