Contributory pension for contributors

Markcheese

Should a state contributory pension be reserved for net contributors ?
A leaves school gets a job, works steadily all his /her life, never sick , out of work , no kids, nayda, but gets the same contributory pension as
B who goes to university , then dosses around on the dole for a few years before having a child , then on disability for obesity and diabetes before retiring on the same contributory pension....
Hardly fair ??
(maybe slightly extreme cases but hey )

srsly78

It is.

There is a non-contributory pension for non-contributors.

Note that the contributory one is NOT means-tested, while the nc one is.

Markcheese

Same money though , and you get the contributory pension for being on welfare...

I wasn't suggesting no pension for non net contributors, but more your PRSI is a pool, if you draw a lot out during your earlier life you get a smaller pension , if you contribute longer you get a better pension...
my wife and I have two kids , so two sets of maternity leave out of the pool...
Neither of us went to university but I got (paid) to go catering college, I 've never been on the dole, but I'm glad the safety net exists...medical the same...
Keep hearing There's a pension crisis looming, and the public shouldn't rely on state pension , just wondering should net contributors have first call on a state pension ....
Meh , probably a lousy idea anyhow...

Scortho

A difference of 11 quid per week between having all those stamps paid, and having no stamps paid!
That us hardly fair at all.
Johnny has no stamps and never contributed, but passes means test and gets 219 per week.
Mary's worked her whole life paid the pain in the ass prsi and gets 230 a week!
Mary may only have 230 a week as her only source of income.
How is that a fair system?

By the way pensioners get 230 quid a week? That's a massive amount for someone who may not have any rent/mortgage, free medical treatment and free transport

srsly78

The means testing makes a big difference.

You can have your contributory pension + extra income on top.

For the non-contributory pension any extra income means you lose out on pension.

Cody Pomeray

Scortho wrote: »

By the way pensioners get 230 quid a week? That's a massive amount for someone who may not have any rent/mortgage, free medical treatment and free transport

Yeah, it is significant. It tends to be forgotten in the scandalised debate about a single person of working age and few resources trying to live on €188.

A lot of older people tend to own their own homes or live with family. They can choose to live quite frugally and may end up bequeathing a significant amount of state aid to their family.

Scortho

Cody Pomeray wrote: »

Yeah, it is significant. It tends to be forgotten in the scandalised debate about a single person of working age and few resources trying to live on €188.

A lot of older people tend to own their own homes or live with family. They can choose to live quite frugally and may end up bequeathing a significant amount of state aid to their family.

Helps explain the 60 k in cash we found in my great uncles clearing out his house. If you saw the man you'd buy him a sandwich. Would never spend

PhilMcGee

Looks like now that all the PRSI you've been paying all your working life is just going to be wiped out. They are talking about means testing the contributory state pension too. So if you have any savings or other pension arrangements they will just steal that pension that your PRSI was meant to be for.
You might be better off not having ever started paying into a pension of your own.

if there is one thing that proves a government is incompetent it is meddling with pensions. The one thing people need to be secure and dependable and the government start playing with it and peoples long plans are thrown up in the air. Pure Incompetence. People can no longer plan for retirement and then how can they ever trust that any money put into a pension is safe from the government doing a grab on it anytime they feel like it.

Cody Pomeray

PhilMcGee wrote: »

Looks like now that all the PRSI you've been paying all your working life is just going to be wiped out.

PRSI is insurance.

Q: What is an insurance claim?

A: An insurance claim is a demand for payment or a benefit in the event of certain (usually unforeseen) conditions being met on behalf of the claimant

Q: What is an insurance claim not?

A: An insurance claim is not an automatic entitlement.

There are lots of insurance claims that can give rise to worker demands on state aid: non means tested jobseekers payments, eye exams, and pensions for example. If you never need the Dole, an eye test, state aid in retirement, then well done you! You should be delighted.

