arch

Here is a question for those in the private sector, how much in both real terms and as a percentage do you pay monthly into your 'pension pot'?

I was due to receive an excellent pension when I retire, but I can see there being some substantial changes to it.

focusv8

I previously worked in the public sector and paid nothing into a pension but it was part of the salary package, it's final salary and index linked but the final salary was set when I left 18 years ago.

I currently work in the private sector and pay nothing into my pension as it's part of the salary package.

I also have a personal private pension which I pay into.

,

Chip

iTrader: (3)

Its varied between 200 and 600 a month for me through my working life depending on what I have been earning at the time.

There SHOULD be big changes to it, the world has changed so your pension needs to as otherwise its going to massively penalise other state pensioners by giving you a very unfair share of the overall funds available.

DanW@FastFord

iTrader: (1)

Future matches whatever I put in to the pension, which is nice.

Chip

iTrader: (3)

I was also one of the ones smack in the middle who got nothing and my parents at the time were only just above the cutoff point so couldnt easily afford to do masses for me.

But just because I was unfortunate enough to be in the minority its not fair for, doesnt change my opinion that on balance its not actually a terrible system and could be far worse.

Chip

iTrader: (3)

Good employer then

I think its fair that the police get a decent amount put into their pot by the government as part of their renumeration by the way, thats NOT what im arguing against.
Its that the way things are at the moment, people are ending up with a pot worth 12K a year and then being given 30K a year because they are on a final salary pension.
Which means that if there are 20 people in the state pot with enough for 12k each if fairly divided as they have all paid in equally and 2 of them are police/army/civil service etc, then of the 240K per annum available from the total fund, they get 30K each, and the other 18 people all get 10K each.
Despite all having retired with equal contributions to their pot!

THAT is what I think is unfair, I think its fine putting as much as the government want into the pot as part of a salary essentially, its just not fair to then expect future governments who cant afford it to massively over inflate that pot at the unavoidable cost of everyone elses pensions!

wozzy

sorry rich but the nhs is a classic example of miss managment. i cant remember the statistics now but its something silly like there are 4 office/admin staff to 1 nurse. Definately needs sorting out.
( of course they still need IT gurus like your good self though!! )

focusv8

That's because if the amount of paperwork the NHS has, whether it's neccessary or not will need 1000's of new people to be employed to work on the problem.,,


Both my Sons and their partners work for the NHS in different areas.

All 4 have degrees.
3 of them needed the Degree to get the job.
The one without the need for a Degree is paid less than the lowest paid of the others and spends the majority of his working day in meetings about the allocation of car parking spaces.!!

.

phil_focus

its the subsiquent generations that are having to pay for the previous generations pensions. if noone had kids in this country the country would die! your statment is just plain stupid!


you have a gross generalisation there which is why the current system is in place and doesnt work. unfortunately they OFTEN chose NOT to help their children. they have the attitude that they made it in life on their own and want to instill those values into their kids by making them do the same. my older brothers gilfriend comes from a well off family. her dad is the captain of a luxury yacht for a multi millionair, gets a fair old salary and as he's out of the country for more than 6 months of the year pays little tax. they could have easily helped her out at uni but they CHOSE not to and she worked bloody hard and came out with a masters in aeronautical engineering from bath. (now shes par way through her training to be a fixed wing navy pilot but with scraping the harriers she's fucked!)

i know of other well off families who chose not to help their kids out at uni but the kids get no help from the government! one family i know has two daughters, they've joined the armed forces to save up and then go to uni after!! not fair on them!

by working fucking hard to earn a decent wage these parents have earned their right to chose whether or not to help their child out at uni it should not be expected of them to have to pay!

there is also a HUGE MAJORITY that are in the situation where their parents earn above the threshold but can NOT afford to help them out at uni to the tune of Ł20,000 + PER CHILD out of their after tax income. this means that a LOT of hard working parents with say 3 children are "EXPECTED" to pay Ł60,000+ for their childs uni education out of their after tax income when they are alsready paying the highest tax bill!!

also people with families have to fund larger houses with all the assosiated larger expenses including bigger cars, higher food bills, higher maintenance costs, higher energy bills, christmas bills, birthday bills, clothing bills!!!! its the middle income families that are supporting the country and are not being apreciated for it!

also, there are so many broken families in britain where a child lives with one parent who qualifies them for free tuition fees but that doesnt take into account the absent parent and their ability to help the child.


the bottom line is when 2 people come out with the SAME degree they have the SAME job opportunities and the SAME ability to pay. Why should one have to repay a loan and the other not? it should not be this way!

any further increase in tuition fees is going to put the kids from middle income families off going as the debt will be too daunting a prospect. the welathiest will still go as they can afford it and the poorest will still go cos its free!

