Jeremy Hunt in plea to early retirees: ‘Britain needs you’

OldScientist

zagfles said:

OldScientist said:

OldScientist said:

daveyjp said:

Spinybif said:

Time to phase out all unearned benefits.  Hard workers are fed up paying taxes to see the lazy & stupid  claim benefits without giving anything back.  Simple solution, you have to work for the community on the National Minimum Wage to earn your benefits. Even the disabled could read to children who are behind at school, fully able  could litter pick or  remove graphiti.  I'll bet 90%of those "unable" to get work would suddenly do so. If you have made sacrifices to earn your early retirement and don't need to rely on the state good luck to you. Why breach the LTA only to be penalised by 55% tax whilst working for the privilege 

Who manages all these extra 'public sector' employees?

So, as a whole, quite a lot of us are on 'unearned benefits' (including, for most people, their state pension since you would have needed to have set £250k aside (out of NI?) to have enough to buy an annuity with an inflation adjusted income of £10k).

On a personal note, during my working life I contributed about £80k in NI. Assuming the state pension was funded from contributions, I would have needed to have invested that at about 8% nominal in order to have a pot sufficient to purchase £10k per year.

Does that inlude employer contributions?

 (of course, NI isn't really set aside for pensions).

Your personal ones aren't of course but state pensions are paid out of the NI fund

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-insurance-fund-accounts/great-britain-national-insurance-fund-account-for-the-year-ended-31-march-2022#receipts-and-payments-account

The amounts are those on my NI record...

Thanks for the link...

NedS

OldScientist said:

zagfles said:

Why would you not include family income support and tax credits - they're mostly means tested (or sometimes income tested) at a fairly low level. Apart for child ben which is income tested at a high level. Housing definitely need including. Not that they'd be totally eliminated, but partially in a lot of cases.

But the underlying point is the treatment of particularly people with disabilities, as charity cases who should be shoved onto the scrapheap of life long benefits dependancy, rather as people differently abled who can contribute to society in some way.

It's really an attitude change that's needed. Rather than "oh you're disabled, poor you, my compassion oozes from every pore, here have all this money and get out of my sight", it's "oh you're disabled, well what can you do and what can't you do, we'll find you something you can do and are happy to do". Obviously there'll be some who can't contribute in any way, but the majority almost certainly could.

Tax credits are for those in work (surely those already in work don''t need to be forced in to additional work in order to obtain their benefits)?

Funny you should mention that, but that is exactly what the government is currently doing on UC by increasing the Administrative Earnings Threshold (AET) - the threshold amount people must earn in order to be deemed to be earning enough and not have to attend weekly jobcentre appointments and seek more work. (Those on Tax Credits are slowly being migrated onto UC as it's replacement).

The amount a single person is expected to earn has increased from £355/month to £617/month (equivalent of 15h/week at NMW) and anyone earning less in the last month will be expected to attend the jobcentre and look for more work. This figure will rise again in April in line with increases to the NMW.

Nebulous2

Linton said:

I dont really understand why our workforce is insufficient...

100 years ago the best part of a million people worked in the mines.  Hundreds of thousands worked on the railways, buses, post office etc. Millions worked on the production lines or in the mills  Millions still worked in agriculture. The largest male job classification was "unskilled labourer".  Millions of women were either employed as domestic servants or were fully occupied with running their home and caring for their children when washing day really meant a full day for washing the clothes.

With all these jobs now occupying a small fraction of the numbers they used to and automation greatly reducing other roles, what is everyone doing?  Would anyone care if they stopped doing it - how many jobs are truly productive?

There has been a massive expansion in some areas, care in particular. An increase in lifespan hasn't been matched by an increase in healthy lifespan. Most of us can now expect 20 years of ill-health. Smaller families, more dispersed, means that where people were previously supported within families they now need paid help. There is an army of people setting out each day to visit and care for people in their own homes. 

I'm much less familiar with the sector, but the amount of people working in hospitality must have dramatically increased. Eating out was a rarity as a child, its now embedded in their lifestyle for many people. I'm in a small town of around 4000 people. I grew up in the area, moved away, and am now back. My memory may be faulty, but as a youngster I remember two fish and chip shops. We now have three, plus a Chinese takeaway, two Indian takeaways, three kebab shops and a large multi-purpose takeaway that does a bit of everything. Several of them have drivers delivering every evening. Some of that is for surrounding villages, the 4000 people can't possibly be eating it all, but it is still a big employer of labour. 

molerat

I reached SRA in Nov 2019.  I have already received more in SP than I paid in NI.

daveyjp

Linton said:

I dont really understand why our workforce is insufficient...

100 years ago the best part of a million people worked in the mines.  Hundreds of thousands worked on the railways, buses, post office etc. Millions worked on the production lines or in the mills  Millions still worked in agriculture. The largest male job classification was "unskilled labourer".  Millions of women were either employed as domestic servants or were fully occupied with running their home and caring for their children when washing day really meant a full day for washing the clothes.

