Pension forcast horror

[Alexis]

Gilles is creeping up to retirement age and was invited to a reunion yesterday.

The maximum, for a person who has never had a day off sick and has worked for 42 years, is 1100€ a month.

The minimum is 570€.  If, however, you have been on RMI, the minimum is less than the minimum....

A lady there, 60 years old, worked mi-temps, has three children, is entitled to 60€ a month.  She get 10% more than normal as she has the 'magic' three children.

It doesn't matter how much you earn each month either - used to be calculated on your ten 'best' years - the pension is a % calculated to the minimum wage.  There are different pension groups however.  Gilles was in the Director's one for many years.  It might pay more.

The person in charge of the reunion says amounts change almost daily but Gilles's age group are the last to benefit from a 'full' pension from the Government.  Younger people will have to work for at least 45 years and start a pension plan.

This is what is sticking in the throats of the teaching professsion...study until 25 then 45 years of cotisation. . .  Others too, of course, who have studied.

What is the basic pension for a person in the UK?  Am I right in thinking the pension is paid to married couples or is it two singles - each earning their 'right'?  I can't remember.

[Pixietoadstool]

I recently sent off for a pension forecast - I have paid my stamp the necessary number of years to receive a full pension and the forecast was for about £90 per week which I thought wasn't bad.  My husband should get the same - which is not as much as he should have got - he is one of the ones suffering from a pension scandal - the company he worked for went to the wall and his pension was seriously underfunded - they calculate he will only get 17% of what he had been originally promised - and he had contributed over £40,000 in 15 years working for them!  So we will have to live off £180 a week which is possible without a mortgage but certainly not glamorous!

Valerie

[Clarkkent]

I'm a little confused by Alexis' post. Do you mean occupational pension for a teacher or do you mean state pension? If the latter, the "old age pension" is as Pixietoadstool described it - but I think a married couple based on one pension record receive about £120 - I stand to be corrected.

The teacher's occupational pension pays 1/80 of (effectively) the final year's salary for each year of service. So if you have a career which lasted 40 years you will get a pension equivalent to 40/80 or 50% of your final salary. For a classroom teacher this is likely to be in the region of £14,000 - which sounds to be a little more than the monthly maximum figure you quote.

[Miki]

But Gilles is French isn't he. Alexis is speaking quite clearly in a French mode. So I guess Alexis is talking this through on a French basis, well I think so, unless Gilles did his teaching in the UK ?

 

[Clarkkent]

[quote]But Gilles is French isn't he. Alexis is speaking quite clearly in a French mode. So I guess Alexis is talking this through on a French basis, well I think so, unless Gilles did his teaching in the UK...[/quote]

At the end of her post Alexis asks: "What is the basic pension for a person in the UK?"

I was answering this question in the context of a career in education.

[Patf]

Watching Prime Minister's questions today, Tony Blair said that the basic weekly pension for a single person , including a supplement, was £110 per week, for a couple £160+.The couple's pension is paid when the wife doesn't have a pension in her own right ( I think.) I suppose this is based on having paid all contributions. There was a discussion on this in the last 2 months on this forum but I can't find it. I remember that one point was that there are 2 levels of pension in France, a lower one with long paying -in period for the self employed etc including farmers, and a higher rate for fonctionaires who also had a shorter qualifying paying - in period. Pat.

[Miki]

[quote]At the end of her post Alexis asks: "What is the basic pension for a person in the UK?" I was answering this question in the context of a career in education.[/quote]

Sorry, misread it 

 

[0BRIAN WOODHEADI,m here in franceddMMyyyy0Falseen-USI,m here in franceTrue]

Having lived for at least 30% of my adult life outside the UK I know that if there still is a pension when and if I reach 65(pension age at the moment)my pension will not be much,BUT if I/we move back to the UK at that age will get a minimum income guarantee which will be the same as a pension and we would get free health care to boot,that is more than we would get in france,until that is the EU get hold of the UK pension funds.

[Coco]

[quote]I recently sent off for a pension forecast - I have paid my stamp the necessary number of years to receive a full pension and the forecast was for about £90 per week which I thought wasn't bad. My hu...[/quote]

Valerie

Are you talking about occupational or state pension.  I thought you were the same age as me, in which case, did you really start paying at one year old?

