You know, that sounds very odd, because once you’ve paid a certain amount of NI for the year (employment mind not self employment) then you have a full year. For the situation you’ve described you’d have to be paying the minimum weekly amount surely?
maybe its different for weekly pay, but I paid monthly and I worked out that because I was paying the maximum monthly amount (the bit that counts as a contribution), in about 2.5 months I’d made enough payments for a full year. Also weird no detailed records - I’m trying at the mo to get records from 1985 onwards…
The govt/DWP did kick off a supposedly independent study though earlier this year, which is currently underway and will report back in 2023. But the study seemed to receive questions to answer, that funnily enough almost seemed to hint that the answers wanted were to kill it.
It seemed an earlier study or two had finished and had reported back very recently, but had got the wrong answer.
Hopefully even better news for those who in addtion to the State pension also have index linked USS and TPF education sector pensions.
On the other hand I feel very sorry for former university colleagues who, despite ever worsening conditions of service and ever increasing workloads, are unlikely to get much more than a 2% rise this year.
You need to have a good look at the risk of deferring. A friend deferred his for two years. I tried to talk him out of it, with my view being that a pound in my pocket is better than in someone else’s. If you defer £9627.8 for one year, you will gain about £10 per week when you claim it. That’s an additional £500 per year, but it has cost you one years pension to gain that. It will then take you 16 years or so to get back the money that you deferred. I can’t guarantee how long I will live, so I’ll take it when I can.
The Government would be pleased if you deferred, but you don’t get something for nothing;
Deferral might have been worth it for some when it was 10% increase per year deferred. Particularly in the years when inflation and interest rates were very low.
Unfortunately the increase per year deferred is now much closer to 5% and so the opportunity cost of not having the cash, plus the lower return of only 5% against the various risks involved, makes it seem to me that deferring would only be worth it if your own alternative would be to just put it into a regular savings account… but still pretty marginal return now for the risks IMV
I’m finding myself in agreement with a lot that Bevan said on the subject of the Tories - though I gather Bevan himself wasn’t exactly what you’d call “easy to get on with”.
I’m inclined to agree with @Bradders2175 - I turn 66 next year and will be taking my UK state pension not deferring it - I reckon I will be better off putting a good chunk of it into my private pension fund which in the medium term should do better than 5% once the current recession is over. My financial adviser bloke pointed out that recessions rarely last more than 18 months.
I was talking in theory, I fully intend to take it as soon as. We currently live within our income, so this will allow me to persuade OH that we can go and do more new things. I fully intend to spend it/give it away every month!
High achievers seldom are IMO but he did have his feet and ideals firmly for the people not for personal gain or gains for friends and family, to me there lays the difference.
When we see tory gov non action on something they are out networking to see how to manipulate the situation to maximise their gains.