Marsden

Scortho wrote: »

By the way pensioners get 230 quid a week? That's a massive amount for someone who may not have any rent/mortgage, free medical treatment and free transport

Yes, everyone knows pensioners are rolling in it. Old git's lording it over us with all their Euro's. Sure they don't even need food, heating electricity, phones, money to spend on grandkids. After a lifetime in the workforce they should be resigned to a tenner a week and told to scavenge through bins at Tesco for dinner.

PhilMcGee

Cody Pomeray wrote: »

PRSI is insurance.

Q: What is an insurance claim?

A: An insurance claim is a demand for payment or a benefit in the event of certain (usually unforeseen) conditions being met on behalf of the claimant

Q: What is an insurance claim not?

A: An insurance claim is not an automatic entitlement.

There are lots of insurance claims that can give rise to worker demands on state aid: non means tested jobseekers payments, eye exams, and pensions for example. If you never need the Dole, an eye test, state aid in retirement, then well done you! You should be delighted.

You would be better served actually looking up what the state contributory pension is and how you qualify for it.

Start with revenues website or citizens information.

Cody Pomeray

PhilMcGee wrote: »

You would be better served actually looking up what the state contributory pension is and how you qualify for it.

Start with revenues website or citizens information.

I'm talking about the proposals on means testing contributory pensions - the ones you referred to, remember?

Considering that the I in PRSI stands for insurance, they make perfect sense.

PhilMcGee

Cody Pomeray wrote: »

I'm talking about the proposals on means testing contributory pensions - the ones you referred to, remember?

Considering that the I in PRSI stands for insurance, they make perfect sense.

Just look it up will you. It will be easier for you to get the facts yourself than for me to convince you.

Cody Pomeray

PhilMcGee wrote: »

Just look it up will you. It will be easier for you to get the facts yourself than for me to convince you.

Everyone knows what a contributory pension is and how it works - I'm talking about why it should be means tested.

PhilMcGee

Cody Pomeray wrote: »

Everyone knows what a contributory pension is and how it works - I'm talking about why it should be means tested.

You obviously dont. Just look it up will you.

Cody Pomeray

You don't have an argument do you. Can you undress your point from its cloak of vagueness and mystery please? The point I'm making is a very simple one: there should be a means tested contributory pension.

Either you state what the problem is here or you're just going to continue to look like you're waffling.

Geuze

The CSP can't be means-tested, sure that is contradictory.


If the CSP is means-tested, then it becomes the non-con SP.


So if anybody takes a position that they advocate means-testing the CSP, then what they really mean is: "abolish the CSP, and have only a means-tested SP".

This would mean a drop in PRSI conts, as there would be less PRSI funds required, as PRSI would not be paying for the CSP anymore, as it wouldn't exist.

Cody Pomeray

Geuze wrote: »

So if anybody takes a position that they advocate means-testing the CSP, then what they really mean is: "abolish the CSP, and have only a means-tested SP".

Why would you reach that conclusion?

Of course not.

You have two schemes - one a non contributory state pension, means tested, paying the lower rate.

The other, a state pensions, means tested, but providing a higher rate of payment for those who took out state pension insurance in the form of PRSI.

You are therefore paying a your social insurance for the higher rate in the contributory (insured) pension; the differential between the two ought to be higher than currently exists imo (€11 is a sham), but they are not the same thing.

Geuze

But if you had other income, then you may not receive the CSP that you had paid PRSI towards?

40 years paying PRSI, but then no CSP at the end???

Cody Pomeray

Geuze wrote: »

But if you had other income, then you may not receive the CSP that you had paid PRSI towards?

40 years paying PRSI, but then no CSP at the end???

Yes, that's why I referred to it as insurance.

It, ideally, ought to act as a cushion in case your other investments don't pay off in retirement; e.g. shares in Waterford Crystal, Bank of Ireland or property portfolios, the adverse effects of which many Irish pensioners are now experiencing.