PS. this is evident by the fact my mate who got free tuition and support bursaries has just boaght himself a Ł7,000 bmw mini cooper s and yet he's still unemplyed. we finished uni in may this year and graduate in november by the way so we are in the same situation. i however, have had to take my car off the road as i can't afford to run it!

Chip, there is nothing else you can say that will prove the current sytem to be an ok way of doing things and is anything like fair. it is simply a vote grabber as theres a lot of people in the lower income bracket and it obviously helps them out.

its policies like this that have kept the labour government in power for so long and completely ruined this country!

if things carry on the way they are then middle england is going to get so fed up of being fleeced that anyone with anything to offer will now move abroad leaving even more people in the lower income bracket making this country even less sustainable. it is very real possibilty that i may fall into that bracket eventually as with an automotive engineering degree and some experiance under my belt i will become salable to another country!

also to point out my mate who didnt pay tuition fees is just as saleable overseas as i am and if he buggers off what return does this country get on his educational support?

Chip

iTrader: (3)

The kids im saying I dont want to pay for are the scum who spend their lives on benefit and never put a penny in and just take, take, take.

They are NOT goign to help the pensions of this generation, in fact quite the opposite, so not its NOT stupid at all.




To be fair though, in 99% or more of those cases the kids will inheret later on anyway, so if they do have more debts as a result of their parents not helping they are likely to get leveled out eventually.


I know, this is my own situation, my parents made themselves VERY hard up to support me through uni!

you are missing the very obvious point though that if all kids are treated equally by the state, but that a majority of rich kids get help from their parents, then the situation you are moaning about will happen MORE not less!


The current system has flaws, every suggestion in this thread has bigger flaws though, thats my argument, that there is less unfairness this way, and the people like me that it was unfair to are relatively few and far between compared to what would happen if the assistance to poorer families was removed.


I've already mentioned that as the single biggest failing in ANY system of assistance OR loans.

Iain Mac

We have no pension contribution from our employer, but they were kind enough to set up a stakeholder scheme for us to pay into ourselves (when they became obliged to do so).

So I pay my tax and NI every month and look forward to receiving only the basic state pension.

In the meantime, part of my tax and NI goes towards paying the costs of a final-salary pension-scheme for public sector workers who's own contributions are a FRACTION of what they would need to be to buy the same pension entitlement.

It is even more annoying when many of these people are often earning more than I am.

focusv8

My pension from my public sector job starts to pay out next year.
As a result of that I'll be pushed into the higher rate tax bracket, so will end up paying higher rate tax on my previously "free" final salary pension.

.

Chip

iTrader: (3)

My heart BLEEDS for you mate


fuck me, and you still dont realise how lucky you are comapred to your private sector colleagues and are whinging just about that


Talk about typical public sector "head in the sand" mentality

focusv8

Coming from someone who previousl posted about earning over Ł100k a year and paid very little tax.


Read the post I'm no longer public sector and when I was my salary was considerably lower than the equivalent private sector job.
I've worked longer in the private sector than the public.

.

arch

I pay 11% of my wages into my pension (roughly Ł350). I expect to get a pension of around Ł14-15000 a year, but with a lump sum on retirement. So, I would say all things considered this is reasonable after 30 years service. Lets not forget, I am also a tax payer, so in essence I am paying twice for my pension

I could be way off the mark here, but do armed forces pay a monthly contribution? Thought I read that there pension is all govt money.

In this round of cut backs, I'm expecting to have to increase my contributions to around 13%-15%.

What I think is unfair is that when I signed up, it was on the understanding that I would be harshly treated by my employer, I would live where I was told, I would do almost whatever was asked of me. I would give up Christmas with the kids, I would never arrange holidays on rest days as they invariably cancel my days off. I would get paid quite a low wage for the first few years, I would work very anti social hours etc etc, BUT, after 30 years I knew what I would be getting. Goalposts have now moved though. I kept my part of the bargain, but the other side have not.

