The British state pension at a maximum £110.15 a week is the most miserable in Europe. Compared to average income, even Hungary and Slovenia
better the pension benefits British pensioners receive, according to a new OECD report.
British workers on average earnings typically get a state pension worth 32.6% of their working wage. Italian workers, in contrast, can expect 70% of their working salary from the Italian government when they retire. In the developed world, only Mexicans receive less proportionately from the State pension than British workers.
The average European State pension is worth 40.6% of average earnings. If you want to retire comfortably on State coffers compared to those in work, one of the best countries is Austria, at 76.6% - or the Netherlands, even better, at 90.7%. Many Europeans also retire earlier than their British counterparts.
What is a more realistic level of state pension income? The British state pension should be set at £178 a week if it is to be a proper "living State pension", the National Pensioners' Convention claim. Even in the independent states of Guernsey and Jersey, the pensions are far more generous.
There are plans to introduce a flat rate UK pension of around £144 come 2016, worth just under £7,500 a year, just over half the poverty line of around £14,000, though you will need to have worked up 35 years worth of National Insurance contributions to qualify rather than the current 30 (a move the Government has been quiet on, eh Steve Webb!!!).
If you want to have the longest retirement, head for France. The average French male pensioner will live 22.6 years (27.4 for women) on average after leaving work. The average British male kicks the bucket almost five years earlier.
British workers on average earnings typically get a state pension worth 32.6% of their working wage. Italian workers, in contrast, can expect 70% of their working salary from the Italian government when they retire. In the developed world, only Mexicans receive less proportionately from the State pension than British workers.
The average European State pension is worth 40.6% of average earnings. If you want to retire comfortably on State coffers compared to those in work, one of the best countries is Austria, at 76.6% - or the Netherlands, even better, at 90.7%. Many Europeans also retire earlier than their British counterparts.
What is a more realistic level of state pension income? The British state pension should be set at £178 a week if it is to be a proper "living State pension", the National Pensioners' Convention claim. Even in the independent states of Guernsey and Jersey, the pensions are far more generous.
There are plans to introduce a flat rate UK pension of around £144 come 2016, worth just under £7,500 a year, just over half the poverty line of around £14,000, though you will need to have worked up 35 years worth of National Insurance contributions to qualify rather than the current 30 (a move the Government has been quiet on, eh Steve Webb!!!).
If you want to have the longest retirement, head for France. The average French male pensioner will live 22.6 years (27.4 for women) on average after leaving work. The average British male kicks the bucket almost five years earlier.
Non Merci. Mieux Ensemble. (Mon cul.)
*********
How much did they say the set up costs of Scotland was going to be?
 |
| We can't even afford the "t" in Scotland |
Think we need to update the bottom photo Tris to include the *ahem* new HS3 announcement by Osborne. Wasn't the cost supposed to be around £7 Billion according to Osborne, which makes it nearer £14 Billion in reality. LOL
ReplyDeleteYes, it's out of date, Arbroath, but I suspect it won't happen. He's just saying that to [persuade the people "Oop North" to vote Tory. It will be ditched after that. The people in the SE don't want to have to share their wealth with northerners.
DeleteIn the end if they do it it will be 45 or 50 billion anyway.
They always underestimate these things so much...
I've just realised that we're both wrong Tris. Remember the Treasury over estimated the start up costs of an independent Scotland by a factor of 12. So it stands to reason they have under estimated the costs of HS3 by the same amount.This means that the true cost of HS3 will be £84 Billion. LOL
DeleteOch peanuts Arbroath, for a train service that does not come within a hundred miles of your country.. and Gidiot describes as putting life into "the North".
DeleteFracking sweetner.
Delete(Message to self sign in before commenting otherwise blogger cleans slate)
Blogger is the pits... but it's too late in the day to relocate
DeleteAye well what can I say Tris?
DeleteWhat's 40 or 50 Billion pounds between friends eh?
