Will there be Pension apartheid?

[Deleted User]

kinger101 said:

doris540 said:

Ive personally seen a loss of in excess of £12000 off the value of my company pension and my own private pension over the last month. 

You must have been doing something very wrong to have lost money over the last month.  My two funds are up 17.3% and 11.4% over this period.  Most people will be up over 12 months still.

April has been  very kind to equities (best month in my memory) but I am not at all sure about your “12 months” claim.  It rather depends on asset allocation. 

Also I noticed that a surprising number of British funds contain illiquid assets. Some of them have suspended all payouts. Whatever current  value they report isnt the actual current value of ones assets. 

steampowered

What a load of cow poo.

The FTSE 100 has dropped from about 7,200 to 6,000 today, a drop of about 16.7%. And no doubt it will recover in future. That's hardly a "slaughtering", that's entirely within the normal range of stock markets.

Anyone invested in stock markets over the past decade plus has done extremely well for themselves despite the recent Covid-19 drop !

zagfles

Deleted_User said:

Bravepants said:

I pay 7.3% or so into my pension, and my employer contributes about 22%. The 22% contribution is part of my salary package, and my take-home is lower than the private sector because of that. I know plenty in the private sector who drive new cars, own big houses, even fly planes but have little or no pension provision or emergency savings. I know people who run companies and have a lavish lifestyle while also contributing the absolute minimum into employees pension schemes and run zero hour contracts; it's THIS that needs to be redressed. If you work in the private sector, you are working for "The Man" and sometimes "The Man" sucks, but people still end up working for him because they are happy with what "The Man" provides, including their job or level of pay. Until somewhere down the line they realise that they are being hard done by, or have been prioritizing spending over saving, or have actually been screwed by "The Man"!

In reality, public sector gets paid more than the private sector (including pension contributions). Reference: https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/earningsandworkinghours/articles/analysisoffactorsaffectingearningsusingannualsurveyofhoursandearnings/2017
And it is the man from the private sector who pays the public sector guy’s salary in the first place. And picks up 100% of the risk for the public sector guy’s pension guarantees. 

It’s unfair, thats all. 

Risk comes in lots of different forms. A policeman, firefighter or nurse takes risks in their jobs I don't, and I would much rather take a risk with my pension than my life. Jobs pay what they pay (including pension), so as keeps being said, anyone that thinks it's "unfair" should apply for a job in the public sector. Simples. It's not like people are born into public sector emloyment. Well not usually, there are some obvious exceptions!

The real issue though is understanding the value of public sector pensions, which lots of people don't including some public sector employees themselves. We get a lot of posts here about people thinking of opting out! They are usually persuaded not to. And lots of clueless FB memes going round about nurses pay and comparisons with other professions, taking no account of the values of their pension.

Ceme3000

Very true! Especially as no one should purely invest in the FTSE 100, a more realistic comparison is to look at the performance of say VLS60 over the last 12 months which as at yesterday is a return of -0.32%.  To only be slightly down over 12 months (including  inflation) is hardly a slaughtering given what's happened. 

I think people forget there was a massive spike in the January markets when they talk about their losses.

itwasntme001

This is an interesting debate and one which not many appreciate the complexity in what is actually being discussed.  If you take a broader view in that since the 80s you have seen generous pension plans (e.g. 10% GARs) along with financial asset rises where overall the baby boomer generation have benefited vastly from (of course there are inequalities within this generation as well - rightly or wrongly).  The current prime working generation have it a lot tougher from that point of view.  You do not see db pensions anymore in the private sector, house prices are expensive relative to earnings, stock markets have boomed and wages have not really risen much in real terms for quite sometime.

I am not here to judge whether doctors are being overpaid, considering their pension plans.  Given their training and time and stress involved in their jobs they need to be compensated for this since after-all we do need talented doctors working for the NHS.  However how much is too much as their benefits need to be paid by the general public and currently it is unfunded where current taxpayers are paying for the current retired doctors pension plans.  The very important point I will make now is that if you look at annuity rates over the last 3 decades they have fallen considerably.  This means it is a lot more expensive to fund a db pension scheme now then it was 30 years ago.  Hence the reason for this move to cut back on public sector benefits such as db pension schemes.  Clearly the markets are saying the current cohort of doctors should not be compensated as well as the previous generation of doctor unless the general public (and more specifically the private sector) pay for it (one way - inflation - or another - higher taxes).  This is the fight, a tug of war if you will, between the public and private sectors that will escalate over the coming decades.

There is indeed no free lunch unfortunately.

OldMusicGuy

Ceme3000 said:

Dare I say, I imagine that a lot of the rather defensive replies to the OP in this thread are from those that are benefiting from being a member of a public sector pension scheme.  

Not in my case. My only pension provision is a large DC pot which I manage myself and has performed just as I hoped through the downturn so far. It's a pity the OP isn't prepared to take on responsibility themselves or pay someone else to do it. 

Based on their previous posts, it appears that the OP does have some form of DB pension so it's a bit rich to be complaining about them!

kinger101

Deleted_User said:

kinger101 said:

doris540 said:

Ive personally seen a loss of in excess of £12000 off the value of my company pension and my own private pension over the last month. 

