To feel mean thinking it's reasonable for the pension triple lock to be broken?

[BendyTrendy]

Tricky one because our state pensions are lower than the rest of the EU, but also the largest area of welfare spending (at about 42% of the welfare budget).

Still, on balance, I think it's reasonable to break the triple lock under the circumstances of both Brexit and Covid recovery.

Can the country justify an 8% rise to the state pension under the circumstances? Is the triple lock on pensions sustainable? I feel mean even asking the questions, but tough choices must be made.

Boris Johnson signals 'triple lock' on pensions could be broken amid estimates of 8% rise

State pension predicted to rise by 8%

Rishi Sunak hints at suspension to pension triple lock

Tough one.

People who stop working to avoid repaying a pittance in CB clearly don't want the money.

You don't necessarily stop working, you increase pension payments for example

[quote pantsdants]@Boarderingmadness most people won't vote for more tax though. People who earn over 50k already pay 40% & freezing of the bands for 5 yrs is income tax rises by stealth.

Increasing BTL taxes, IHT, CG etc are a way of targeting the wealthy but your average person won't vote for that because it either impacts them or they aspire such that it will. [/quote]
Its tricky because if the Cons want higher taxes, the media get behind them, if Labour propose them, we get a totally different set of headlines & hence voting intentions

Look at council tax? huge rises... people still vote Tory.

Perhaps one way would be hypothecated taxes?

One way or another, this country has to re dress the shortfalls of the NHS or we go the way of the USA and forgot about national healthcare and universal benefits such as pensions.

@pantsdants

What you fail to appreciate is that for many extremely wealthy people, their marginal rate of tax is below 20%.

And why is that?

We all know why, the question is "why is it allowed?"

As we come out of this pandemic, we can look back and see the v wealthy have dramatically increased their wealth, meanwhile, your avg person has seen their income dramatically reduced.

Surely as a PP said, the tax system needs reforming.

If some people are relying solely on the state pension something has clearly gone wrong. Have they never worked? My FIL is a higher rate tax payer on his various pensions, my DM has a teachers pension plus state pension. My DF takes home £2500 including his state pension.

I think ( I will be collecting my state pension in 5 years myself) we should postpone the triple lock for a year. It really isn’t fair on our young to be funding this along potentially with the social care.

Surely as a PP said, the tax system needs reforming.

Of course it does.

I just don't agree ever increasing income tax rises are the way forward, it targets the younger working population & ignores wealth. The elite aren't unusually on PAYE.

The country has ridiculous house prices & wage stagnation for a decade & likely another now post covid. You can't make anything on savings because interest rates are so low & they can't be raised as that will have a huge impact on the property market.
It's all a mess, everyone is going to have to pay more not just the elite but most people don't want to acknowledge that & just points the finger at Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk! And yes it would be great for Elon to pay more but likewise no one is forced to buy what they are selling if they disagree with their business ethics.

@Franklin12

If some people are relying solely on the state pension something has clearly gone wrong. Have they never worked? My FIL is a higher rate tax payer on his various pensions, my DM has a teachers pension plus state pension. My DF takes home £2500 including his state pension.

I think ( I will be collecting my state pension in 5 years myself) we should postpone the triple lock for a year. It really isn’t fair on our young to be funding this along potentially with the social care.

Do you really not understand that some people have no spare money to put into a private pension?

I also feel that the older generation have not been that affected by the pandemic when compared with under 25s.

Unbelievable!!! The older people died. Did you not read the news?

@Franklin12

If some people are relying solely on the state pension something has clearly gone wrong. Have they never worked? My FIL is a higher rate tax payer on his various pensions, my DM has a teachers pension plus state pension. My DF takes home £2500 including his state pension.

I think ( I will be collecting my state pension in 5 years myself) we should postpone the triple lock for a year. It really isn’t fair on our young to be funding this along potentially with the social care.

Wat a nasty statement, so your family have good pensions - well bully for them, THEY ARE NOT THE NORM. Many many people mainly women have had low paid jobs all their lives, many had to give up work or go part time due to caring duties, first children and then elderly relatives, never worked?????? some people have worked their socks off and still haven't been able to save into a private pension.

I am bloody lucky I have a good state pension, I have a private pension and I still work, I do pay a lot of tax but I expected that I could forgo a rise but many many people including my sister and my dad cannot.

