The economics of pensions - what should the country do?

Tromking

Sapphire wrote: »

Well, I don't know anyone like that, so I can't really comment on it, though I would probably agree that it doesn't seem 'fair' that some can retire at 55 on those government DB pensions, while others who have perhaps worked much harder and for longer, cannot do so and are often very badly off.

An ever diminishing problem it has to be said. Those ‘leave at 55’ pensions haven’t been available for over 30 years in my area of the civil service. Hyperbole at work on this thread perhaps?

kabayiri

Tromking wrote: »

An ever diminishing problem it has to be said. Those ‘leave at 55’ pensions haven’t been available for over 30 years in my area of the civil service. Hyperbole at work on this thread perhaps?

A Head of Department teacher friend has just retired at 55, and this person told me the pension was 30K per annum.

They don't have a habit of lieing....so why wouldn't this be true?

Another example...there is a an ex-policeman/police trainer not far from here, who retired early 50s. Police work is supposed to be physically limiting beyond this age, and yet now he does physical painting and decorating work. He can afford to undercut the youngsters too, on rate.

How isolated these examples are I can only surmise.

antrobus

Tromking wrote: »

An ever diminishing problem it has to be said. Those ‘leave at 55’ pensions haven’t been available for over 30 years in my area of the civil service. Hyperbole at work on this thread perhaps?

The Normal Pension Age in the 2015 scheme is age 60. However, police officers will be able to start to draw their pension, with a reduction, if they retire after reaching minimum pension age (55).
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/police-pension-reform

kabayiri

ilovehouses wrote: »

...
So what? Maybe his pension is crap and he's having to supplement it with painting and decorating which isn't physically demanding by the way. Most of the painters and decorators I know are 'old timers' supplementing pensions of one sort or another.

I know his situation, and believe in free will and all that.

I was just making the wider point that when people pick up work like this in their later years, obviously younger people are not able to access it.

It's these same younger people we want to start saving in earnest for their retirement.

Not an easy balancing act really.

Herzlos

So is the solution to make it possible to retire at retirement age for more people? Or to provide more money to those starting out? Maybe the government should scrap the HTB nonsense and use that money to start a private pension for everyone when they turn 16. Even £1k in the pot at 16 will give them a reasonable starting point after 51 years of market growth/interest.


This thread has been fairly enlightening; I'm assessing how much I really should be paying into my pension pot, as I'm aware I'm nowhere near the target 15%.

Herzlos

Tromking wrote: »

An ever diminishing problem it has to be said. Those ‘leave at 55’ pensions haven’t been available for over 30 years in my area of the civil service. Hyperbole at work on this thread perhaps?

I know a few 'leave at 60', many of whom left artificially early to head off pension changes that'd leave them worse off. Personally I don't blame them, I'd do the same thing.

lisyloo

ilovehouses wrote: »

Unlikely to happen but much depends whether your tokens have any value sufficient for someone to consume less than they produce so they can give the surplus to you.

There's only ever one pie too so people might be happy to work for tokens but you don't have enough tokens.

If you have a pension that's around the median wage, then I would suggest you'll be able to purchase food/shelter (otherwise 50% of the country won't either).


If I've understood what you've said correctly - that pensioners on incomes similar to median or low paid workers won't be able to afford to eat, then I think that's scaremongering.

lisyloo

Sapphire wrote: »

I'm very pleased that your relatives' experiences were rather better than mine and friends' of mine. It is heartening to read of it. It may depend on the area you live in (don't know where Banes is, or do you mean Barnes?).

BANES is an acronym for Bath and North East Somerset (you might have heard of Jacob Rees-Mogg).

However, in the case of my family member, any care has been rather grudgingly given, with much procrastination, and certainly lack of efficiency and speed when rapid care is greatly needed. I don't think my relatives would ever have wanted coffee mornings and the like, since they've always been very private people. In fact, they would have kicked up something of a fuss had anyone tried to take them to such events.

A certain amount will depend on individual social workers.
Luckily ours were able to see past a Dad who said he needed nothing and understood that some people will understate their needs (and vice versa). They also understood that keeping people safely in their homes is cheaper than residential care.
Yes suere not everyone wants the day center and a good social worker will work out what the individual needs. It was an example of the generosity which I believe was partly based on the economy fact that if people can be kept well then they can be kept out of the (more expensive) care facilities.

I'm amazed that yours got £600 a week between them! That's certainly not the case with mine

Pensionsx2, pension creditx2, attendance allowancex2, carers allowancex2.
Is she/you claiming everything you can?
A disabled couple certainly benefit from the current rules as they both get attendance AND carers for each other (doesn't make sense to me).


