Royal Mail pension news and discussion.Please note the advise given in this forum is unofficial, please use the links we have for a more detailed response or see an independent financial adviser.
Surreypostie wrote: I am a renter, many people I know are renters, those who have to pay rent in the private sector, in excess of £1200 a month will never have a pension big enough to cover that, let alone anything else.
arnold cheshire wrote:how could a postie afford £1200 a month just for rent working anyway unless your wifes a GP ?
Surreypostie wrote:In work benefits. Housing benefit to name just one. Rents in my area can be anything upto £3000 a month.
Yes, I believe the cap is around £400 a week. Could have that wrong though.
Until these high rents and low wages are tackled, they will never reduce the benefits bill. I don't know many people who rent in the private sector that can afford to pay their rent. I know of one postie paying £2000 a month to rent a 3 bed house. All I know is my pension together with my state pension will not cover basic living expenses, rent, council tax, gas, electric etc. To hell with being old, have a life now. Worry about it if I can ever retire.
Postby N1-22postman » Sun Jun 21, 2015 11:46 am
For many older postmen with a lot of service before 1st April 2010 (this is the cut off date when the NRA retirement date changed from 60 to 65) there is no advantage to not taking your NRA60 pension benefits at the age of 60. You can take your NRA60 pension and still carry on working after 60. The Royal Mail pension service told me that there would be no enhancement other than an annual increase in line with pension increase (review) orders issued by the government (based I think on RPI in September). This has been around 2% or 3% for the last few years. This is a very bad deal - compare it to not taking the state pension at 65 where the government enhance this by 10.4% for each year you do not take it.
Have I got this right? I am now 64 and have had 4 years NRA60 annual pension of roughly £36K gross (it started below £9k in 2011 and has increased (in line with RPI) to over £9k in 2015). If I had not taken my NRA60 pension at age 60 and taken my NRA60 pension at 64, I would have lost this £36K gross and started an annual pension of roughly the same amount as I receive now. This doesn`t seem right or fair?
This is my post a couple of weeks ago - see "Pension advice needed regards evr" posted by jcjd on 15th June. Our union, for which we pay a sizeable amount of money in subs, should contact people approaching 60 warning of the huge losses they could make by not taking NRA60 benefits at 60 whilst still carry on working in the job. Royal Mail are complicit in this scandal by not automatically paying NRA60 benefits at 60 (and making it an option not to take these benefits) instead of, as at present, making it an option of taking it and if you do nothing you loose it . Many older postmen believe that you take a pension when you retire (65 is the default retirement age at present) and think you cannot be receiving a pension while still working. There must be postmen who have lost £50K because of this.
I agree there is a lot of people who don’t know what their entitled to and when. However the RMPP do send out ‘plan guides’ to members every few years and they are also online for you to download, so the information is out there. The biggest problem, in my opinion is that many people don’t read or don’t understand what’s at their disposal.
There is no ‘default retirement age’ - that was abolished in April 2011, so your pension won’t automatically be paid out at 65 either. People now have the right to retire whenever they want to, assuming finances allow.
Yes, I remember David Cameron making a speech. If you cannot afford to retire, don't. I should think the only people who will be able to afford to retire will be people who own their homes and are mortgage free. I am a renter, many people I know are renters, those who have to pay rent in the private sector, in excess of £1200 a month will never have a pension big enough to cover that, let alone anything else.
how could a postie afford £1200 a month just for rent working anyway unless your wifes a GP ?
In work benefits. Housing benefit to name just one. Rents in my area can be anything upto £3000 a month.
Not sure, do you qualify for London Weighting there or are you too far away?
I remember mums cousin telling me a while back that they were really short of staff near them. They live in GU1.
RobertT wrote:I'm no expert but I thought housing benefit was still available to pensioners aswell as working people?
As far as I know yes, I remember though the Cameron speech, don't retire and expect handouts from the state, if you can't afford to retire then don't. I believe they want you dying at work to pay for the tax cuts for their rich chums.
RobertT wrote:I'm no expert but I thought housing benefit was still available to pensioners aswell as working people?
As far as I know yes, I remember though the Cameron speech, don't retire and expect handouts from the state, if you can't afford to retire then don't. I believe they want you dying at work to pay for the tax cuts for their rich chums.
The real reason for keeping you working is that they need the tax. With all the major industries that traditionally employed tens of thousands they are desperate. Look how many jobs are now part time. This is simply because they need to hide the number that would be unemployed. UK has the second largest number of under employed in the EU. That is to say, part time workers. Second only to Eire. In years gone by part time jobs were unheard of. With mass immigration and an annual benefit bill of £30 Billion and counting they have to do something.