As for young people paying for it, during lockdown last year at a family zoom meeting I happened to mention I had had my pension letter but was considering deferring my pension, the young in my family were totally against me doing that my DS was very vocal he told me 'Mum you paid NICs for over 50 years, its your money take it, no anger or resentment in my family towards pensioners I am glad to say

@Hardbackwriter

See I don't think suspending the triple lock would mean pensioners would be 'paying the price', as pensions wouldn't have to be frozen, just increased by something that's a more reasonable measure of inflation in these strange times. It wouldn't mean taking anything away from pensioners, it simply wouldn't mean handing them a significant and previously completely unexpected windfall simply because a pandemic screwed with the statistics for average wages.

Absolutely this

The full pension is £179.60 per week if you qualify for it and you will pay tax on it. Somehow the free bus travel never seems to be available at the time of day when I have to attend early hospital/dental appointments. There is no free tv license for OAPs now so there goes the winter fuel allowance. I agree that the winter fuel allowance should not be sent to those living in tropical climates but the government say that it will cost more to make these individual changes than it is worth. I can't believe that it is that complicated to make the change in these days of computerization.
Yes the country will be in debt after covid19. But take a longer look at things. None of us OAPs were involved in WW1 and very few pensioners alive now were involved in WW2 but we had to pay that war debt off on top of the debt for building new council house estates, hospitals, schools, free university education for students, fund the new welfare society and the new NHS which came into being after the war. Were we ecstatic about it, no, but we had to get on with it because there was nobody else to to do it. We were told that we were being patriotic and that it was all investment for the future and the good of the country. The average wage in the early 50s was less than £2.00 a week with no furlough so tell me again how hard the youth of today is having it when they don't have to do National Service or go to the pits, when you are considered deprived if you haven't got sky tv with hundreds of channels, a mobile phone, an x-box or any number of electrical gadgets. There was nobody else all those years ago, when a good weekly wage was £2.00 per week and there was a queue to get an allotment so you could grow your own vegetables. Nobody else to turn round and pick on or to blame or try to take money from because the welfare state was in its infancy. You were told to get off your backside and find a job and if you had to move away from home to do that then so be it.

A lot of us OAPs will die over the next 20 years but its going to take longer than that to pay off the debt. The ball is in your court now so yes attack our pensions but don't forget about this when you are in your 70s or 80s and somebody comes along and tells you that they want to dock your pension because the youth of the day is having a hard time and shouldn't have to pay because life is unfair.
Sorry for the rant but the comment touched a nerve.

State pensions are low for those who rely on them but many don’t. My mother has a huge amount of money but still gets it. My aunt donates her state pension to Help the Aged and I really admire her for it. Personally, I think that pensioners with income levels above the required level to pay NI for working age people should keep paying it all their lives. Then it could be used to pay for elderly care, pensions, NHS etc. Someone with £20k a year would pay under £50 NI a month and could easily afford it. If care costs could then fixed at a percentage of income as it is in Saskatchewan people would then have peace of mind in terms of leaving inheritance to their children etc too.

@BendyTrendy, ,I'm interested to know if that 42% includes the cost of administration? In a perfect world, I'd support me not having a triple lock, because I have a private pension. But what about those that dont?

To be totally fair to me and someone with no private pension, that would mean that all government pensions have to be income related.

A flat rate benefit (like state pensions and child benefit) are very cheap to administer. ( You have a child, you are over pension age, you get the benefit) while an income related benefit can fluctuate week by week, and so administrators need to 're evaluate whenever circumstances change.

So, we choose. Do we go go for a "one size fits all" with little cost for administration? Or do we go for a bespoke system, where all circumstances are taken into account, with the administration costs that implies?

I don't know what the answer is, and I suspect successive governments haven't known, either.

There is no free tv license for OAPs now so there goes the winter fuel allowance

I thought it was means tested?

@Saskatcha

State pensions are low for those who rely on them but many don’t. My mother has a huge amount of money but still gets it. My aunt donates her state pension to Help the Aged and I really admire her for it. Personally, I think that pensioners with income levels above the required level to pay NI for working age people should keep paying it all their lives. Then it could be used to pay for elderly care, pensions, NHS etc. Someone with £20k a year would pay under £50 NI a month and could easily afford it. If care costs could then fixed at a percentage of income as it is in Saskatchewan people would then have peace of mind in terms of leaving inheritance to their children etc too.