With all these jobs now occupying a small fraction of the numbers they used to and automation greatly reducing other roles, what is everyone doing?  Would anyone care if they stopped doing it - how many jobs are truly productive?

The world keeps turning.

Tech and jobs relating to the internet and the web account for hundreds of thousands of jobs.

Now fewer women stay at home there are thousands of jobs in childcare.

Millions of future types of job don't yet exist.

EdSwippet

OldScientist said:

Quite... so, I had a salary that, in the latter part of my career was in the top 10% in the UK and, accounted for properly, I won't have paid for my state pension.

Even if you include employer NICs? Those shift the needle a lot, since they never top out.

They are after all a portion of your overall 'compensation' package. That is, if your employer did not have to hand this part of what they make from your efforts over directly to the government, they could instead have paid you a higher salary.

sheslookinhot

I hope no one falls for this your country needs you crap. People have retired to enjoy their life whilst they can. Free from the stresses, anxieties and rituals etc of work. Time on this earth can not be bought.

MK62

molerat said:

I reached SRA in Nov 2019.  I have already received more in SP than I paid in NI.

Have you adjusted your contributions (and your employer's) to allow for inflation though......the cumulative effect might be quite considerable, and that's not including any interest/returns on those contributions, which would have been earned had they been deposited/invested.

zagfles

bluenose1 said:

I am currently working but won’t be working a day longer than I intend to because of Jeremy Hunt saying I should.
The press have done great divisive tactics of getting us focused on benefit fraud etc, not surprising really when most of our Papers are owned by multi millionaires living abroad. Yet tax avoidance and evasion costs UK far more than benefit fraud etc. 

Zahawi and presumably his financial advisors thought  he could get away with it in his high profile ministerial role and  Rishi Sunak’s wife is said to have avoided £20 million in tax by claiming to be non-dom. Read somewhere that Zahawi’s tax affairs have been questioned for years by some reporters with threats of libel etc to try to close any investigation. By the sounds of it this often succeeds so how many others are/ have done it.
So if those in the public eye think they can get away with it, what are those below the radar, the big corporations etc doing to avoid/ evade tax? 

Unfortunately and not surprisingly there is no political will to tackle this.

Well he clearly hasn't got away with it, has he? Have you listened to the news today? Just been on a long journey with Radio 2 on and every hour we were told about Zahawi and the HMRC "investigation" and how Sunak was so wrong to spend a few days actually looking into what happened rather than the usual media demands of immediate knee-jerk action when there's no real need for something that happened/been ongoing a while ago. 

Don't think there was any wrongdoing on the part of Sunak's wife, she was claiming a legitimate status, but even so the media was on her case. Clearly those in the "public eye" are not getting away with it, even using perfectly legitimate methods to reduce their tax bill. Even a minor seat belt violation makes the headlines.

Meanwhile not read or heard anything about benefit fraud in the media recently. It's blatenty obvious where the current media focus is.

zagfles

michaels said:

zagfles said:

OldScientist said:

OldScientist said:

daveyjp said:

Spinybif said:

Time to phase out all unearned benefits.  Hard workers are fed up paying taxes to see the lazy & stupid  claim benefits without giving anything back.  Simple solution, you have to work for the community on the National Minimum Wage to earn your benefits. Even the disabled could read to children who are behind at school, fully able  could litter pick or  remove graphiti.  I'll bet 90%of those "unable" to get work would suddenly do so. If you have made sacrifices to earn your early retirement and don't need to rely on the state good luck to you. Why breach the LTA only to be penalised by 55% tax whilst working for the privilege 

Who manages all these extra 'public sector' employees?

So, as a whole, quite a lot of us are on 'unearned benefits' (including, for most people, their state pension since you would have needed to have set £250k aside (out of NI?) to have enough to buy an annuity with an inflation adjusted income of £10k).

On a personal note, during my working life I contributed about £80k in NI. Assuming the state pension was funded from contributions, I would have needed to have invested that at about 8% nominal in order to have a pot sufficient to purchase £10k per year.

Does that inlude employer contributions?

 (of course, NI isn't really set aside for pensions).

Your personal ones aren't of course but state pensions are paid out of the NI fund

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-insurance-fund-accounts/great-britain-national-insurance-fund-account-for-the-year-ended-31-march-2022#receipts-and-payments-account

But this is on a pay as you go basis so current contributions need to pay for current pensions - unless we are in steady state then the 'liabilities being accrued' may be greater than the level of contributions.

Against this is that everyone pays NI including those who don't even reach state retirement age so their is poling of longevity risk and in theory the govt does not need to hedge inflation so for them to provide an annuity (in the form of the state pension) would be cheaper than the purchase cost.

Final point on this whole 'comparing what you pay in to what you pay out' - people's productivity varies greatly (back to those footballers who's output is 'worth' a fortune).  Depending on the  distribution of productivity either the govt needs to do some redistribution or we have very uneven distribution of income - like we see in the third world where the haves need window bars, gated communities and private security guards.

Indeed - now with the state pension flat rated someone could do a part time job earning between the LEL and PT and pay zero NI yet build up the same state pension as someone who pays £80k in NI.