O_G tried, twice and Peter Pedant, once, to point out that the State Earnings-Related Pensions Scheme (SERPS) been like a conveyor belt system. What you pay in, while you work, pays for a retired person's pension and, when your time comes, other workers will pay for yours.
Apparently, the first beneficiaries were suspicious of it because they received without ever having paid in, felt it was storing up trouble for the future and, on principle, some declined to draw it and made do with what they'd saved.
As I said in another thread, in the 50s, lifespans (non-Scottish) were about 70(men)/72+(women), so 5 years of full pension and 2 or more at widow's rate, versus up to (65-14)=51 years of paying in.
Demographics have wrecked the mechanism they set in motion. There is a spike in the population age profile (60s baby boom) which is even compounded by recent downward blips in birth rate.
I apologise for re-explaining what everybody knows but I feel it is necessary to say it as a prelude to claiming that we cannot extricate ourselves from this mechanism quite as simply as the phrase "phase it out".
State pension is ideological and political. The only way you can make it go away is to murder it and shaft millions of people who (erroneously, as set out in the preamble) believe that they "own" "their" pension. It is a *tax* to pay for a *public service*.
Money does not evaporate, by the way. It all gets spent and goes back into the economy, making people like you, sp, rich.
So don't knock it!