B.P. and the Gulf spill?

[HYPERR]

Yeah we have that too, it's called Social Security and it's beyond broke. Currently 2% of every one of my paychecks goes to it and there is not a single doubt in my mind that I will never see a penny of that when I retire.

Umm...hate to break it to you buddy but it's not 2% but 6.2% of your gross pay goes to Social Security.

Don't shoot the messenger.

[Wrider]

Eh not surprised, last I checked I thought I calculated it to be that, but either way, yay! I'm paying into something I'll never see a dime of!

[blues2cruise]

Eh not surprised, last I checked I thought I calculated it to be that, but either way, yay! I'm paying into something I'll never see a dime of!

You better hurry up and get married and have lots of children...they will keep paying so you can collect.

[High_Side]

Eh not surprised, last I checked I thought I calculated it to be that, but either way, yay! I'm paying into something I'll never see a dime of!

You better hurry up and get married and have lots of children...they will keep paying so you can collect.

Trust me when I tell you that by no means is this a get rich scheme!

[sv-wolf]

at least you get a pension fund. most americans no longer recieve a pension and are funding their own retirements.

It's a private pension fund, not related to my work. But yes I will get a state pension as well (for what it is worth, which is not a lot).

The more I hear about US work practices and social security arrangements, the happier I am to have been born on this side of the pond. (No seriously! I know I josh around about the US-UK thing on the site, but it seems to me that you guys get a very raw deal. And the impression I have is that a lot of you not only put up with it but often try to justify it as well. Beats me!) I shocked an American friend a couple of months ago when I told her that I get 30 days leave from work every year (plus bank holidays). She seemed to think I must have signed a pact with the devil to achieve that.

[Wrider]

Yeah we wish we got that much! We usually get 2 weeks on average in a white collar job per year. That's ten days, not 14 days. In blue collar type jobs most don't get anything unless they're upper echelon.

[Hondagirl]

The more I hear about US work practices and social security arrangements, the happier I am to have been born on this side of the pond. (No seriously! I know I josh around about the US-UK thing on the site, but it seems to me that you guys get a very raw deal.

Just dont consider leaving the country - if you stop paying national insurance contributions you are not eligible for a UK pension anymore -I am paying into the Japanese one now and its half what the British/English one would have been

[sv-wolf]

Just dont consider leaving the country - if you stop paying national insurance contributions you are not eligible for a UK pension anymore -I am paying into the Japanese one now and its half what the British/English one would have been

Hi Hondagirl

This is just the most recent attack upon pensions. Governments of the left and the right in the UK have been hacking away at all aspects of the welfare state ever since they found out that it was going to cost more than they originally calculated (which was almost immediately) and organised labour has been rendered so powerless over the last forty years that there has been little resistance.

The number of bad pension stories I've heard recently has made my head swim.

Rant follows.

I have my own small story: I lost one whole year of contributions on my state pension because the DSS (welfare dept) says that I missed one week's payment. In fact I didn't miss a payment. It was their computer error, but they wouldn't admit it even though I have a bank statement showing the payment was made. The legal system here is set up so that the DSS is never wrong. It's not just the DVLA (vehicle licensing) that seems to get away with anything it wants to.

It's the mood of resignation though, that really staggers me. This government is planning an enormous attack on the living standards of working people over the next four years, particularly the most vulnerable sections, and (so far) there has been hardly a murmur of dissent. The least able are going to be made to pay for the recent recession (I was tempted to say, as usual, but there hasn't been a government attack on wages and salaries on this scale in the UK since the 1930s.) Take the proposed massive reduction in housing benefit at a time when there is a catastrophic shortage in the housing market.

When the substantially well-off Cameron says that his cuts will be painful for "us" what he actually means is it will be painful for "them" - ie those who have to work for a living. In the recent budget there were huge cuts but not a single measure that would curb the lifestyle of the rich, and almost no-one seems to have noticed. Whether people will eventually react is anyone's guess. To judge by the media, though, European politicians are getting ever more worried by the Greek popular response. That means we'll soon see the propaganda machine in full flow battering us with every moronic and specious argument in the corporate world's ideological armoury.

[Hondagirl]

That bad huh ..*sigh what a mess. There are so many things I do not miss. The DSS incompetency is one. A year written off for one week is just mad. I know so many people who have received demands for payment that turned out to be computer errors, I wonder how many older people or people who trusted actually paid those and who is skimming the profit.

[Hondagirl]

I thought this thead was about BP oil and the leak?

sorry again blues..back to topic...................................