To think we can't afford the triple lock

We get LG pensions. Fully funded.

With respect, if you are both ex public sector, you will be way above average.
Which needs to change, along with early retirement on reduced but still VERY generous pensions.

Thank you. Some distinct regional differences. We both get occupational pensions, no state ones for 4 and 5 years. We’re quite a bit above the average!

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/pensioners-incomes-financial-years-ending-1995-to-2025/pensioners-incomes-financial-years-ending-1995-to-2025

Yes, I agree that it is important to maintain the real terms value of the SP over time, but using a 'best of all worlds' indexation method ensures that the SP will increase at a rate that will outpace inflation, and the compounding affect will increase that to very unreasonable numbers over a longer period.

It needs to increase, but lets base it on a single measure. My suggestion would be CPI but capped to AEI so that SP growth doesn't outpace wage growth.

Would means tested benefits include housing because there could be many on state pension who can’t afford housing not all are in mansions

The 26% will probably be on pension credit rather than the full state pension?

Yes - it's a surprisingly high percentage, isn't it?

Effectively, the state pension is already means tested - with 26% of people being given more.

The entire point of it is to make sure that the modest value of the state pension ( currently about £12.5k) doesn't get eroded over time and put people back on to benefits.
Its hardly enough to live on. Yes some people have more due to contributing to workplace pensions or savings but that ain't the point.

Thanks. So 26% were in receipt of means tested benefits.

That's trite, in context.

Poverty Rates by demographic (my 11% seems wrong, so am correcting):

Pensioners: 16%
Working Age Adults w/o children: 17%
Average person: 21%
Working Age Adults with children: 25%
Children: 31%

The triple-lock is mathematically geared to further widen the poverty rate gap, in favor of pensioners relative to other cohorts (even without factoring in the aging population issue).

So in a binary question of "should we continue a policy that prioritizes the financial security of 100% of Group A over all other groups", the fact that Group A are already the most secure cohort is entirely relevant.

And if 16% (or whatever number it may be from time to time) of a group are in poverty, a targeted policy is needed, not a blanket one that applies to 100% of the group.

successive Conservative Governments have damaged our country

successive Conservative Governments have damaged our country.

Or rather successive Conservative Governments have damaged our country by selling our industries to the unscrupulous often foreign companies so shareholders can take maximum profits and refuse to invest.
If all the money Thames Water eg has paid out to share holders had been invested here we would be in a much better place. By privatising our Water, our Steel, our Gas, our Electricity, our Council housing etc we have been robbed. The poorest in this country are not choosing not to work. They are on poverty wages which we tolerate from companies making huge profits which they take off shore.
A million are on Zero hours contracts where they never know if they'll get enough work to survive. Rules for benefits are strict. Many are punished if they miss just one meeting because they can't afford bus fare eg. by having their money stopped for weeks, If you lose your job you have to wait 5 weeks before you get unemployment pay. If you weren't in debt before you will be then. Prey to loan sharks charging vast amounts of interest, planned to keep people permanently in debt. Unlike many other countries we do not have strict rules about how much interest can be charged, so it's 100, 200 per cent pa plus.
The poorest quarter of the population have no savings. Keeping large numbers of the population in poverty is short-sighted. We need a healthy, prosperous population to guarantee our future, hardly surprising our birth rate is so low. Instead of welcoming asylum seekers who will protect us from the looming disaster of a falling birth rate we have decided to stop them working for years on end....Most of our European competitors and the US allow them to work very soon after arrival. We should too.

Every individual pensioner is not 89% well off, and only poor 11% of the time. If you do something sweeping for a whole cohort on the basis that only 11% of them are already in poverty, those 11% won't be OK because they're in a minority in their generation. They just won't be OK.

I think the triple lock probably needs to go, but whatever system replaces it needs to account for that 11% of pensioners, not just ignore them because they're only a minority.

Incidentally, in the same way (for remainers who feel strongly about Brexit), every individual millennial is not 70% remainer and only 30% leaver (so automatically more good than bad), and every individual boomer is not 58% leaver and only 42% remainer (so automatically more bad than good).

www.gov.uk/government/statistics/pensioners-incomes-financial-years-ending-1995-to-2025/pensioners-incomes-financial-years-ending-1995-to-2025

FYE 2025:
Nearly all pensioners (98%) were in receipt of the State Pension.

12% of pensioner units received income from State Pension and state benefits only.

Income-related benefits were received by 26% of all pensioners (eg Pension Credit, Housing Benefit and Council Tax Rebate)

26% of pensioners were in receipt of disability benefits.

Occupational pension income was received by 61% of pensioners in FYE 2025.

16% of pensioners were in receipt of income from personal pensions.

In total, private pension income (occupational and/or personal) was received by 69% of pensioners.

Investment income was received by 62% of all pensioners

Pensioners in receipt of earnings was 16%.

Exactly that.

"We can't keep guaranteeing annual increases that are at at minimum in-line with what workers get, often more" isn't the same as "take their money away!"

The triple net pension is literally unsustainable. At some point, the state pension would exceed the average salary. Triple net has to end at somepoint, or the state pension start at a much later age.

Easy. Their pensions stop getting the triple lock increases that the rest of the population are not entitled to!!

Thanks. I agree. The one I’m answering is a great example.

Wow. I imagine the replies that you don't have a problem with, and tbf some of them are pretty insulting, are from those who agree with you?

I just can't blame those on PIP. It's not their fault they are disabled right.

We need a triple lock for taxpayers: limits on the total PIP pot, universal credit and housing benefits. It’s clear that a fully open-ended system isn’t sustainable and some form of rationing would ensure the most deserving retain benefits, while clearing out marginal cases.

Pensioners are the most financially secure age cohort in the UK by a huge distance. 11% poverty rate vs 22% national average.

The state pension has grown at a rate 3x greater than the average salary over the last 15 years.

Can anyone really justify why income growth for the most financially secure should continue to rapidly outpace everyone else?

Get a lodger?

So people entering a more vulnerable stage of life should play the lodger scratchcard lottery?

And as for selling their home, where exactly are all these suitable homes they're supposed to move to?

You are not exactly covering yourself in glory here.

whole of the economy is in a dire situation.

Just remind me why that is?