The means testing element would provide those contributors (insurance-purchasers) who genuinely needed the income 'cushion' with a more legitimate benefit of contributing than the €11 currently in place. It would do this by not paying out on claims for those whose other investments had netted them significant incomes or income yielding assets above a certain threshold.

Geuze

Insurance = pays out when event happens

Pregnancy event = maternity benefit

Sick = illness benefit

Fall down / injured / disabled at work = disability benefit

Hit pension age = pension

So if you have paid enough PRSI, and you reach pension age, then you should get the CSP.


Taxation of income should achieve what you want, it will reduce the income of pensioners who have other income.

Cody Pomeray

Geuze wrote: »

Insurance = pays out when event happens

The difference is that you're regarding the 'event' as waking up on your 65th birthday and finding yourself alive, much to one's annoyance or delight, as the case may be.

I am regarding the 'event' as being 65 and not having met a certain guaranteed level of income, whereby the insured citizen would be eligible for top-up support from the state's social insurance scheme.

You're just using a different definition. What I don't understand is why yours should be preferable. Why should an insurance scheme be paying out on a pension where an individual is earning multiples of that income through private means? Surely the purpose of a pension insurance scheme ought to be to insure against the event of something going wrong with one's private investments/ savings? not as a universal top-up for all and sundry.

PhilMcGee

Cody Pomeray wrote: »

You don't have an argument do you. Can you undress your point from its cloak of vagueness and mystery please? The point I'm making is a very simple one: there should be a means tested contributory pension.

Either you state what the problem is here or you're just going to continue to look like you're waffling.

Im afraid you are the only one here who doesnt know what they are talking about. Look up the things I told you to look up or keep posting in ignorance.
You are only making yourself look like an idiot at this stage. Understand what you are talking about and people will take you more seriously.

Dont feed the troll people. He only has to look up citizens information or revenue.ie to know he is talking through his hole and wont bother.

Geuze

If my car burns/crashes, the car ins claim payment isn't means-tested.

If my house floods, etc, the house ins claim payment isn't means-tested.

If I break my arm, etc., the health ins claim payment isn't means-tested.


Yes, the event is defined as reaching 65/66/67.



Note that the PRSI sytem is already quite redistributive, so already lower income people do much better in the system.

Geuze

People might resent that Micheal O'Leary will get a PRSI-based CSP.

But he did pay PRSI.


Under your proposal, if after 67 I wish to continue working, I would not get the CSP, as it would be means-tested against my earnings.

In effect, that means the SP is only for lower income workers, workers with no other possible income after 67.

Cody Pomeray

PhilMcGee wrote: »

Im afraid you are the only one here who doesnt know what they are talking about. Look up the things I told you to look up or keep posting in ignorance.
You are only making yourself look like an idiot at this stage. Understand what you are talking about and people will take you more seriously.

Dont feed the troll people. He only has to look up citizens information or revenue.ie to know he is talking through his hole and wont bother.

Does anyone have a clue what this guy is talking about?
All I'm getting is the cloak of mystery over what the error supposedly is.

Geuze wrote: »

Yes, the event is defined as reaching 65/66/67.

Yes, it is.

What I am saying is that this makes little sense. The payable event, in my opinion, ought to be where an individual's income fails to meet (or the individual does not attempt it to meet) a certain threshold, say €25k, for argument's sake.

If the individual's salary does reach, or indeed exceeds that amount, then no insurance is paid out because no 'event' is said to have occurred.

Why do I propose this? Because I don't think it is the state's place to provide a guaranteed investment payout to wealthy citizens regardless of how well off they are. I don't think that's something society should encourage.

srsly78

Geuze wrote: »

People might resent that Micheal O'Leary will get a PRSI-based CSP.

But he did pay PRSI.

Only people that are terrible at maths would resent that. How much prsi in total did he pay over the years, and how much does it get him? He basically pays for everyone else.

PhilMcGee

Geuze wrote: »

People might resent that Micheal O'Leary will get a PRSI-based CSP.

