April State Pension paid early to avoid increase?

zagfles

Amazing how many people believe these sort of ridiculous conspiracy theories

But it is about time the state pension moved into the modern world and was paid monthly (at least as an option), the financial world ticks on a monthly basis, most peoples' bills, credit cards etc are paid monthly, budgetting with weekly or 4-weekly payments is a right pain.

J63320

zagfles said:

…

But it is about time the state pension moved into the modern world and was paid monthly (at least as an option) …

That sounds like a very reasonable request … until you realise that it would involve serious tweaking of a government computer system or the implementing of a new one. The government’s record on such projects is abysmal. They would employ an outside company at enormous expense, it would take decades to implement, and then when it started making mistakes they would blame the pensioners (see Post Office/Fujitsu). 

p00hsticks

zagfles said:

Amazing how many people believe these sort of ridiculous conspiracy theories

But it is about time the state pension moved into the modern world and was paid monthly (at least as an option), the financial world ticks on a monthly basis, most peoples' bills, credit cards etc are paid monthly, budgetting with weekly or 4-weekly payments is a right pain.

That isn't going to happen - as J63320 says, it would involve completely unpicking the current decades-old system and writing a new one which would be both incredibly risky and extremely costly. 

If people really struggle to budget four weekly, they could always set up a new bank account purely to receive the pension payment and then set up a monthly standing order to move it over to their main account. 

indiasign

J63320 said:

zagfles said:

…

But it is about time the state pension moved into the modern world and was paid monthly (at least as an option) …

That sounds like a very reasonable request … until you realise that it would involve serious tweaking of a government computer system or the implementing of a new one. The government’s record on such projects is abysmal. They would employ an outside company at enormous expense, it would take decades to implement, and then when it started making mistakes they would blame the pensioners (see Post Office/Fujitsu). 

Can confirm! 

As a civil servant who has been through 4 computer system changes, and is currently in the middle of the 5th, each one has been worse than the last! 🙁

Alter_ego

Received my weekly SP at new rate today, what's the problem?

It's paid in weekly but I budget monthly without any problems.

zagfles

J63320 said:

zagfles said:

…

But it is about time the state pension moved into the modern world and was paid monthly (at least as an option) …

That sounds like a very reasonable request … until you realise that it would involve serious tweaking of a government computer system or the implementing of a new one. The government’s record on such projects is abysmal. They would employ an outside company at enormous expense, it would take decades to implement, and then when it started making mistakes they would blame the pensioners (see Post Office/Fujitsu). 

Since when is the PO the govt? But it's true that govt IT projects are generally a disaster, eg the NHS 15 years ago, but this is a trivial change. Multiply the weekly amount by 4.3482 (ie 365.25/12/7).

I suspect the reason they don't is, as they've found with universal credit, a small minority are incapable of budgetting for a whole month and end up overspending when they get paid and then going to foodbanks when they run out. Journalists and opposition politicians then use this small minority as a political football usually to blame the govt. So much better to inconvenience the vast majority with weekly/4-weekly payments.

Dazed_and_C0nfused

zagfles said:

Amazing how many people believe these sort of ridiculous conspiracy theories

But it is about time the state pension moved into the modern world and was paid monthly (at least as an option), the financial world ticks on a monthly basis, most peoples' bills, credit cards etc are paid monthly, budgetting with weekly or 4-weekly payments is a right pain.

Although there are plenty of employers who pay four weekly so would solving one (not really an) issue for some create one for others?

I think supermarkets are four weekly payers, Asda and Tesco being two biggies.

Pat38493

In the US I think a lot of employees are paid every 2 weeks.

If you thought about it logically from scratch, it makes more sense to pay weekly or by a certain number of weeks as it's the same number of days covered each time.

Paying people one 12th of their annual income per calendar month when calendar months have different number of days in them arguably doesn't make sense either - I guess it's just what we are used to and it jars when it doesn't match with the majority of our flows.

The same applies to some bills etc - logically why should I have to pay the same price for example for my Sky TV subscription or whatever for February, that I pay for months with 31 days?  

zagfles

Pat38493 said:

In the US I think a lot of employees are paid every 2 weeks.

If you thought about it logically from scratch, it makes more sense to pay weekly or by a certain number of weeks as it's the same number of days covered each time.

Paying people one 12th of their annual income per calendar month when calendar months have different number of days in them arguably doesn't make sense either - I guess it's just what we are used to and it jars when it doesn't match with the majority of our flows.

The same applies to some bills etc - logically why should I have to pay the same price for example for my Sky TV subscription or whatever for February, that I pay for months with 31 days?  

Probably because it's easier to remember that you get paid eg on the 20th and your Sky bill is due on the 22nd, instead of the dates moving every month.

Maybe the real solution is to sort the calendar out, why have variable months, why have 7 day weeks, why not decimalise time! Various proposals have been made but you'll always get the "can't cope with change" brigade that object to any change (like with decimalisation) and the conspiracy theorists who'll claim it's all an attempt to screw people over.

So it's basically too hard and we're stuck with a calendar system invested 2000+ years ago and silly month lengths due to Roman emperors' egos. But I digress...

p00hsticks

zagfles said:

J63320 said:

zagfles said:

…

But it is about time the state pension moved into the modern world and was paid monthly (at least as an option) …

That sounds like a very reasonable request … until you realise that it would involve serious tweaking of a government computer system or the implementing of a new one. The government’s record on such projects is abysmal. They would employ an outside company at enormous expense, it would take decades to implement, and then when it started making mistakes they would blame the pensioners (see Post Office/Fujitsu). 

but this is a trivial change. Multiply the weekly amount by 4.3482 (ie 365.25/12/7).

I suspect the reason they don't is, as they've found with universal credit, a small minority are incapable of budgetting for a whole month and end up overspending when they get paid and then going to foodbanks when they run out.

Trust me, it really isn't the trivial change you make out. For a start, it's not just converting a four weekly amount to a monthly amount (and your simplistic calculation fails to take into account that different months are of different lengths) , it's changing the whole payment cycle system to move from paying people on the same day every week to paying them on different days. 

The demand for it doesn't justify the expense and risk of making the change to a really archaic old system that probably a vanishingly small team of people these days know how to maintain and update. If and when a completely new system is built, as there had to be for Universal Credit, then I'm sure there will be an option to get paid monthly.  .

That's the reason, not the one you suggest. For a start, people incapable of budgetting for a whole month are likely to be those opting to get their pension payments weekly anyhow, so a shift from four-weekly to monthly isn't gonig to make any difference to them. And for those individuals who would prefer to be paid monthly rather than four weekly, as I said in my last post, it's easy in this day and age for them to arrange it for themselves by simply setting up and using a staging bank account to receive the four-weekly payment and then transfer across on a monthly basis.