Full state pension in July 2037

RoadToRiches

So looking at my state pension forecast, I have a one year gap between 2022-23 where I did not claim any benefits, was not in employment and despite being eligible at the time for carers allowance did not claim it. I went to DWP about this after the fact but basically got told tough luck for that year. 

They want £923 for that year to make up the gap, however it says my forecast is at max and cannot be improved anymore unless I defer taking my pension which I won’t do. So my question is it even worth paying that just to fill the gap. 

Could successive governments come along and say you need more years for a state pension over and above what it is now, the preverbal changing of the goal posts, already feelers out there that state pension could be put back a year meaning I will have to wait to 68 to get it - yet another year towards the graveyard!!!! 

p00hsticks

No, if your forecast says that it cannot be improved and no further contributions are needed there is no point in paying to fill in gaps.

You don't say how old you are.

Successive governments can always change the goalposts on on state pension rules such as increase the age, but I believe it's now accepted after all the WASPE fuss that they'd give at least ten years notice of any such changes, and - as demonstrated after the introduction of the new state pension - allow people plenty of time to fill in any gaps if they turned out to later be needed. 

RoadToRiches

55 in July hence state pension date July 2037 at moment. Thanks :-)

Qyburn

How many more years do you intend to carry on working?  How many more years contributions do they say you need? 

A gap doesn't matter in the slightest unless it means you won't end up with enough full years by the time you reach SP age.

1957DfurdPensionist

RoadToRiches,

Just to illustrate how things can change in the space of 12 years or so in UK.:

I have in my hand a DWP State Pension Forecast I obtained in February 2012.  It was essentially just the basic state pension with no SERPs or Additional State pension because I had been contracted out for my entire career.

My entitlement at that point? £102.15 per week - the full basic pension.

Having read the enclosed notes back then (when I too was 55), I wrote on the envelope a note to myself -" Need 30 qualifying years for full basic government pension - already have 36 years."  So, job done eh?

Er no!  Not on your Nelly!

Fast forward a few years and two important things had changed which successfully peed me off:

1. The realisation that the Pensions Act 2011 would mean my State Pension age became 66 not 65
2. The "single tier new State Pension(nSP)" was introduced, alongwith a double whammy also applied at the same time which was the very sneaky Contracted Out Pension Equivalent deduction calculation. The latter meant my March 2015 forecast of what I could expect under the new scheme that started 6 April 2016 became -  wait for it - £115.05 per week instead of a full new State Pension £151.28 (at rates DWP knew in March 2015).  And believe it or not, they told me then (March 2015) that if the forecast had been calculated under "old rules" I'd have been entitled only to £64.35 per week not £115.05!

As you may imagine, I more or less gave up on any meaningful UK State Pension at that point and ended up working abroad, working a little beyond age 67, and earning a partial second country State Pension.  I have also now paid a total of 43 full years UK NI contributions and still haven't been able to quite reach the full UK nSP amount.

RoadToRiches, Good luck for your next 12 years of guesswork!  You may need it!

Dazed_and_C0nfused

1957DfurdPensionist said:

RoadToRiches,

Just to illustrate how things can change in the space of 12 years or so in UK.:

I have in my hand a DWP State Pension Forecast I obtained in February 2012.  It was essentially just the basic state pension with no SERPs or Additional State pension because I had been contracted out for my entire career.

My entitlement at that point? £102.15 per week - the full basic pension.

Having read the enclosed notes back then (when I too was 55), I wrote on the envelope a note to myself -" Need 30 qualifying years for full basic government pension - already have 36 years."  So, job done eh?

Er no!  Not on your Nelly!

Fast forward a few years and two important things had changed which successfully peed me off:

1. The realisation that the Pensions Act 2011 would mean my State Pension age became 66 not 65
2. The "single tier new State Pension(nSP)" was introduced, alongwith a double whammy also applied at the same time which was the very sneaky Contracted Out Pension Equivalent deduction calculation. The latter meant my March 2015 forecast of what I could expect under the new scheme that started 6 April 2016 became -  wait for it - £115.05 per week instead of a full new State Pension £151.28 (at rates DWP knew in March 2015).  And believe it or not, they told me then (March 2015) that if the forecast had been calculated under "old rules" I'd have been entitled only to £64.35 per week not £115.05!

As you may imagine, I more or less gave up on any meaningful UK State Pension at that point and ended up working abroad, working a little beyond age 67, and earning a partial second country State Pension.  I have also now paid a total of 43 full years UK NI contributions and still haven't been able to quite reach the full UK nSP amount.

RoadToRiches, Good luck for your next 12 years of guesswork!  You may need it!

So you would prefer to be getting £176.45/week from age 65 rather than nearly £230.25/week from age 66?

A very odd take on things.

1957DfurdPensionist

Dazed_and_C0nfused said:

So you would prefer to be getting £176.45/week from age 65 rather than nearly £230.25/week from age 66?

A very odd take on things.

I seriously beg to differ.  Your £176.45pw is the current maximum basic state pension for those who reached SPa before April 2016. However, had SPa remained at 65, anyone in the SPa=65 group who deferred to age 66 would have received a deferral uplift of 10.4%.  More exactly, that means that currently, any new pension claimant back then before the changes (to be more accurate with a birth date prior to I think December 1953) who had done exactly that would now expect a maximum of £194.80 for their original just 30 qualifying full years, not 35, 36 or 43 full years like me, and not your suggested £176.45.