But he did pay PRSI.


Under your proposal, if after 67 I wish to continue working, I would not get the CSP, as it would be means-tested against my earnings.

In effect, that means the SP is only for lower income workers, workers with no other possible income after 67.

Not to mention that if someone has already paid 20 years of stamps the deal was that this goes to social insurance and your own guaranteed contributory pension. Most pension calculators, supplied by government departments over the last god knows how many years have included the contributory state pension in their calculations too.

Now its like you paid for something and they want to just take the payments and pretend they never happened.

Cody Pomeray

srsly78 wrote: »

Only people that are terrible at maths would resent that. How much prsi in total did he pay over the years, and how much does it get him? He basically pays for everyone else.

I think everyone accepts the current CSP scheme is badly broken.

Yet some of the same people are suggesting we retain it, it seems.

I am suggesting we provide a more generous bucket of oats than the one in place, and only provide it for the ones who bought the insurance and cannot enjoy anything better through private investments.

Yes, Michael O'Leary would be paying an awful lot of money for no gain. But for every Michael O'Leary there are 1000 poorer Michael O'Cleary's who didn't develop the world's biggest budget airline, and who do need the fall back insurance.

Scortho

Marsden wrote: »

Yes, everyone knows pensioners are rolling in it. Old git's lording it over us with all their Euro's. Sure they don't even need food, heating electricity, phones, money to spend on grandkids. After a lifetime in the workforce they should be resigned to a tenner a week and told to scavenge through bins at Tesco for dinner.

A lot of them I know are rolling in it, especially when you compare them to a family with 2 kids earning 50k before tax with a mortgage of 1500 a month and crèche fees as well.
Add in transport costs, electricity, phone, gas on top of that as well as feeding 4 mouths instead of 2 and you don't have much left either.
Oh and I forgot GP fees and drugs. Fairly easy for a family with young kids to have high GP fees especially if one or both if the children are asmathic.

We are a bankrupt country. We cannot afford these provisions that we thought were a great idea when we had money coming into the coffers 6 years ago.
The benefits are still going out but I have news for you, the cash isn't coming in. All of the low hanging fruit has been picked. Workers are paying massive taxes as is. The top rate, including USC and prsi is 52% and even higher again for self employed over 100,000. Why they decided to pick on someone who is self-employed and possibly employing 200 people and not all over 100 k is beyond me.
It's now time that the gov made the tough decisions and went for the fruit that's harder to pick.

Reduce the pension in line to what it would have been with inflation. Likewise all benefits that were greatly increased in the boom.
If inflation rises by 2% next year then benefits rise by 2%. Likewise if it falls by 3% then we reduce it by 3%.

The money isn't there anymore to continue on this post boom spending spree. Last year we overspent 12.5 bn. That cannot continue.

The Corinthian

srsly78 wrote: »

The means testing makes a big difference.

Not really. I went briefly on the Dole in early 2008 and, being self-employed, did not qualify for benefits, only assistance, which essentially works on the same principle.

Means testing, for example, means that you don't get docked a single penny unless you've €20k in the bank, and even then you simply get docked a few Euro for what you have over that. Many other assets are not taken into account (e.g. family home), or if they are, are not penalized to the same extent. So, in many cases, I'd calculate that one would lose little or nothing as long as you can strategically indebten yourself or otherwise use the various loopholes to minimize loss of Dole. And that's all before you consider how easy it is to hide money or assets when being means tested.

Pensions, I suspect, are probably means tested in much the same way or even more favourably (e.g. you can earn €200 cash income p.w. and have it disregarded).

TBH, from what I can see means testing is so easy to minimize or even circumvent that before it would penalize your non-contributory pension you would have to have so much income and so many assets that the extra €219 p.w. really wouldn't matter all that much to you.

All before you consider that the contributory pension is the same for someone who contributed for 10 years (five, if they pay the balance voluntarily) or 40 years. Or conversely, someone who contributed four years gets nothing.