UK State Pension - Is it really enough?

I get by with my pension because my mortgage is paid off. I don't know how people manage if they have rent or mortgage payments to find.

That was very informative Graphite. I am not a bitter person but we still live in a patriarchal society. I brought my 2 children up after a divorce when my children were still young.My eldest is disabled. My ex-husband was on a very good income. He got away with paying very little maintenance during their childhood. I didn't get any part of his pension. So I worked my butt off, got back into teaching and brought my kids up. He is very comfortably off now. But I'm certainly not. I'm retired but still have a mortgage. I didn't work for several years before we divorced, too difficult with a disabled child, so missed years of paying NI. I just get by. There are different circumstances for many. But I do think we should receive the minimum wage.

Graphite and M0nica

You’ve both raised great points.

I’m happy to say that 4 out 5 of our adult children have good private pension provision and none would ever op out, our youngest at 24 is a self employed musician so .. 🤷🏻‍♀️🤷🏻‍♀️

I don’t have the answers, but I do know I’d not like to see any pensioner living in abject poverty, irrespective of whether they’d spent their working life in paid work or not.

My MiL is a prime example, three children by the time she was 22, married and living in Southern Ireland, in what what then a very small seaside town, with little work. Long story short, developed/diagnosed with schizophrenia, moved with husband to England for work, domestic abuse, sectioned several times then electro-therapy in the 60’s completely wrecked her. So fast forward to now and she’s in a fully funded dementia home. No property to sell, very little savings, lots of small non pensionable jobs when she was well.

Thank goodness for the welfare state.

J52. If you were in pension scheme which opted out of SERPS then you should receive a Guaranteed Minimum Pension (GMP) within your workplace pension equivalent to the Additional State Pension you would have received had your scheme not contracted out. It’s complicated but that’s the basic premise.

Former Pensions Minister Steve Webb explains more here:

www.lcp.com/media/1150050/why-is-money-being-deducted-from-my-state-pension.pdf

When governments plan and legislate for pensions it’s presumably done on the basis that people will lead straightforward lives and be fully employed for the requisite number of years to get the most benefit (literally) from the system.

The old system required a man to work and pay NIC for 44 years and a woman 39. Following equalisation, that’s 35 years for both. As SP age rises that hasn’t been increased. This factors in that many young people now don’t enter the workplace until 21 when once it would have been 14, 15 or 16 for most. I think that 35 years is still fairly generous as age 21 to 67 is 46 years so allow for 11 years out of the workplace.

What it isn’t factoring in complex life changes, sustained periods of unemployment, poor health and caring responsibilities of the sandwich generation caught between child care and caring for elderly parents. More often (but not always) it is women who are worst affected as Plevey describes.

The graphic show DWP numbers from February 2025 when the New State Pension was £221.20. It shows that most people, whichever system they are on, receive less that a full pension with women lagging behind for obvious reasons. Someone with no other income would have had that topped up with Pension Credit to the then ceiling of £218.15 a week and could claim other benefits in addition which, as I said before, could bring someone’s income close to Cossy’s number of £15,000.

www.gov.uk/government/statistics/dwp-benefits-statistics-august-2025/dwp-benefits-statistics-august-2025

www.gov.uk/government/publications/benefit-and-pension-rates-2024-to-2025/benefit-and-pension-rates-2024-to-2025#pension-credit

I think pensions are always going to be messy, simply because people’s lives are messy in all sorts of ways and one size is never going to fit all. Governments can try to push the system to more reliance on workplace pensions but if fewer people are working and those who are working are opting out then the problems aren’t going to go away.

Moreover, workplace pension scheme are very vulnerable to market shocks as we saw in 2022 when they nearly failed. A Reform government is predicted to have the same effect and would let them fail as under them there would be no quantitative easing to shore them up. That’s very worrying.

Your idea is a good one, Cossy, but it isn't going to happen even if the net affect of simplification was no overall cost. I wonder if people realise how administratively expensive means testing is?

Any attempt to do what you suggest would be met by a barrage of commentators who rather enjoy stoking generational warfare and the notion that one person's pocket is being picked to pay for someone else's free ride. I expect most have little clue as to how the State Pension system has been operating and evolving over the last 100 years and the social and political factors and events which have given rise to such a range of disparities.

valdali

I'm fine on £10, 600 per year my occupational pension.
I sell a few things on Ebay & have savings I could use till I get my state pension in 18 months time at 67.
DH works & pays our council tax & most utilities, but I buy 95%
of food & household items, pay half tradesmen's bills, pay for our holidays, run a car, pay all the vets bills.
We're in an "expensive" area. I thought I would be dipping in to my savings, but so far I seem to have enough for what I want.

I can't see the logic in the state paying people the same p.a. whether they're top earners & single, or unemployed with 2 children & additional costs associated with disability, Cossy? Is this what you meant? I might be missing something....

"I'm fine......." Jaysus, then thank your lucky stars.

Why do foodbanks still exist (and multiply) and why do very many, including pensioners, thank THEIR lucky stars for them?

Plevey08

Why did you not get any of your ex husbands pension? Sounds like you were the one at home with disabled child and your now suffering financially.
A friend of mine aged sixty divorced many years ago, has been to a solicitor and been awarded a substantial sum from her ex’s pension pot. Maybe it’s not too late.

Padstow13

valdali

I'm fine on £10, 600 per year my occupational pension.
I sell a few things on Ebay & have savings I could use till I get my state pension in 18 months time at 67.
DH works & pays our council tax & most utilities, but I buy 95%
of food & household items, pay half tradesmen's bills, pay for our holidays, run a car, pay all the vets bills.
We're in an "expensive" area. I thought I would be dipping in to my savings, but so far I seem to have enough for what I want.

I can't see the logic in the state paying people the same p.a. whether they're top earners & single, or unemployed with 2 children & additional costs associated with disability, Cossy? Is this what you meant? I might be missing something....

"I'm fine......." Jaysus, then thank your lucky stars.

Why do foodbanks still exist (and multiply) and why do very many, including pensioners, thank THEIR lucky stars for them?

Is it the difference between those living in a relationship, sharing costs, and those who live on their own?

Obviously, singletons pay 100% for their food, household items, tradesman's bills, utilities, holidays etc (and singletons pay the same charge for a hotel room that a couple sharing pay).

I thought Vivaldi was doing well until she mentioned a husband.
What a difference that makes.

It’s much easier with two incomes. I’ve already posted links to government numbers which show that, even after housing costs, couples have income which is on average £328 per week more per week than single people. £17,000 per annum more than a single person. That’s a lot of money and more than the £15,000 that Cossy is suggesting as a universal basic income.

Many on just a State Pension will end up with that amount anyway when all the benefits they can claim are added in. That sum equates to expenditure that Retirement Living Standards say is required for a minimum lifestyle after tax is taken into account.

That people need to claim all these extras just to live at a very minimum standard is both a faff and administratively expensive - Pension Credit, Housing Benefit, Council Tax Discount plus the data sharing that has to go on to get Warm Home Discount or proof of entitlement to get free eye and dental care or a TV Licence.

The notion that we “paid in” for a State Pension is ridiculous when millions of people receive Category B, C and D pensions that they did not pay NIC for, plus the other systems to credit periods of not working e.g. Home Responsibilities Protection and NIC credits.

By and large we have had and continue to have decent safety nets. Why not make that net a higher universal one to save all the administrative overload and cost?