Still, who ever said life was fair!

Chip

iTrader: (3)

Arch, what age are you planning on collecting this 15K a year from?

You'll have paid in 350 * 12 * 30 = 126000
Less what a 50K payout?
So 76K left in the pot, which you expect to buy you 15K a year for the rest of your life? So you'll have got out what you pay in within 5 years including the lump sum?

So if you live much past 10 years after retirement you're certainly going to be quids in even considering the pot will hopefully grow a bit if well invested even in these more difficult times.

phil_focus

you've gone off topic a bit with that one, we were discussing kids going to uni who will be contributing. not the scum.



that is completely wrong wrong. 99% wont inherit. my parents are supposed to inherit my grandparents house when she goes but thats not going to happen as the house will have to be sold to pay for her care. the same care someone who doesnt own a house would get paid for by the governmnet. that penalises my grandad for aspiring to a better life, working hard and buying his own house and paying off the whole morgage!

my parents being middle england have to support the economy and have huge expense and debt of their own so in reality i've come out of uni worst off cos i've had to take out the biggest loan, my parents are worse off cos they had to help me when they couldnt afford to and i WONT be compensated by an inheretance as i'll probably be inhereting a huge debt. yet my parents trough their high taxes have been paying for someone elses kid to have the same leverl of education and the same chance in life! thats not fair.


So do you think it’s fair that you didn’t get any help of the government and yet through your parent’s taxes someone else’s kid did??????? What if you and he were working side by side, him able to enjoy all his earnings and you still paying off your loan?? Would you be happy with that as that is certainly NOT fair in my book.

i honestly can not understand why you cant see how unfair and open to abuse this sytem is!


you are under the missguided impression that the majority of students who go to uni are from extremely wealthy back grounds...its FAR FAR FAR from that.

MOST people who don’t qualify for free uni places are NOT very wealthy and certainly can NOT afford to pay a whole student debt of Ł20,000+ after tax per child. You are living in cloud cuckoo land if you think thats the case. It is only the very small MINORITY of extremely wealthy families who can afford to do that. This system is open to abuse and therefore is not fair.


you are plain wrong mate. there are fare more people in OUR situation than you realise! we are NOT a minority, more a majority! the suggestion of everyone has to pay for their uni education is far fairer and NOT open to abuse than the current system. if you dont have the money to start with you take out a loan and pay it later when your earning. if you have the money to pay it off without the need for a loan then fine. if your parents decide to help you out and pay for it all thats upto them. they've worked hard (most of them) to get themselves a wealthy income and therefore they deserve the right to chose whether or not they want to help their child.


thats my point though. this system is supporting exactly that. free education to the ability of being able to go elsewhere and not pay any of it back. that is by definition a flaud system as its not sustainable and ANY system that is open to abuse in this way is wrong, unfair and should be changed! if it isnt changed the country will collapse. doesnt take much to realise that!


also you didnt comment on this comment i made.

"any further increase in tuition fees is going to put the kids from middle income families off going as the debt will be too daunting a prospect. the welathiest will still go as they can afford it and the poorest will still go cos its free!"

this means that in the future people like YOU and ME will be simply priced out of going to uni completely. can you honestly say hand on heart that you are happy with this???

Chip

iTrader: (3)

Not ignoring you, but im finishing work for the day now so will have to reply tomorrow as its so much to reply to before I shoot off or I'll be late for my dinner date.

phil_focus

this problem of an unfair open to abuse system is also being abused by people who are going to uni on these mickey mouse degrees cos its free and they do fuck all, drink and party all the time and often fail the so called degree or come out with it but its totally useless so they dont earn enough to pay off their degree.

can you honestly say chip that a system that is open to all this abuse, which is NOT a tiny ammount but is HUGELY significant cost wise to the tax payer, and is sooo grosely unfair is the right system to be in place???

phil_focus

thats fair enough, but what work have you been doing then?? if i was in work i wouldnt have the time to do this all day! i'm only not in work as i've had operations on my knees and cant work at the mo!

arch

There have been a few studies made (mainly American, so take a huge pinch of salt). They suggest that the average age a police officer dies is about 66. Same studies also state that retired police officers have something like the third highest rate of suicide!!