Come to think about it it's actually quite a lot isn't it. I mean that's up to 250 Scotland sized countries setting themselves up after independence. Hmm...are there 250 small countries actually on planet earth, I'm a wee bit concerned there may not be. LOL
Well, there could be with all that money sloshing about Arbroath....
DeleteI'm wondering if they build this railway and then frack under it, it might collapse into the bowels of the earth...
Tris, you used to have to work 40 years to qualify for a full pension, I thought that they had reduced it to 30 purely because with the amount of time people spend unemployed these days you chance of ever getting any sort was limited. I would not like to scare people but given this Governments record I sometimes wonder if they will say you cannot have a state pension if you have a second. I think though for that one they would have to be very secure in the way of a majority, considering the number of people who have very small second pensions which they have also contributed to. I am slightly strange in that I paid the full stamp all my working life and have a better pension than most of my contemporaries. Most women have minuscule pensions because they paid the small stamp and are reliant on their husband's pension. Many men thought this was wrong, but considering that women got jobs which were often lower paid at the time, well what did you do, plus they often worked part time.
ReplyDeleteYes, it seems weird now, but if I'm right there was a fixed NI contribution at that time. Under a pound a week for men (about 85p) and much less for a woman, who would probably on work a few years anyway, who earned much less and who was dependent on her husband's contribution.
DeleteTotally weird, but normal for the time.
Nothing would surprise me. They have so much debt and unfunded pensions that they will probably have to do something.
People used to live for a few years after retirement, now they live 30 years, so they make you work longer, but no one wants to employ people at 67 or 68, because they can't hack the new technology, and worse still they know far more than the manager who is the age of their grandchild.
So, they have to reduce the amount they spend on old folk somehow.
Kill them off... only pay pensions to the horrifically poor... demand that they work for free picking oakum ...?
Who knows, but it will be some of these.
Simple logic states that if you pay less in then you get a smaller pension, what is wrong with that
DeleteWell, if you want to commercialise it, I suppose nothing. So, given that NI is a proportion of your income, those who earn more should get a better pension.
DeleteThose who get paid minimum wage should get less.
Those who brought up kids should get even less.
Fair enough if you want to live in that kind of society. Fair enough if you don;t mind seeing those who have get more, and those who have not starve or freeze.
Nothing wrong with it at all. And it may well be where the Uk is heading.
Not the kind of society I want to live in. But, I'm weird. I find it hard to step over the poor on my way to the opera.
Anonymous, via your comment I can see why you wont put your name op. I agree entirely with Tris......How about “ A living State pension for today’s elderly people ?
DeleteBritain’s pensioners have been forgotten. Even though the oldest pensioners fought for this country.
The UK's State pension for our elderly people is a national disgrace at just £107 a week. With demeaning and humiliating means tested handouts, if pensioners cannot live on what they receive ?
I have a website dedicated to how badly Britain's pensioners have been treated since the 80's and Thatcher, the reasons/s why ?, and the desperate need for young people to be made aware and join the 30 year fight for better State pensions for our elderly people. There is also a political section for your views, and a petition on my site that needs signatures, and it's on the same issue. My site is free to join, and free to comment on all postings http://la65.forumotion.co.uk
I would like you please to join my site and take part in commenting.
My own state pension is £ 158 09 per week where do you get that £110 figure from ?
ReplyDeleteNot pension credits my private pensions preclude that .SERPS
DeleteAhhh... is that the extra that you paid in at some time? I think my dad had that...
DeleteIt must be galling for Scotland to see that the london sewers cost more than your Parliament building ,much better value !
ReplyDeleteThe London Sewers probably look better from the outside than Holyrood.
DeleteSeriously, who thought that lumps of rock sticking out from a bendy concrete wall would look good?
There must be a hell of a lot of sewerage in London given all that is created in Westminster and Whitehall not to mention the many and various royal palaces..
DeleteStill some of us must make use of these facilities from time to time so its worth all these millions to us.
I t would be terrible if visiting London we weren't able to avail ourselves of lavatories....
They probably look better from the inside as well !!
DeleteAlthough they may not smell so sweet.
