NI credits at school

Snaaap

Hi all

For the first time I used the HMRC website which allows you to check your NI contributions.

To my surprise I have 11 full years of contributions when I've only been working for 8 years, which began after uni.

As expected, I had three years of gaps during uni. The strange part (to me) is that the three years before I went to uni, starting with the year in which I turned 16, all have 52-53 weeks worth of NI credits which make them full years of contribution.

I cannot think why- nothing I've read suggests that credits are given for full time school/sixth form education. I did not work or claim JSA or anything at that time. Just a lazy kid who did nothing during the holidays.

Perhaps someone here could explain?

If there is not a simple explanation for it then the only thing I can think of is that when I signed on for 6 weeks after uni, I correctly received NI credits for those 6 weeks, but maybe they were also mistakenly backdated?!

p00hsticks

The years of people's 16th, 17th and 18th birthdays used to be automatically creditted.

I believe this was so as not to disadvantage those wishing to remain in education beyond the age of 16 when in order to qualify for a full basic state pension a man needed 44 years of NI credits and a woman 39 (with a man reaching state pension age at 65 and a woman at 60), so there was very little scope to miss years.

These credits were done away with in 2010 when the number of years required for a full pension was reduced to 30 for both sexes.

<Edit> see paragraph 25 in the document below which discussed NI credits in relation to the intorduction of the single tier pension in April 2016 (which increased the requirement for a full pension to 35 years).

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/209123/national-insurance-single-tier-note.pdf

Snaaap

Thanks very much for clearing that up!

Mrs_Ryan

Yes I wondered this as well. Thanks!