You must have been doing something very wrong to have lost money over the last month.  My two funds are up 17.3% and 11.4% over this period.  Most people will be up over 12 months still.

April has been  very kind to equities (best month in my memory) but I am not at all sure about your “12 months” claim.  It rather depends on asset allocation. 

Also I noticed that a surprising number of British funds contain illiquid assets. Some of them have suspended all payouts. Whatever current  value they report isnt the actual current value of ones assets. 

OK. maybe perhaps not most, but many.  I looked a what might be benchmark for global performance for equities (HSBC FTSE All World Index C Acc) and YOY, that's only down 2.0 %. Unlikely a bond allocation would have made things worse. I think people are being unduly pessimistic by comparing to Feburary highs give the equity markets had surged in the previous quarter.

I think I'm perhaps lucky in that at time of posting, trustnet is showing my two pension pots up 7.3% and 11.2% YOY.  Makes up for a bit of bad luck with timing of a lump sum that went to S&S ISA in Summer 2018.  

doris540

Indeed i do have a small DB pension which as ive said before was stopped many years ago and last statement it stood at approx £4k a year reason for this low figure is due to not been in it long from induction to when they stopped it . After then it was a DC scheme where i have no control over where the company invests the money . I have my own personal pension with the Prudential as well. Im not here to argue i state how alot of people feel. Of course every statement on the internet about How the public sector pensions are so good against us mortals in the private sector is complete rubbish as well its all made up and were all wrong.. Enlighten me why do so many retire early from the likes of The Civil service because it does not pay them to keep working . And for the comment i should pay 37% into my pension as they are may i remind them that im along with all the other tax payers in the private sector enabling them to have have the high percentage paid by the employer The state .The Public sector pay nothing towards ours and i can see with this sad situation we are in many of us in the private sector wont have jobs and a next to nothing pension because of it. Whilst i cant see the Civil service going bust.
Rather than comments from the "Im alright Jack ive got a public sector pension " people treating us as if we are lower class citizens because we do manual jobs and such dont deserve the pensions the public sector get because we arent worth it , just remember whose helping you have the lifestyles you have . Its the "Have Yachts and The Have Nots" broadly speaking
We just want a levelling of the system sadly thou cant ever see it happening. Id be quite happy to see the Public sector emloyer reduce the contribution down to 5% like us and give people a pay rise to compensate wont ever happen

Dox

doris540 said:

Indeed i do have a small DB pension which as ive said before was stopped many years ago and last statement it stood at approx £4k a year reason for this low figure is due to not been in it long from induction to when they stopped it . After then it was a DC scheme where i have no control over where the company invests the money . I have my own personal pension with the Prudential as well. Im not here to argue i state how alot of people feel. Of course every statement on the internet about How the public sector pensions are so good against us mortals in the private sector is complete rubbish as well its all made up and were all wrong.. Enlighten me why do so many retire early from the likes of The Civil service because it does not pay them to keep working . And for the comment i should pay 37% into my pension as they are may i remind them that im along with all the other tax payers in the private sector enabling them to have have the high percentage paid by the employer The state .The Public sector pay nothing towards ours and i can see with this sad situation we are in many of us in the private sector wont have jobs and a next to nothing pension because of it. Whilst i cant see the Civil service going bust.
Rather than comments from the "Im alright Jack ive got a public sector pension " people treating us as if we are lower class citizens because we do manual jobs and such dont deserve the pensions the public sector get because we arent worth it , just remember whose helping you have the lifestyles you have . Its the "Have Yachts and The Have Nots" broadly speaking
We just want a levelling of the system sadly thou cant ever see it happening. Id be quite happy to see the Public sector emloyer reduce the contribution down to 5% like us and give people a pay rise to compensate wont ever happen

...and presumably you'd be happy to have your life saved by a public sector nurse or doctor, a public sector fireman rescue you from your burning home, a public sector policeman apprehend someone mugging you...what a load of embittered rot you spout. Please don't pretend you speak for me; you certainly do not when you acidly assert that 'We just want a levelling...'. Given what these public servants do, I don't begrudge a penny of my taxes paying of their pensions.

Paul_Herring

 last statement it stood at approx £4k a year reason for this low figure is due to not been in it long from induction to when they stopped it

So, you 'obtained' a pension that would cost someone with a DC pension anything from £100K to £133K, despite not actually being in the scheme for that long? It would take someone contributing £1,000 a month about 8 years to get anywhere near that. And for someone on the median wage, that represents 40% of their gross wage (2018). 

After then it was a DC scheme where i have no control over where the company invests the money 

Yeah, no. Not really a thing. 

And for the comment i should pay 37% into my pension as they are may i remind them that im along with all the other tax payers in the private sector enabling them to have have the high percentage paid by the employer

The more you pay into your pension, the less tax you'll be paying for all those public sector pensions. And this is a reason not to pay more into your pension?
The mind boggles at this inept attempt to troll the forum.

F-. Would suggest try trolling 4chan instead.