UK State Pension — in the group of 30 Pension states

Good post scissors.

What's amusing is when the anti-old brigade come out with stuff like ''why should we pay for their pensions.''

When they're too dim to realise is that should they manage to get pensions reduced even further, it won't be todays pensioners who will feel the biggest pinch.
It will be themselves.

With the demise of final salary pensions, and those in the public sector coming under attack not to mention scrapping the Second State pension and Brown's pension tax.
Todays workers are going to be considerably worse off than today's pensioners are anyway.

Greece had an envious pension scheme where almost anyone could retire early for some spurious reason or other. They went skint.

Greece might well be skint but hey ho...does it really matter to the Greeks when they have the good ol' EU to bale them each and every time.

The simple equation is if you aint coming up with an idea that will sacrifice the good of others then you will be the one getting sacrificed.

EVERYTHING is getting degraded, its the after effect of competition, where there were margins before they have all been value stripped. That money hasnt disappeared, its just been scuttled away from those who are assumed not worthy of it while the over rewarding has gone to those who dont get a realistic assessment of merit.

I remember the steel corporation my grandfather spent his life working for, when he died around retirement age they looked after my grand till she died in her 90s.
Nowadays you get the likes of tesco who have homogenised the high street giving bunches of flowers and a handshake.

grandmother

The UK has been going down the tubes for decades.
We're uncompetitive through having to support a welfare state and public sector that simply costs too much.

And importing even more people to look after as we have been doing is plainly self-destructive.

do they take into consideration pension credit,winter fuel allowance,free telly licences,free bus fares,cheap rail fares & any other freebies the old people get?

A perfect storm of increasing population, longer life expectancy, fewer pools containing greater capital assets with sweet heart deals or blatant tax creative structures leave the nation without a pot to pi55 in.

I don't know about anything about PC, except that it only goes to certain qualifying pensioners.
What's the Winter fuel allowance worth, £200 per household?

Free telly licences for the over 75. How many qualify for that?

Free bus passes seem a must. Who wants to see elderly people struggling along the pavements with bags of shopping as an empty bus whizzes by, because the old timers can't afford the fares?

Cheap rail fares - what cheap rail fares and to go where, was that a joke?

Other freebies - what other freebies?

In short
Race to the bottom economics.
In days of old if a company wasnt profitable it didnt last long, now its the number it employs that keep it alive with subsidy, the same as banks that dont exist in the same framework as any other sector.

Indeed, and a sizeable extra pool of mainly poor people being imported over the last decade will increase the problem in the future.

What subsidies?
Subsidies aren't allowed if you're in the EU.

Employment subsidies of a workforce that in a real world the company just wouldnt continue.

Indeed saddo, we've made a bad situation even worse.

Subsidies in the form of tax credits - I'm with you now.

Crippen - Re cheap rail fares, I think he means senior rail card, guarantees you 30% OFF nearly any ticket to anywhere, so "cheaper" rail fares might be more accurate.

This would seem material to the debate........from the Grauniad and from the same OECD source

"While the UK has the worst “mandatory� entitlements such as the state pension, it has a much bigger private pension system.

The OECD said the UK has $2.2tn in private pension assets, equal to 95% of GDP, one of the highest levels of private saving in the world. While the US, Switzerland, the Netherlands and Denmark had figures above 100% of GDP, in France and Germany, where state pension entitlements are much higher, private pensions are worth less than 10% of GDP.

Once the UK’s private pensions are added to the state pension, the average income in retirement for UK pensioners rises to just over 60% of former career earnings, just below the OECD average."

Yes blackbarn but as I said in my opener, those days are behind us.

The next generation of pensioners won't have those company pensions to live off and the public sector pensions will have been diluted as well.

People come on here everyday complaining that they can't afford to pay to rent a property, let alone save for retirement pensions.

It's quite startling to realise what people in the UK have saved for all of their lives, and gone without other things in order to get, is given out free in other Western countries.

Crippen - I doubt the UK is alone with those changes.  In fact some like France and Italy are likely to see much more aggressive reductions given their huge cost involved.  My point was that just looking at the state pension alone is taking a narrow view as was recongnised by the OECD BUT NOT by the original poster.

Britains balance of payments is never mentioned anymore....thats because its shameful today and shows the intent on sl4ggin off the family silver.

The breakup of the concept of family has lead to increase in welfare payments required.

blackbarn,
It's still a pretty shabby comparison to include private savings when comparing the pensions of Brits with other countries pensions.

It's more than that, it's an insult to savers.

Crippen - for right or wrong, many retirees have the benefit of occupational pensions and private pensionsm having wholly or partly  opted out of the state system so to do.   It was not my decision to make a separate comparision including these things but that of the OECD.  Have you read their report or are you just relying on the original poster for your info.

I have read the report, and what a cheek to include savings and occupational pensions in the comparison.
What about people without occupational pensions or pension savings.

That opting out of the state system isn't relevant because they've scrapped the second state pension for future generations. Which no doubt has been included in current calculations as well.

people who can't afford private pensions or unable to save are in a poor situation with the state pension .
Might be getting worse also , difficult to plan more than 5 years ahead never mind 40

Crippen - So if you've read it you should know why they did an adjusted comparision.   I wont quote them at length as its complicated but the THIS IS MONEY website summarises it very well......

Once you factor in voluntary pension pots saved alongside the mandatory state pension, Britain is catapulted up the league table, but still falls behind the OECD average. Once state, work and private pensions are put together Britain comes out ahead of Germany, but remains below France, Spain and Italy. On the flipside, those in Holland, Denmark and Italy receive the highest rates of retirement cash, although they have systems - like many others - that bundle together what Britons see as separate work and state pensions.

I think the difference will be that Britains are paying into the state pension and getting a poor return for their many years contributions and Germany and other countries are paying in and getting a good return

You see the German pensioners will have their own personal savings as well as a good state pension
Because they didn't have to worry about private pensions

It's nice to have a good state pension after working for 50 years and paying tax
Who could deny that ?

Well you might say it is the least you could expect

What do the German pensioners spend their money on , that they didn't have to spend on private pensions ?
Holidays and Mercedes cars and other disgraceful things such as that !
But the British get a free bus pass , very good

ps I think the French retire at 60, and live longer

How will the state pension endure when all the money is collected by the same few companies who avoid tax?

That will be the red wine , and not having to worry about additional contributions and private pensions or even saving too much , it takes a lot of the stress away right there

Now I think we should forget about how much the British save and their personal money into private pensions and additional schemes that they might of might not have
And look at the state pension that they will recurve after 50 years work  and paying tax

biggest pension time bombs yet to come current and future generation rent going into retirement still with housing costs to pay, hardworking average earners of the future robbed of 100 grand plus by the liar steve webb and his pension reforms,which in the end help no one who wouldn't have been better off under the old system anyway

Only a few years ago we were told we needed millions of incomers to pay our pensions, Ponzi would have been proud of such statements.

Posted this yesterday but it never appeared for some reason.

I rarely agree with Dr C but on this topic I concur with him.

Free healthcare got to be worth a few k a year
Other countries with universal but non-NHS systems, you'd have to take out insurance or make co-payments for everything except the basics