[Pixietoadstool]

Coco,

I am actually older than you but not by much!  Born in 1957 - work that one out!

The pension forecast actually looks ahead to when you retire and bases this on the assumption that you will continue to pay your stamp until retirement age.  As you know I am self-employed but I have always paid my stamp.  They look at your actual records I believe so it is a bit more than a guesstimate.  I think they let you off a certain number of stamps before disqualifying you for an individual pension and you also have the chance to make up any unpaid stamps up to a certain time before you retire.  Have a look at the DWP website- you can apply on line too:

http://www.thepensionservice.gov.uk/atoz/atozdetailed/rpforecast.asp

Re: the other query - a couple get a couple's pension if the man has paid all his stamps and the woman hasn't (or the other way around too) and both will get individual pensions if they both pay their stamps. 

Valerie

[Alexis]

I'm sorry to confuse you.  I thought it was clear!

The people who train for years for their job, ie teachers, will have to work for 45 years AFTER their training has finished to receive a pension.  Of sorts, obviously.  So they will be 70.

Good idea from outcast though.  If we go back, 'they' will keep us.  I have very serious doubts about the French system doing anything.

My forcast in the UK was 68% about 15 years ago.  Then I have my £2.00 private pension which I had to stop when I came here.  Don't know if that is for a week or a month.  Could be a year, of course.

Ages ago on the telly, the agricultural person and the shop person received virtually nothing but the teacher was on 2000FF even then.  AND he somehow benifitted because he had seven children.

I just don't understand it here.

[Iceni]

Outcast wrote - that is the EU get hold of the UK pension funds The problem is that the UK like most other countries has NO funds to pay for state pensions - it is all paid for by current taxation.

I know that many people have lost occupational pensions, lets not forget that many of us have also lost private pensions. The whole pension system in the UK is dire.

I used to live in Chile. Everyone working there then had to put 10% of their gross income into a special bank account which paid a high rate of interest tax free. The account could not be used until the person reached retirement age and the account was in their name and ringfenced for them. The system is deemed so good that the UK government have made visits to check out the system. This type of system means that you are not dependent on there being enough tax payers to pay for your pension when you get to retirement age - the pot is there and you own your own. You also have something to leave to others should you die.

The problem for most of Europe is that as the working population decreases and the pensioners increase, countries like the UK will make more and more of the pension means tested and those of us living in France will get less and less. They also say that the money needed to pay for the current retired civil servants is more than the national debt and climbing as the gov is the fastest growing employer. It is simply far too expensive - unless those that work don't mind paying historically high rates of tax or work till they are 70.

Ah well, I will find out about my UK pittance in 20 months, sorry I can't help you with the French pension.

[0BRIAN WOODHEADI,m here in franceddMMyyyy0Falseen-USI,m here in franceTrue]

UK pension fund are not the same as state pensions,once the EU gets hold of the budget bye bye UK.

[Piprob]

Speaking as someone all too close to pension age, I get quietly very annoyed when I reflect that the immediate post-war baby boomers - tens of thousands of extra tax payers - have for so long propped-up a defunct system which it is only now acknowledged will be unable to support them. The politically correct solution, the  abolition of the concept of a 'retirement age' has come at a very convenient time for government(s). It's the modern day equivalent of a resue by the cavalry.

Notice how the pension rights of members of parliament are completely safe. They have not left that to chance.

 

[IAN_S]

Outcast

If you are not talking about the state pension, what funds are you talking about, and what has the EU got to do with it?

 

[Happy Expat]

Great - Uk government generously pays your state pension to you in France. But, there had to be one did there not, Pension Credit Guarantee is not payable for those resident abroad. Another con ....

 

My wife is nine years older than me and has only ever paid Married Woman's NI contributions as have many others of her generation - no information was given as to the implications of this by the authorities at all. Now we find that she cannot draw a State Pension until I am 65 and is entitled to 52p per week in her own right.

Politicians? Bah - humbug ....