DeleteAnyway I'm sure Mr Blair knew what he was doing when he built it.
If there is a NO vote in your referendum there will be greater disappointment in England than Scotland !
ReplyDeleteMaybe. I have no idea. I don't live there.
DeleteI know some people worry that they will never again have a Labour government and that we should stay so that England can have a Labour government from time to time.
I think that if England wanted a Labour government it would probably vote for it, rather than depend upon its neighbour to do that for it.
As ever you don't mention what a ponzi scheme the pension system is. There is no savings pot, pensions come directly out of the tax payers pocket. Even private pensions suffer because Gordon Brown raided them in his first years as chancellor. As a Labour minister put it, "there's no money left" Of course Scot's are lucky with a higher per capita spend on them than their southern neighbours even got your own parliament.
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely... Although I don't know what you say "as ever".
DeleteThe Brit government never put any money away for pensions. They used National Insurance as tax and paid for day to day running costs out of it. They seemed to be unaware of the baby boomers and the massive demands that that would create. Or indeed of the advances in geriatric care and it's unintended consequences.
One of the reasons that Britain had terrible pensions compared to other European countries was that, to their credit, they had very good private/company pension schemes, at least for those that counted.
As usual, those that didn't count, manual workers and clerical people, shop workers and the like, either came late to the table and did poorly, or simply got no company pension at all. Small companies had no scheme at all. I worked for one with no scheme for 10 years...
However, as I say the pensions for senior people were excellent. It was therefore easy to ignore the state pension scheme as it means nothing to people with good pensions.
Then Gordon Brown in all his monumental stupidity came along and taxed the pension schemes. Now to be fair to them, I remember that the schemes were loaded with money and that many companies were fiddling with them... most notably Trinity Mirror Mr maxwell,,,.... but nonetheless. The treasury absolutely ruined these schemes under Brown. I have made much of that on this blog, particular when the man had the audacity to come and lecture Scotland about how it couldn't afford to pay pensions. I have also often pointed out that both Jersey and Guernsey pay pensions of nearly double the UK state pension.
Many schemes folded, leaving some people with no pensions. Others were run by incompetent morons like Equitable Life which had made idiotic predictions and were obliged to reduce payments by 50%.
Needless to say the UK government made no attempt at all to make up the pension, and at indeed, one point Gordon Brown was stupid enough to offer a 50p a week increase, which, had i been a pensioner, I should have told him to stuff where the sun doesn't shine.
And yes, he is a Scot, although he denies this, calling himself "north British"
Of course Gordon Brown was so full of hatred for Tony Blair that it blurred his senses.
Our higher spend is because of the Barnett Formula, which recognises that in sparsely populated areas the same services had to be provided, and that it is more costly per head.
The same system is used by the English secretary of state for local government, Mr Pickles, when handing out money to local authorities. larger populations get smaller amounts her head, on the basis that a hospital costs a great deal to build even if there are only 40,000 people in your town, and police services still have to exist in rural areas where there are only 15 people in a hamet here, and 40 there.
The tax return from Scotland, per head, is also far larger than for England, so England is subsidised by Scotland.
I'm not sure what that has to do with pensions as it doesn't affect the average person's income, which they use to buy food and pay rent or electricity, council tax and gas...
Tris
ReplyDeletePensions in this country are not just shockingly poor, unless your an MP or high ranking council official/quango etc, but for people like myself paying into serps there really is little point. I won't get what I paid in, given I'm a Scottish man I might not actually live long enough to see it given the three tory parties plan will no doubt be to raise the retirement age to 80 and also that whatever pittence I do get will be taxed so I will be in poverty either way.
