"Fredxxx" wrote in message
news
On 22/11/2017 01:28, JNugent wrote:
On 22/11/2017 00:18, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
JNugent wrote:
Pension is a lifelong thing.
Really? To most it's for the last part of their life.
That's right, the rest of their life, or are you now retreating into
pointless semantics as thogh you couldn't possibly work out the
meaning?
You want me to work out what you should have said rather than did?
UB is a stop-gap until things get better by other means (a job).
Bit like saying when your insurance company pays for a repair to your
car
it is only a stop gap until you get a new one.
Not even a little bit like it. No-one wants ever to have to make a car
insurance claim. Everyone hopes
and expects to claim and receive Retirement Pension, preferable for a
very long time.
But car insurance claims may, I suppose, be slightly likened to
unemployment benefit. One hopes never to have to claim and with good
luck, never will.
The idea of national insurance is to provide for times when you are
unemployed or unable to work for other reasons. And to provide for old
age.
That certainly is often erroneously supposed to be the case. National
"Insurance" is not an insurance scheme - and you know it isn't. If it
were, it would cost more the greater the risk of unemployment or sickness
because that's the way that insurance works. But in the UK, national
insurance contributions are lowest (and can be zero) for those who spend
the longest periods on benefits and those who are least likely to claim,
are more likely to be paying 12% of their income for a lifetime, in
National "Insurance".
And neither is NI invested in a pension pot on behalf of the contributor.
You also know that but choose to ignore the fact.
National Insurance benefits have never been enough to replace earned
income. When the average male industrial earnings were about £18 a week
gross, UK was £3 a week (both figures approximate for 1969/1970, but very
close either way).
That's why there is a separate scheme of (higher) means-tested benefits
(and there isn't even the pretence of tyhat being predicated upon
insurance, even though many pundits frequently claim that people "pay in"
for their means-tested benefits (they don't - they get them even if
they've never contrinuted a bean).
The means testing is the issue. It encourages many not to work. Many say
they won't work for 50p per hour and I don't blame them.
But for some reason, it seems to be OK to become old. but not out of
work
for any other reason.
You treat being retired and being unemployed as the same thing. There's
your error.
They seem very similar to me.
More fool you. The obvious difference is that the aged pension
is something you are entitled to for the rest of your life. Being
unemployed is supposed to be a temporary thing until you
get another job, particularly in a full employment economy
like Britain has now. The unemployed should only be those
moving between jobs, not for the rest of your 'life'
One seems to get a lot of stick
And so it should when you are choosy about what work you
will do and expect the state to provide you with benefits when
you have been too stupid to get qualified for the better jobs.
and the other is pandered to.
Nope, just provided with what they have paid for while they were working.
Everyone should get a wage
Nope, not those who refuse to do the work available.
and be damned,
Only some like you deserve to be damned.
means testing discourages meaningful work.
Bull****. Means testing discourages those
who can can provide for themselves from
putting their hands out to the state for what
they can provide for themselves, both with
unemployment and the aged pension.
We arent actually stupid enough to pay the aged
pension to millionaires and others with lots of assets.
Or unemployment or disability benefits either.