Soical Security pension contributions (FOI)

​Request

A

How many individuals were being paid social security old age pensions, living on Island, on 1 January 2019?

B

How many people were paying employed and self-employed social security  in January 2019 (Quarter 1)?

C

How many people of working age were exempt from paying social security in January 2019 (Quarter 1)?

D

I wanted to know the total number of Children in compulsory education and in the 6th form, plus the number of adults in full time further education at the beginning of the January term 2019. If this is not possible, the total numbers in full time education, both child and adult would do.

Response

A

There were 18,949 open Old Age Pension claims as at 01 January 2019 where the claimant was resident in Jersey.

B

The contributions data for the 1st quarter of 2019 (January, February and March) will not be available until after 15 June 2019 when that quarter is closed. Therefore questions B and C have been answered using the data available as of 31 December 2018, as this is representative of the data for 1 January 2019.

In general, employed people pay class 1 contributions (which comprise employee primary contributions and employer secondary contributions) and self or non-employed people pay class 2 contributions.

The number of people who were paying class 1 and class 2 social security contributions was 51,132.

C

The Social Security (Jersey) Law 1974 (the Law) defines ‘working age’ as between school leaving age and pensionable age. The Law also provides exceptions from paying contributions to specific categories of working age persons.

The number of people on island and of working age with an exception on 31 December 2018 was 8,444.

Please note that some people who had an exception may also have chosen to pay contributions, and would therefore have been included in the answers to both of the above two questions.

D