How do you get people to wake up and smell the roses in this country. The UK is being run into the ground for the benefit of the elite and it won't be long until we are actually back to the victorian age. The Liberals talk about the 100 pound people save with the tax allowance but don't mention the 400 lost to tax credits and child benefit, not even taking into consideration the cost of living. When the windsors can spend what is it 300,000 tax payers money on a new kitchen and people are getting hounded for their 50 quid a week something is very wrong. I often wonder what it will take for people to be pushed too far, maybe enough aren't hungry enough yet but a tipping point will come and low and behold us all. I just pray that enough of the lied and cheated to will wake up before Septemeber and not only save themselves maybe but save us all. Either way I hate this country and everything that it stands for, Pa did a piece on Murphy today, the poster boy of many poster boys and girls who are killing our country.
Bruce
The pension situation may get a bit worse actually Bruce.
DeleteUnder new proposals Gidiot wants to merge NI and Tax.
At the moment when you reach pension age... whatever that is now... you stop paying NI.
Supposedly you have paid for your social security and you get it free from now on.
However, if he merges them, and you are lucky enough to be a prisoner who has over £10,000 income, you will nw be taxed at 32% instead of 20%.
Won't that be fun.
Remembering that the poverty line for the Uk is somewhere around £15,000 pa, that you would pay tax on £10,500 is a joke.
But then it's a joke that if you are working full time on the minimum wage, you have to depend on social security to pay your rent.
Joke of a country.
I wonder if the Queen will buy me a helicopter so I can get home from work to see my bairns to bed?
What about it your majesty?
Heading over to Paul's place now...
Deletetris
DeleteThey want to merge NI and Income Tax so as to influence people to
look at their Tax tax and then at the sick.the old the unemployed
the homeless etc , Then whip up hatred towards them and then to ride a tide of unrelenting hate and bile into 10 Downing street in 2015.
That's very probably the idea.
DeleteAs neil Kinnock once said... If the Tories get in, Don't get old; don't get sick, don't be unemployed and don't get poor... or words to that effect.
I wonder what He thinks of the Atos schemes dreamed up by Labour...
The country is not being ran into the ground for the benefit of the elite, it is being ran into the ground for the benefit of the moronic,unemployable, chav underclass who think we all owe the idle scum a living ,that is where your money is going.
DeleteThanks for that insight. I'm sure you won't mind if I say I disagree with your opinion.
DeleteHow about “ A living State pension for today’s elderly people ?
DeleteBritain’s pensioners have been forgotten. Even though the oldest pensioners fought for this country.
The UK's State pension for our elderly people is a national disgrace at just £107 a week. With demeaning and humiliating means tested handouts, if pensioners cannot live on what they receive ?
I have a website dedicated to how badly Britain's pensioners have been treated since the 80's and Thatcher, the reasons/s why ?, and the desperate need for young people to be made aware and join the 30 year fight for better State pensions for our elderly people. There is also a political section for your views, and a petition on my site that needs signatures, and it's on the same issue. My site is free to join, and free to comment on all postings http://la65.forumotion.co.uk
I would like you please to join my site and take part in commenting.
You can add 35.5 Billion for Thameslink
ReplyDeleteOops that should read £5.5 Billion for Thameslink
ReplyDeleteA mere bagatelle... but yes, it all adds up. It's a thousand pounds for each Scot!!!
DeleteYou must realise the population of greater London is about double that of Scotland
Deleteyes I do. Which is one of the reason I have no problem with England doing whatever it wants with its money.
DeleteI just don't think that it should be doing what it wants with ours.
Most of us never go there.
Labour will steal anything the can get their corrupt grubby hands on even democracy as they are the lowest of the low.
ReplyDeleteKathy Wiles Labour candidate for Angus.
That is how she responded to the innocent children present at the demo over BBC bias on Sunday at Pacific Quay.
Firstly, that is repulsive. Wiles should be disciplined for that.
DeleteWhen parent go along to these things, what are they supposed to do with their kids?
Children may or may not have any feelings about whether they should be in the UK or the EU, but what do these people suggest? They should leave them at home? I though Labour was the party that believed in protest? Believed in the ordinary men and women having their say.. Did they not take their children to protest about the bomb and the American presence on our soil with their WMDs?
Is she aware too that 15-17 year olds from England and/or Northern Ireland are being funded by the UK government to come to Scotland and campaign for Better Together...this despite the Prime Minister saying it was a matter for Scots? 15-17 year olds. Children under the age of voting.
