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Originally Posted by Vicky.

I think how it works though is, the money the older generation paid in, went to pay out the pensions of the people before them. So the older generation will have paid their dues, but its actually the younger generation who will be paying their pensions.

Meanwhile the younger generation is currently paying the older generations pensions, and state pension will probably be abolished by the time they are old enough to get it (or the pension age will be 100 so next to noone will get it, one of the two) so they will be paying in, but getting nothing back.

Thats my understanding of the ****ed up system anyway. I may well be wrong.

Either way the rampant ageism on this forum and elsewhere is quite disgusting. Ageism (and misogyny) seems to be the only form of prejudice thats classed as widely acceptable, and even desirable in some cases

Great post Vicky, particularly on the ageism

Our pension funds were actually doing fine and working as expected up until fairly recently, and by that I mean that those paying paid for their own pensions as the money was invested and the return at the point of retirement was sufficient.

Two main events messed the system up completely. Firstly Gordon Brown saw a tasty wad of cash and decided to help himself to a heap of it and then the stock market crashed leaving just about every company in the country having to make up a shortfall, which many are still doing now, as it is a legal obligation. Livia was correct in that most pension money is in private companies with the state pension providing the statutory minimum (unless the pension scheme you are in completely opted out)

The only true net givers to the pension scheme are immigrants that work in the UK but don't remain in retirement. Everyone else pays for and receives a pension when they get to the appropriate age. So it's completely false that young are paying for the older generations pensions, they are just paying for their own.