This Year's Pension Increases

manclad said:
You forgot to include your free bus pass/ £10 Metrolink and train pass in your OAP benefits Sheila.
I used my buss pass to get from my nephew's house in Acton to Wembley and back on 22/04/23 and it cost me sweet FA .
(And I definitely don't mean those initials to stand for Football Association).
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Oops I did, probably because I haven't used it this season. (I will be using the tram though on Saturday, good job I've paid my £10.)

On a side note I didn't know you could use your bus pass outside of the Greater Manchester area? :-)
 
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SilverFox2 said:
Surely you have 13 pay days peer year ie 13x4 weeks in a year not 12x if paid monthly?
In other words your 4 weekly payment does not follow the calender month.
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Correct, which gets me every time I am working out my budget for the year as I forget that and add my TP and SP together and divide by 52 to work out how much I get a week..... then I remember and have to start all over again. (& no I don't use a calculator, I use my brain. Use it or lose it my Dad used to say) :-)
 
Eccles Blue said:
Oops I did, probably because I haven't used it this season. (I will be using the tram though on Saturday, good job I've paid my £10.)

On a side note I didn't know you could use your bus pass outside of the Greater Manchester area? :-)
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Your concessionary bus pass is good for any bus trip in England (Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland not included).
I also did a free trip from Southport to Preston last June,and Morecambe to Kendal last September.
And my in- laws use theirs when they come to Manchester every summer to visit us and other family.
But it's only available for bus travel, Metrolink is excluded.
 
manclad said:
Your concessionary bus pass is good for any bus trip in England (Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland not included).
I also did a free trip from Southport to Preston last June,and Morecambe to Kendal last September.
And my in- laws use theirs when they come to Manchester every summer to visit us and other family.
But it's only available for bus travel, Metrolink is excluded.
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OH thank you that's interesting. I could go to visit my granddaughter in Leyland when I'm up to it.

I did use it for the train from Eccles to Victoria a couple of years ago.
I knew I had to pay the £10 for the Metro.
 
hampshireblue said:
Most probably aren't, but the scheme I was in has just increased the payments by RPI, I think for January, which was just over 13%.
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Was that a public sector scheme?
Ours is complicated with some elements related to CPI and some related to RPI but all elements are capped between 2.5% and 5% meaning it’s not possible to get a rise of more than around 3.8% irrespective of inflation. It’s been fine for the last 30 years but pensioners are taking a hammering this year.
 
The Light Was Yellow Sir said:
Small point of order EB, but the state pension is not a ‘benefit’. You paid in, as you were told you must, and now you are taking out.
Over 55% of payments from the ’social‘ goes on pensioners so they like to dress it up as benefits spending.
If they paid the going rate they could stop topping up on pension credit, winter fuel payments, housing benefit and the like but it suits the politicians to not so do, even though it adds huge amounts in administration costs.
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The forecast I read states 42% of welfare spending is to go on state pension but I get what you’re referring to. I more than get @Eccles Blue point though, like many in the same situation they are getting out what they have paid in. I have members of family who feel exactly the same.
 
normskih said:
The forecast I read states 42% of welfare spending is to go on state pension but I get what you’re referring to. I more than get @Eccles Blue point though, like many in the same situation they are getting out what they have paid in. I have members of family who feel exactly the same.
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The problem is that while in principle, you're getting out what you put in, in practical terms, you're not. In real terms, what you put in was spent at the time, and you were basically promised that your retirement would be covered by future taxpayers. Which of course only works if there are enough future taxpayers earning enough money to cover the number of people retiring. It's also a particular issue when pensioners, and only pensioners, are uniquely protected from the economic consequences of the party (and other policy that shan't be named) that they overwhelmingly voted for (yes, I know, not all pensioners and all that). Having said that, good luck to anyone getting anything out of these pricks of a government.

I've just signed up for the government scheme here in Malaysia (optional for foreigners, but compulsory for locals) and over here it is an individual thing, so you get out what you put in. It earns around 6% a year, and as a foreigner, I can take it out when I leave the country. As an expat who was worried about making up my contributions so that I qualify for the full state pension in the UK, I think the changes they made in 2015/16(?) are a positive thing, where it's more of a sliding scale of contributions to payout. It used to be 40 years (or was it 35?) for a full pension and then 39 gets you fuck all (well, the basic pension), which seemed a bit unfair.
 
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blue b4 the moon said:
Could be changes afoot.

www.ombudsman.org.uk

Women’s State Pension age and associated issues: investigation summary | Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO)

IntroductionWe investigated complaints that, since 1995, the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has failed to provide accurate, adequate and timely information about areas of State Pension reform.We looked at DWP’s communication about changes to State Pension age and the number of National...
www.ombudsman.org.uk www.ombudsman.org.uk
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dragging on far too long
 
They can’t make or recommend any changes.
They can recommend compensation.
 
flook said:
Nope, had this discussion before on here, I'm making an active decision not to vote because I don't trust what any of the fuckers say. Put someone up who even hints at being trustworthy, has a semblance of a plan which doesn't revolve around rhetoric, and answers a question when asked, and I'll be off down the polling booth faster than a scouser to the benefits office. Until that time I'll continue my refusal to accept whats on offer
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And you're refusing what's on offer how exactly? What you're actually doing is having to suck up anything they throw at you without you taking any efforts to try and change things.The voting system is not perfect by any means but the more people who don't bother to partake in the democratic system just helps the status quo to continue and plays into the hands of those that hold the power.
 
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