I trust someone is going to rebuke them for calling these children nazis.
It is quite repugnant, and frankly I reckon it will put more people off.
I'd be revolted if someone on our side was doing that kind of thing. You can hardly believe that these are the people who were apoplectic about a member of the shadow cabinet being called a member of the shadow cabinet. The difference of course, as alert readers might have picked up on... is that Claire Lally, although she is not the daughter in law of pat Lally, is in fact a member of the shadow cabinet, and these children were very unlikely to be Nazis. I'd not have thought that being the daughter in law of a respected figure in the labour movement was quite the same as being called a nazi!
Wish she'd said it about a child of mine! She'd be in court before she could say Che Guevara... or whatever it is that Labour people say these days... Margaret Tahtcher probably.
Yeah Niko, I've spelled her name wrong again, and I still can't be bothered to change it.
The means test system pensioners must endure for a little extra money if they cant live on the State pension is costing over 20 times more of tax payers money than it would cost to increase the State pension. The BBC are right wing, thus supporting the Tory's.
DeleteI cannot believe some of these comments, straight on about self interest, number 1. Have you people no shame ?
DeletecynicalHighlander, We havent had a Labour Government since the 1970's.
DeleteOh by the way, you do know that the NHS was born care of a Labour Government, dont you ?????
Yes Michael the means testing costs so much. It should be got rid of wherever possible.
DeleteThis remark is on the woman's FB. I assume he must be a relative of hers.
ReplyDeletePeter Wiles: Throw a few cybernats under the rear wheels of the bus for better traction. They are only slippery when squished.
24 June at 12:23 • Like
The same woman said that all SNP supporters are subsidy scroungers!
Hi Anne: She keeps nice company, doesn't she. Is that incitement to murder?
DeleteThe gym upgrade is £250,000, not £50M...
ReplyDeleteHi and Welcome Baiterboy. Apologies (actually it does seem excessive, but with them you never know).... but why do they need a gym. I've never had a gym in my workplace. I joined one outside and paid to go to it, like the rest of us.
DeleteIt's not like most of them look as if they have even been any closer to it than the bar across the road.
For anybody interested, the last "Labour" Government we had was in the 1970's. The British are largely politically docile hence the lousy country we have today. The "New" Labour Government in 1997-to 2010 was Thatcherite, because Tony Blair continued where Margaret Thatcher left off. UK pensioners receive the lowest State pension compared to European levels, millions live in poverty having to choose between eating or heating their homes, while the Britain remain obsessed with Xfactor and soccer. You couldnt make it up ???????????
ReplyDeleteAgreed
DeleteBritain's politicians get a £60,000 a year State pension with expenses and allowances, yet they expect our elderly people to live on roughly £7,000 a year and be means tested for handouts. ??????????. nd what do the British able bodied do about it ??? "NOTHING"!
ReplyDeleteThey actually get £66,000, I think Michael.
DeleteAnd at under £120 a week I'm reckoning that pensioners get less than 10% of that.
They say you judge the country by the way it treats its old, young, sick...
Says all you need to know about the UK
There is £5.5 billion in pensioners benefits left unclaimed each year, due in my opinion to the humiliation of being means tested. The Nation insurance "surplus" runs into billions. Means testing pensioners cost British tax payers over 20 times more than a much higher State pension. The low State pension in Britain is not being kept low because of cost. It is because the Tory right wing just dont believe in the State pension....
ReplyDeleteI think that people are ashamed to go begging and in so many cases now you have to do it all by telephone, on a pay for call, that may not be answered for half an hour at day time rates.
DeleteThen you get someone who neither knows, not cares... about you, working in a call centre for a bastard like Iain Duncan Smith.
Letters go unanswered, important documents are lost and some of the staff must have taken courses in being abusive.
The means test system is not about targeting the poorest pensioners, it is about subservience. The Tory's could easily pay out a decent State pension, they just dont want to because the right wing Tory's dont believe in the State pension.