And as £230.25 is the maximum current nSP, to get anywhere near it I have had to buy 7 years VC's on top of the 36 "full years" I already had in 2012, In fact, even with a bit of deferral at the miserly post 2016 enhancement, I am still around a fiver a week short.  Otherwise yes, if I'd paid no extra VC's, I'd be looking, blow me down with a feather, at around £176.45!  Funny old coincidence, eh?

jem16

1957DfurdPensionist said:

RoadToRiches,

Just to illustrate how things can change in the space of 12 years or so in UK.:

I have in my hand a DWP State Pension Forecast I obtained in February 2012.  It was essentially just the basic state pension with no SERPs or Additional State pension because I had been contracted out for my entire career.

My entitlement at that point? £102.15 per week - the full basic pension.

Having read the enclosed notes back then (when I too was 55), I wrote on the envelope a note to myself -" Need 30 qualifying years for full basic government pension - already have 36 years."  So, job done eh?

Er no!  Not on your Nelly!

Fast forward a few years and two important things had changed which successfully peed me off:

1. The realisation that the Pensions Act 2011 would mean my State Pension age became 66 not 65
2. The "single tier new State Pension(nSP)" was introduced, alongwith a double whammy also applied at the same time which was the very sneaky Contracted Out Pension Equivalent deduction calculation. The latter meant my March 2015 forecast of what I could expect under the new scheme that started 6 April 2016 became -  wait for it - £115.05 per week instead of a full new State Pension £151.28 (at rates DWP knew in March 2015).  And believe it or not, they told me then (March 2015) that if the forecast had been calculated under "old rules" I'd have been entitled only to £64.35 per week not £115.05!

As you may imagine, I more or less gave up on any meaningful UK State Pension at that point and ended up working abroad, working a little beyond age 67, and earning a partial second country State Pension.  I have also now paid a total of 43 full years UK NI contributions and still haven't been able to quite reach the full UK nSP amount.

RoadToRiches, Good luck for your next 12 years of guesswork!  You may need it!

Sorry but your memory is obviously playing tricks on you as Point Number 2 is totally round the wrong way.

With 36 years and always contracted out your Starting Amount in April 2016 would have been £115.95pw - ie the full old Basic State Pension. This ties in with your 2012 forecast. Having been contracted out your whole working life your forecast was calculated under the old rules - not the new rules as you claim - as it was better for you. It is likely that the £64.35pw that you mention would have been your entitlement under the new system rules.

So yes if you had done nothing at all you, you would be receiving the Basic State Pension that you always expected to get.

1957DfurdPensionist

jem16 said:

Sorry but your memory is obviously playing tricks on you as Point Number 2 is totally round the wrong way.
With 36 years and always contracted out your Starting Amount in April 2016 would have been £115.95pw - ie the full old Basic State Pension. This ties in with your 2012 forecast. Having been contracted out your whole working life your forecast was calculated under the old rules - not the new rules as you claim - as it was better for you. It is likely that the £64.35pw that you mention would have been your entitlement under the new system rules.

So yes if you had done nothing at all you, you would be receiving the Basic State Pension that you always expected to get.

You are right - but it's not my memory per se, because I have the 31/3/2015 State Pension Statement in my hand. I simply transposed the two numbers "old rules"/"new rules".  Not sure exactly why my statement says estimated starting amount £115.05 rather than what ended up as £115.95 as the max old rules basic before April 2016 triple lock  - that's just one more little mystery in a catalogue of the nearly two decades worth of pp communication I have in front of me.

There was in fact another figure quoted in that 31/3/2015 statement - they said then they expected the max new State Pension to start 6/4/2016 at £148.40, when in fact it started at £155.65 I believe?  So 4.9% higher, and indeed by October 2016 when I downloaded one of their early attempts at online Future Pension estimates they said £121.30 which indeed is yet another little mystery as it isn't 104.9% of £115.05 nor of £115.95.  When I finally reached age 66, that £121.30 ought to have been triple-locked up to £158.84 at age 66, and reverse engineering consecutive triple-lock %ages before paying VC's, I do think it was so.  Trouble is in October 2016 they said the most I could get at 66 was £154.20, and by February 2020 they had managed to increase that number to £165.11, but not to the £167.01 triple-lock should have increased it to.  Yet another little mystery missing quid a week or two - they all add up!

The upshot of my Point Number 2 remains basically the same - true I am not able to use emphasis on the old rules number going massively backwards, but whatever name you want to give the comparative numbers used to "sell" the "generous" transition to the new single tier scheme back then, it has evolved into a continuing stream of almost unfathomable inconsistent data for those who dared to look closely.  Until of course, here we are 10 years later and we can unravel or reverse engineer some of it based on what they actually do pay out on particular cases that have reached SPa with or without VC's!

It turns out that the most they wanted to pay me at age 66, after I had bought all possible VCs, was consistent, to the penny, with triple-locking one of the numbers above ... can anyone guess which one?