UK Pensions are worst in the world

[thecaretaker]

There I am, surfin' X (formally Twitter) and I am being bombarded with posts saying UK pensions are the worst in the world. How do they know I have just reached retirement age?

If this is true (and I take anything these days on X with a pinch of salt) the rest of the world are laughing at us

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I notice the OECD Average on all 3 images differ. So I don't know how true this is.

[Drone]

The Covid Enquiry suggests that the government would rather that we just died off quietly without troubling the Department of Work & Pensions too much.

[Keyolder]

The Covid Enquiry suggests that the government would rather that we just died off quietly without troubling the Department of Work & Pensions too much.

Sadly, I had a few work colleagues’ friends and relatives that never even lived to see their state pensions

Must admit it was a bit of a shock for me when I found out I don’t qualify for the full state pension, even though I was in full time employment without any breaks from 17 to 66. I only found out after I started receiving the pension. Like most people I know of in my age group, I was contracted out for several years.

Tip for anyone coming up for retirement, check if you were contracted out at any time, it is possible to pay for the missing years so you will then qualify for the full state pension.

[Dexter]

There I am, surfin' X (formally Twitter) and I am being bombarded with posts saying UK pensions are the worst in the world. How do they know I have just reached retirement age?

If this is true (and I take anything these days on X with a pinch of salt) the rest of the world are laughing at us


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I notice the OECD Average on all 3 images differ. So I don't know how true this is.

I noticed the difference in averages too but the essence of the story is true. The same comparison was made in a number of newspapers recently.

[bally]

Keyholder do you not have a company pension?, If you have that is where the serps went. It forms part of your company pension. you should receive full basic state pension. Serps was a separate part to it. Self employed do not receive serps pension but could get full basic state pension if they have paid correct NI contributions

[twiglets]

I can't work it out. When I look at the state pension, it shows fully up to date so qualify for maximum? I also had contracted out for a period (company did it), thus I have another "pension".
Added to this confusion, my old "company" pension says 63, my contracted out says 65, my state pension and current county one says 67.
We are also in court to check if they mis sold the switch from final salary to money purchase- they choice was taken away from us due to our age at the time- this is our pensions people, not individuals.
I will need to speak to a FA soon as I've just turned 60 so it is getting close.

[Keyolder]

Keyholder do you not have a company pension?

Yes, I realise I am lucky in that I do have a company/work pension, without that I would be struggling to stay afloat. Although I suppose I may have qualified for help if things got really desperate. I’m still a taxpayer and therefor qualify for nothing in the way of any monetary help.

The shock for me was receiving the reduced state pension after working another year, I could have retired at 65 but chose to work another year till I was 66. I never realised beforehand about the contracted-out thing, so it was too late when I enquired about paying back the missing years.

[steveg]

Am I the only one who read the title of the thread as UK Pensioners are worst in the world and expected to find articles about ASBO pensioners? :-)

[MrMoustache]

That's true, however in Italy for example the employer (and in part also the employee) has to pay more tax and contributions more than here but on the other side they have more unemployed people and more cash in hand

[thecaretaker]

Yes, I realise I am lucky in that I do have a company/work pension, without that I would be struggling to stay afloat. Although I suppose I may have qualified for help if things got really desperate. I’m still a taxpayer and therefor qualify for nothing in the way of any monetary help.

The shock for me was receiving the reduced state pension after working another year, I could have retired at 65 but chose to work another year till I was 66. I never realised beforehand about the contracted-out thing, so it was too late when I enquired about paying back the missing years.

I've just been reading up about this 2006 Nigel Lawson scheme to contract out and its consequences.

It basically meant, your national insurance payments remained the same, but a percentage that would normally go towards the state pension went to your employers pension instead. Lawson claimed we would be better off as councils and other employers would invest that money and your pension pot would be larger at the end.

The problem is, many (if not most) councils and other employers mismanaged their pensions, made bad investments and generally it was a bad time to invest. In 2005, WHICH said that most people who contracted out will be worse off than if they stayed in the state pension scheme.

Another scandal is brewing, as back in the early days of contracting out councils and other employers had to notify HMRC about you contracting out and it was a manual system. Many employers didn't complete the paperwork correctly and the government are now asking pensioners to repay money that is owed. In some cases this can be up to as much as £50,000.

I can't help but feel people around my age have been well and truly screwed with this contracting out fiasco. Mainly the fact that it was never explained to us fully. I was just told it was the best thing to do and that all other employees were contracting out. Were we ever notified that the government ended the scheme in 2016?

So not to effect people who remained in the state pension scheme (SERPS), the government continued to take payments from contracted out employees under a different scheme called COPE. Yeah... a real COP out