ReplyDeleteIt Is a national scandal; that we an afford nuclear weapons, but not a decent pension.
ReplyDeleteI'm pretty sure that pensions as a universal benefit will disappear in the Uk.
That is why it is important to get away from the UK
Its not about "cost" Tris, its about ideological thinking. The right wing Tory's simply do not believe in the role of the State and what it provides, including a decent State pension......
ReplyDeleteWell, you are right about that.
DeleteBut in fairness, it hasn't always been a Tory government... and before Blair there were actual Labour governments which preferred to chase after nuclear weaponry adn a place at the top table.
Even Attlee governments which brought us the welfare state, spent war reparation money (Marschall Plan) on nuclear research rather than rebuilding homes.
It's britain. It wants to wave its very small willie about.
Tris, it was a Labour Government in 1974 under the late Harold Wilson that first linked State pensions to inflation as well as male average earnings to secure the value of the State pension. And prior to 1974 all Government's including decent left of centre small "c" Conservative Government's, including the late Ted Heath, linked State pensions directly with male average earnings, trouble was that high inflation at that time wiped out the value of the state pension, and so hence Harold Wilson care of a Labour Government, doing what he did in 1974... It was Thatcher in 1980 who broke the State pensions link with male average earnings, keeping the State pension linked to inflation, and bringing in means testing for pensioners on a national scale.
DeleteThatcher is responsible for this over 30 years ago, our elderly people have been suffering that long, so please sign, share and tweet. We have to get 1 million signatures in one year so this cause will be discussed in parliament, and care of the media, putting it well and truly on the media map and about time, as well.
ReplyDeletePlease go to this link and sign my petition on behalf of the elderly people of our country.
http://www.change.org/en-GB/petitions/the-government-the-department-of-works-and-pensions-increase-britain-s-state-pension-substantially-and-re-link-directly-to-male-average-earnings-or-inflation-whichever-the-higher?share_id=IrReoiHKbW&utm_campaign=share_button_action_box&utm_medium=facebook&utm_source=share_petition
“WE BRITISH DO NOT REVERE OUR ELDERLY PEOPLE, WE JUST THINK WE DO!!””
Millions of elderly people are living in poverty in Britain today because
The basic State pension is simply too low at £107. 45p a week. This situation for our pensioners has been ongoing for over 30 years, but the British largely have not turned a hair.
In Britain today statistics state that 1 in 5, from a 12 million generation
of elderly people live in poverty, and this poverty is so great that elderly people are forced to make choices between paying their heating Bills, or buying food.
It should be remembered that Britain remains a very wealthy country!!. We can fight foreign wars at the drop of a hat with hardly any questions asked about expense, and we can send billions round the world. Yet our elderly people are a problem. Rubbish!!
Here's why this is important.
Nothing has changed for Britain's elderly people since the pensions and earnings link was cut in 1980, and this ratified proposal was made at the Laeken Summit in Belgium in 2001, and was agreed by "all" member States of which Britain is one.
Please sign my petition to show your disgust at this disgraceful situation for all UK pensioners, and force Parliament to discuss this issue which will bring Britain's State pensions crisis to the media's attention.
Why is this important?
Because Britain's State pension has been lower than Europe's for over 30 years.
I have a website dedicated to how badly Britain's pensioners have been treated since the 80's and Thatcher, the reasons/s why ?, and the desperate need for young people to be made aware and join the 30 year fight for better State pensions for our elderly people. There is also a political section for your views, and a petition on my site that needs signatures, and it's on the same issue. My site is free to join, and free to comment on all postings http://la65.forumotion.co.ukI would like you please to join my site and take part in commenting.
Signed...
DeleteCan I suggest ypou post this up on a more recent... or THE most recent post, so it will be more widely seen, and you will get more signatures.
tris, would you help me please ?
ReplyDeleteMichale
ReplyDeleteI got your note saying could I help you.
I will if I can, but can you contact me on email.
trispw@gmail.com.