Bob & Jane

[Coco]

[quote]Great - Uk government generously pays your state pension to you in France. But, there had to be one did there not, Pension Credit Guarantee is not payable for those resident abroad. Another con .... ...[/quote]

I sympathise Bob.  As I said in an earlier posting, my mum and step-dad fall into this category.  For a very few years out of the 45+ that she paid in, she paid married women's allowance.  She is 11 years older than my step-dad, so finally, they will get a full married couple's pension, but for the last 15 years she has been getting a pittance.  Over the last two years it has gone up to about £80 a month and compared with what she WAS getting, she's quids in.

We're paying voluntary contributions back in the UK to "ensure" that we get a pension of some kind, but I really wonder whether it's worth it.  I'm sure that even if we were paying full contributions, in 17-19 years times, when we come to claim it (if they haven't put it up to 70 by then!) there will either be nothing, or very little for us to claim!

[Piprob]

Let's just revolt!

[BJSLIV]

Sorry , but I well remember the many married women who were very pleased that the only paid the "cheap stamp". Often they were the same people who had cashed in their pensions when they got married. That was the way it was then; women expected to live on their husbands pension, and didn't expect, need, or want a pension of their own.

Times have changed and women rightly expect or  have to stand on their own two feet. But back then women chose not to pay the higher contributions, the consequences were explained but it was their free choice. Incidentally it was for this very reason that the lower rate optiobn was withdrawn , apart from people who were already in the system

I liken it to young people today who do not save / join pension schemes, for their retirement because they cannot afford/ prefer to spend now. Its their choice.

[Iceni]

[quote]Let's just revolt![/quote]

But I thought we were revolting...

[Ian 56]

[quote]Great - Uk government generously pays your state pension to you in France. But, there had to be one did there not, Pension Credit Guarantee is not payable for those resident abroad. Another con .... ...[/quote]

'My wife is nine years older than me and has only ever paid Married Woman's NI contributions as have many others of her generation - no information was given as to the implications of this by the authorities at all. Now we find that she cannot draw a State Pension until I am 65 and is entitled to 52p per week in her own right.'

 

It is a small consolation that a 52p per week pension is sufficient to get both your wife and you, as a dependant, into the French medical service.

 

ian

[0BRIAN WOODHEADI,m here in franceddMMyyyy0Falseen-USI,m here in franceTrue]

The EU want monetary union and because the UK pension funds are in credit they would have to go into the same pot as the rest of the EU nearly bankrupt pot,ie one EU pension just like one EU currency,one EU law one EU foreign policy and one EU foreign minister.

[Iceni]

I nearly fell over laughing when I read this (no offence intended - personal comment) :

I liken it to young people today who do not save / join pension schemes, for their retirement because they cannot afford/ prefer to spend now. Its their choice.

My advice is to stay well clear of any form of pension if you can unless you can get a company pension scheme.

Our pension was looking good - we had saved and done everything we were told to do. With 10 years to go the expected annual sum would have kept us very very well. Equitable and the drop in the stock market mean that we will get next to nothing for our pension. If we had had that money and invested it ourselves in a property we would be laughing now. We are the norm for those who were not lucky enough to be civil servants or in companies with final salary pension schemes.

There is no impetus for any young person in the UK to save and the TV adverts even offer loans to pensioners linked to their property (and I don't mean equity release I mean new mortgages on their property). As far as I can see, the effect of all this is that the general view is 'why not take 100% of equity and have it all now - the state picks you up at the end of your life'.

The current system has to fall over - simply because the debt mountain is far to high for it to be corrected even in the long term without some very severe financial pain. Thank goodness France has a more sensible view regarding loans and the % of income that can go on servicing them.

This is a Europe wide problem, the solution will not be easy and it is the younger population who will have to pay through the nose and the older population who will have a frugal old age if relying on state benefits.

[BJSLIV]

unlws    ...lucky enough to be civil servants

I was recently doing a bit of agency work in a local government  organisation and I was shocked to find that around half the eligible younger staff have  not joined  this supposedly gold plated scheme.

[Teamedup]

French pensions are very complicated and one has to have paid the maximum plafond for a long time to get the maximum pension.

I was a pay clerk in the 1960's. Women knew then that they were paying less and the cover was reduced, it was a choice. No pension and no sick pay, it was understood. However, anyone later working in France and having taken that choice (it was never inflicted) could have really terrible problems with their french pensions. It should not be forgotten any woman could have started paying full contributions at absolutely any time in the UK.