She should certianly be able to claim about £90 attendance allowance on top of pension and pension credit so shouldn't be destitute.

In the latest case involving my family, the person is in desperate need of care (she is now very ill with dementia), since she cannot look after herself and it is dangerous for her to be at home on her own (she is doing things like standing on chairs to 'rearrange' pictures, and worse, and cannot even manage to get dressed in the right clothes, without going into further details). Such a person needs to have specialized care in a home, even though people do come twice a day to cook for her, and all her shopping, washing and so on is done for her by the family, and her cooker is locked after she tried to cook something in a plastic bowl, which melted (very dangerous).

I agree - sounds like she has lost the capacity to make safe decisions.

Has she had a formal diagnosis?

Has she been referred to social services?
Did a family member attend their assessment?
Has it been pointed out to social services that it would be much cheaper to keep her safe in her own home than in residential care?



BTW - has she given power of attorney?
If she's capable of doing it then do it now.
My MIL would not let anyone else be in control so would not agree so I'm now going through the labourious and expensive process of claiming deputyship via the court of protection in order to sell her home to pay for care fees.


In the past the tactic was for social services to try to rely on relatives so they would refuse help to see if close relatives would step in. Don't take this the wrong way but did you fall into that "trap" of offering help?

michaels

Herzlos wrote: »

So is the solution to make it possible to retire at retirement age for more people? Or to provide more money to those starting out? Maybe the government should scrap the HTB nonsense and use that money to start a private pension for everyone when they turn 16. Even £1k in the pot at 16 will give them a reasonable starting point after 51 years of market growth/interest.


This thread has been fairly enlightening; I'm assessing how much I really should be paying into my pension pot, as I'm aware I'm nowhere near the target 15%.

If you assume your working life is 40 years and you retirement period 30 years and you want your retirement gross income to be 2/3 of your employed gross income then simple maths says to need to be saving 33% of your gross income every year.

Sapphire

lisyloo wrote: »

BANES is an acronym for Bath and North East Somerset (you might have heard of Jacob Rees-Mogg).

I agree - sounds like she has lost the capacity to make safe decisions.

Has she had a formal diagnosis?

Has she been referred to social services?
Did a family member attend their assessment?
Has it been pointed out to social services that it would be much cheaper to keep her safe in her own home than in residential care?

BTW - has she given power of attorney?
If she's capable of doing it then do it now.
My MIL would not let anyone else be in control so would not agree so I'm now going through the labourious and expensive process of claiming deputyship via the court of protection in order to sell her home to pay for care fees.


In the past the tactic was for social services to try to rely on relatives so they would refuse help to see if close relatives would step in. Don't take this the wrong way but did you fall into that "trap" of offering help?

Thank you for the info. That's a good area you live in.

She had a formal diagnosis about two years ago, and she has been assessed by social services, with family members attending the assessment. It definitely wouldn't be a good idea to 'keep her safe in her own home than in residential care', since now that the disease has progressed to the stage it has she needs specialized, 24-hour care. There is no sense to anything she does, and as mentioned she could injure herself 'tidying' things (which basically involves trashing the place, for instance taking pictures from walls while standing on chairs, and making sandwiches with tea leaves and the like). Everything in a home is potentially dangerous for a person in that condition. She does have people coming twice a day to cook her meals (which she sometimes hides in drawers, where we find them), but that is basically it – and it was a drawn-out process with the Council to get her this care.

I myself organized Power of Attorney about three years ago, when she was still compus mentis (managed to do it just in time). It wasn't that easy, because she always liked to be in control of everything. It is shared between three people, who each consult each other on all decisions, and that part works well. In fact, I don't know how things would be if we didn't have PoA, because she has been unable to understand any paperwork for two years or more. It enables us to do things like access her bank account to do the shopping for her, organise her utilities and insurance, and so on. It takes ages to organise a PoA, especially if you DIY it rather than going through a solicitor, but it is worth it. I don't know where she would be if the family didn't have PoA.

No one in the family is in a position to give her the help she needs. As mentioned, she now needs specialized care. However, even before this it would have been impossible because relatives all work, and there are other, personal reasons that I cannot go into why it couldn't happen. The family visit her, do her shopping, cleaning, tidying and washing for her, but that is the extent of it. We did make it clear to social services that this was the case.

There is a bit of light at the end of the tunnel on the care-home front, but I don't want to jinx it by discussing it here!

Anyway, thanks again. I hope your m-i-l's affairs get sorted out soon and that they not too stressful for you.