Anyway, I shall retire a month after my 49th birthday, and I would hope to see a good while after that, so as you say, I should be quids in. Sad as it may seem, but when I was a young 20 year old bloke, the decent pension was one of the things that attracted me to this job. Jesus, I must have been a right saddo.

But lets not forget, as a tax payer I also pay again into it, and every month my employer puts into it, so not quite as straight forwards as your figures suggest.


Edited to say that this was in reply to Chips post, that I forgot to quote.

RWD_cossie_wil

iTrader: (9)

[quote=arch;5143965]Arch, again being in the line of work we are in, people moan about costs / need / policy etc until people actually need you ... But I'm out in April anyway, so dosn't make a huge amount of difference to me.

arch

[QUOTE=RWD_cossie_wil;5144372]What you got lined up then?

RWD_cossie_wil

iTrader: (9)

Fuck knows

phil_focus

fuck me your able to retire at the age of 49!!! you staying retired or still working but doing something else?

my dad's 55 and cant financialy retire the way things are at the mo at 65. he's worked extremely hard all his life to get my brothers and i into good schools, in so doing having to take massive financial hits by having to buy more expensive houses, has for the majority of his working life paidd the higher rate of income tax and never fitted into a category to allow him (or my mum) to claim ANY kind of benefit including child support (i'm 22 now btw). my mum has worked on and off all her life but when she's not worked its because she's been a stay at home mum bringing my brothers and i up. this has meant we've only had the one salary to support the family and only the one tax free allowance and my dad is the EXACT representation of middle england who has supported this country and has not gained anything from it. totally unapreciated.

arch, you have nothing to complain about. you have got it cushty!

gaz s1

Lol at this whole thread especially the title as if the private sector is going to be immune to these cuts, things are going down the toilet fast and this country is fucked, everyone turning on everyone else, look at this thread public vs private, first thing we should be doing is getting out of the eu, save billions get our borders back and go back to the original trade agreements of the common market but our beloved corrupt biggest benefit scrounging leaders aint going to do that as they need to feel important, as kenny everett used to say put em(politicians) in a field and bomb the bastards

phil_focus

HAHAHAAAA love that

arch

I wasn't really complaining fella, more voicing an opinion that the goal posts keep moving.

Chip

iTrader: (3)

They are moving far further for everyone in the private sector mate.

Seriously if you think you are hard done by that you have to work till 49 before retiring I reckon you must have smoked more crack than most of your customers

Chip

iTrader: (3)

Today I was mainly booking time to the project "work not available" as my main project finished last week and ive not been assigned a new one yet so was just picking up odds and sods and sitting around "just in case" I was needed.

Im in IT, so at a computer all day wether I have work to do or not.

phil_focus

ah, thats what i need to be aiming at then

good luck with the next project, whatever it is.

Psycho Warren

iTrader: (5)

yep. no contributions. you can voluntarily buy extra years contributions to boost your pension.
agree yes it is unfair that they are in effect able to change the contracted pay, but thats just the way it is and its infinitely worse in civvy street where a employment contract most of the time isnt worth the paper its written on.
yeah at least they cant touch pensions already in repayment phew.
its not good out there unless youve got a valuable trade are resettlement teams still full of shit??

RWD_cossie_wil

iTrader: (9)

Don't know Warren, I am ignoring them as they just want to push you into any job really... I am doing a full Domestic Electrician course at the moment, and going to do a Gas installation engineers course, and do my civil aviation maintainance licences, so hopefully have a few strings to my bow. I am not mega worried, as there are plenty of jobs for those who want to work...

Oranoco

I work within the public sector and have to say I'm bricking it :0(

Jobs are getting thin on the ground as it is and cutbacks are being made across my area of business which means roads and transport will be even further under invested than they are at present. This is only going to be a bad thing as the infrastructure crumbles while the government makes short term savings. The damage this is going to cause is going to cost billions to rectify at a later date. As it is the budget my department gets is half that required for us to stand still replacing excessively corroded and potentialy hazzardous units

I'm certain that cutbacks are needed but the politicians are, as usual, just weilding an axe looking only at the short term.

Chip

iTrader: (3)

Its relatively easy to safeguard at least a portion of your wealth to leave to your kids if you want.
If your parents switch to tenants in common so they own half the house each then neither's half can be sold without the others consent to fund nursing home treatment and they can each leave their half to you.


