Quote:
Originally posted by Vodstok
Dont you guys have social medicine?
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we do... it's Nation Insurance Contributions. Can't remeber the % figure off the top of my head. These contributions go towards hospitals, doctors and pensions etc. They are going to something usefull now, but the longterm problem here is, currently a portion of my N.I contributions are currently paying the pensions of the current retired Folks. The Uk is experiencing an ever ingreasing aging population, since people are living longer... the government worked out and reckond that within 25/30 years when I'm around 5 years away from my retirement, the aging population will have grown so large, that the younger workers who will pe paying my pention will have dwindled and the government will have to find a way of getting more money to continue paying out state pensions in 30 years time.
I read a while ago that when the pension contributions were set up there were about 33 workers paying a small percentage for each retired persion. in 30 years time it will be more like a 5/1 ratio, so it's easy to see that N.I contributions will increase a lot or something else has to be figured out.
the main problem is that the govenrment rely far to heavily on current workers paying for current pensions, ther is no form of govenment money 'storage' for future pension payouts. So when I retire, there will be a high chance that there is no state pension, and everyone will have to save more during their carrers and save into privat/company pensions schemes.