“Think Big”: l’ex ministro delle pensioni chiede ai contributi del Regno Unito a salire
https://www.theguardian.com/money/2025/may/26/think-big-ex-pensions-minister-calls-for-uk-contributions-minimum-to-go-up
di F0urLeafCl0ver
“Think Big”: l’ex ministro delle pensioni chiede ai contributi del Regno Unito a salire
https://www.theguardian.com/money/2025/may/26/think-big-ex-pensions-minister-calls-for-uk-contributions-minimum-to-go-up
di F0urLeafCl0ver
14 commenti
They should start tapering people off the triple lock whilst pushing education on retirement planning.
I think fundamentally there is a lack of awareness and maybe some apathy, but you can’t afford to be apathetic if you make the state pension less generous.
Almost certainly. 3% is nothing and is almost criminal. Government need to do their duty
For 8% to be enough you would probably have to start contributing around age 16 and never have any gaps. I think the minimum total % needs to be more than 10.
No one in need of election can say it, but the triple lock is unsustainable. It’s not ‘*if*’, it’s ‘*when*’ it is taken away. The government need private pensions to be strong so that they can means test the state pension in the future. The current system can’t work with an aging population and an ever more unaffordable state pension.
I just know by the time i get there it probably won’t even be a thing anymore. I’d love to be able to save more and prepare but today is getting more and more expensive and is barely being covered with things not looking like they are going to get better any time soon.
They should be putting these pension contributions into a future fund rather than spending on current pensions. Even if it is a small split, it will ease the pensions timebomb later.
Trying to sell a pensions increase to people not thinking they will get a state pension is a non starter.
If you’re going to think big then we need to look at ways to reduce the state spend on pensions, it’s almost half the welfare budget and it’s only going one way.
Kill the triple lock, and find ways to taper the state pension via means testing (or tax). Actually just making old people pay NI like everyone else would pretty much do it.
All well and good, but neither the employee or employer side has much wiggle room with the current state of the economy.
Increase EE contributions and you’ll see a wave of people opting out of their workplace schemes that then have no pension savings whatsoever. Increase ER contributions and you’ve got a double-whammy after the recent ER NIC increases and continuous National Minimum Wage hikes, which is going to lead to either job losses, hours cuts or recruitment freezes.
Also worth noting that the minimum age for workplace pension auto-enrolment is set to drop from 22 to 18 at some point in the future, and the “qualifying earnings” bands will be scrapped (currently some employers can opt to only pay contributions between annual earnings of £6,240 and £50,270, as stated in the article). Those changes are a step in the right direction, but there won’t be much appetite for a % increase on top of them.
Personally I think you’ve got two options for a pensions system.
1. A system with a smaller state pension and generous tax incentives that gives people a range of options in how they want to save for retirement (Stocks and Shares ISA, private/workplace pension contributions etc.)
2. A system with a much heavier tax burden that offers a greater state pension but cannot provide for large tax-free contributions.
The first option is honestly better, **if** people actually bother to use it. We have a real problem with financial illiteracy across all generations, and far too many people sleepwalk to retirement age with no idea how much they’ve saved or even what additional benefits they’re entitled to.
We can’t micromanage people’s personal lives, but I don’t know how you force people to pay attention to their financial future. It takes 10 minutes to Google the ways you can start saving and the benefits/risks, how do you make people do something that basic if they’re not already?
I’m all for those contributions to be coming from the employer not the employee.
As I know many on 40k and below barely scraping by right now.
Triple lock is paid for by taxes. As triple lock always rises at a rate faster or equal to income, mathematically eventually it becomes an impossible burden.
It should be scrapped, today. If it is in some way tied to incomes that would be fine, but as pensioner expenditure is less (at least for the current lot majority no mortgage and of course beyond child raising ages) it should rise at a rate of median incomes – some percentage.
I’d also advocate for pensioners paying NI. I don’t get why they don’t. NI is a lie anyway, now it’s all in line with income tax (not talking employer side stuff here) it may as well form part of the income tax level itself.
That minimum wouldn’t be paying for my pension though – it’d be propping up boomers and Xers on unsustainable final salary pensions that the system wasn’t designed for. They were fine when you dropped dead 8 years after retiring but not for 20-30 years. Something needs to change
There won’t be a state pension when we retire
I recently open pensions for my two kids (10 and 12). Along with saving for them since birth, it’s the only way they will get a house/retire
Contributions… to the current pensioners’ fund, right?