I wouldnt class your parents as middle england if they are in debt with no assets TBH.



I have other advantages from my upbringing that he might not, and I'd be glad he had got from a council estate to a well paid job sat next to myself TBH.
Yes its a little unfair on me, but NO system is ever going to be totally fair, its unrealistic to strive for that, it will just involve all the money being spent on fair distribution of the remaining fiver rather thats left after all the admin.



I can, I just dont see any better alternative being presented yet.





No im not, but thanks for taking the time to make some nonsense up about me, its nice you took the time and trouble.


No I dont think that is the case, and I know the system isnt perfect, you seem to have mistaken me for a blind idiot when I am no such thing.






There is a difference in the perception of the worth of an education between different sections of society, middle england will generally believe a degree is so valuable its worth the debt, and to a middle england kid living in a 500K house 20K isnt such a scarey figure anyway as it is to someone who's parents have never had 500 quid in the bank during their entire life.
To someone from a poor and uneducated background, those hurdles feel a lot bigger, and when you take into account that most middle england families can at least provide SOME support in an emergency there is a difference there too, but feel free to ignore it if you like and keep bleating on that all these people literally cant afford to give the child they chose to raise a single penny in help.




As Ive mentioned several times, thats the biggest issue with ANY system where the student ends up liable for paying money back, they can just go to another country where they cant be chased.



I didnt comment cause I felt it was just a sensationalist tabloid headline rather than having any real substance to it TBH and it still reads like that now.


I wouldnt be priced out of going if it was 50K, as Ive earnt more than that in 6 months before with the help of my degree but wouldnt have done without it, and given that you dont have to pay back until you are on a reasonable wage it's not actually a debt until such point as you can cope with it being anyway.

gaz s1

This is due to the normal political schedule in this country tories get in cut everything and lose an election, labour get in and have to borrow shitloads to get the country back on its feet thus ending in debt and losing an election, guess what happens next.................. only there is one difference this time limp dems make promises they cant keep knowing they wont get elected then when they do get power they have to go back on all their promises and get wiped off the political map with most of there voters go back to labour which the limp dems are more inline with anyway, got to love politics!!

The most repulsive thing was watching the tories laughing and enjoying the cuts they are bringing in live on tv as this is what they would do if there was no deficit anyway, its their way and always will be!! but remember we are all in this together. fucking lol!!

Ginge !

sorry but tories cut everything,,,,,,, and left the country with some cash in the bank,,,, labour came in,,,,,, borrowed everything,,,,, sold off the gold reserves WHEN IT WAS WORTH FUCK ALL and put us into the biggest debt we have ever seen, changed the benifit system so that it was better for people to NOT go to work than it is to work, THEN had a new system where people who have not been working for over 12 months have to work FOR FREE to get there benifits,,,,,,,, so,,,,,,, employers are getting FREE help for a few months rather than paying minimum wage,

there is some of there great ideas as i wont get into the " we let everyone in" bollox as thats far from our problems,,, we have pricks who live here causing issues to deal with and its far to easy to pick on " jonny polish" who most just work hard for the same money just get the job done

gaz s1

but whats going to happen when millions lose their jobs and the private sector dont employ brits as the polish etc work for a lot less as they can as they live 10 to a house and send the money home, not good for the economy really is it?, brits on the dole not paying taxes and no jobs, lets face it the figures state there are not enough jobs in the economy for the people who are out of work,what happens then??????????

AND IF WE ARE SO CLOSE TO BANKRUPTY WHY ARE THE GOVERMENT INCREASING FOREIGN AID BY 37%!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

phil_focus

ok chip, we've each said our bit on that subject so i'm going to leave it there. everyones entitled to their own opinion so agree to differ.

Ginge !

we could do what labour done and make people do STUPID POINTLESS collage courses that wont actually get them a decent job and will just keep the figures of unemployment down

NOW we have jobs that require you to be qualified to get a basic wage when before you could have learned 1 day a week or even a month and the rest on site

you have the choice of being a student OR get a job OR get no benifits now what choice would a lazy scrote choose ?

maybe its just me but i know that specific courses are limited AND if you cant learn basic english and maths how good are you at actually learning ?

there should be a min qualifacation OR make them learn the basic english and maths rather than the foundation NVQ 1 of stacking shelves and pricing up tins of beans