NO I pay more tax on its own now I am a pensioner than I paid tax and NI combined when I was working age, do you want me to pay that extra tax AND NI, how much more do you want me to pay, I paid NI for the best part of 51 years I am not paying an extra £50 plus a month, you say it would fund pensions - whose pensions? the new flat rate pensions rules of 2016 already meant that the NI I paid between 2026 and 2021 when I reached pension age did not count towards my pension, unlike people under the old rules I have already lost out and you want me to lose out again, as for the NHS you DO know its actually funded primarily from general taxation, I am paying more tax I am already helping to fund it, as for elderly care - I have made provisions for myself yet again you want me to pay more for other people - my tax will also cover that

[quote BendyTrendy]@WhoNeedsaManOfTheWorld I agree they’re low, which is why it’s tricky. The problem is that we can’t afford a triple lock under the circumstances. Can we?[/quote]
But they are not a ‘welfare benefit’. Pensioners have paid for them throughout their working lives. If insufficient National Insurance contributions have been made, the state pension is reduced accordingly. If they were paid at a reasonable rate like other first world countries, there wouldn’t be a need for the triple lock!

As for we can’t afford it. We appear to be able to afford whatever this corrupt Government decides to afford. Bear in mind the £millions, or was it £billions, they gave to Tory donors in contracts for Ventilators (Dyson), Test and Trace (Serco) and other Covid related crucial things (despite established companies experienced in providing the products/services offering to do so) came out if the same tax payers money as pensions. Do they care it was wasted because they aforementioned companies couldn’t do the job? Of course not. It was our money, not theirs or their party’s and it will have drummed-up future donations and favours. Moral of the story, of course we can afford decent pensions and well funded public services, but those in power don’t give a s**t about any of that.

I paid NI for the best part of 51 years I am not paying an extra £50 plus a month, you say it would fund pensions - whose pensions? the new flat rate pensions rules of 2016 already meant that the NI I paid between 2026 and 2021 when I reached pension age did not count towards my pension, unlike people under the old rules I have already lost out and you want me to lose out again I have made provisions for myself yet again you want me to pay more for other people

And this is what I'm talking about, this poster doesn't want to pay more, so who should?

[quote user1471453601]@BendyTrendy, ,I'm interested to know if that 42% includes the cost of administration? In a perfect world, I'd support me not having a triple lock, because I have a private pension. But what about those that dont?

To be totally fair to me and someone with no private pension, that would mean that all government pensions have to be income related.

A flat rate benefit (like state pensions and child benefit) are very cheap to administer. ( You have a child, you are over pension age, you get the benefit) while an income related benefit can fluctuate week by week, and so administrators need to 're evaluate whenever circumstances change.

So, we choose. Do we go go for a "one size fits all" with little cost for administration? Or do we go for a bespoke system, where all circumstances are taken into account, with the administration costs that implies?

I don't know what the answer is, and I suspect successive governments haven't known, either.[/quote]
Or we adopt the very simple option of NIC on occupational pensions. They're already paid through PAYE schemes. It would be a very simple job (from a systems/programming perspective) to deduct NIC, in exactly the same way it's deducted from workers' wages. If the "pay" is below the NIC threshold, no deduction, if above, them deduct NIC. The rate can be whatever the Govt decide it to be, maybe just the same 2% supplementary rate rather than the normal 12% for workers. People with low occ pensions wouldn't pay it, so it wouldn't hit "the poor" at all.

This thread demonstrates that democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on dinner.

This isn't democracy. It's the government and their minions using social media to float their planned policies, and ideas they are considering.

Gosh, such awful posts here. @Larrythelurker you're really not doing yourself any favours with your 'foreign aid' rubbish.

The fact is, the 8% is a statistical anomaly, so of course we shouldn't be increasing the pensions based on this. It would cause even more division in a desperately divided society.

Whether the triple lock should be removed or other measures to curb pensions brought in is a different argument. The Full Fact article explained the difficulty in comparing pensions across Europe, so I don't think it's fair for Larry etc to keep wheeling out the error that we have the poorest paid pensions.

I'm heading into retirement and I feel the younger generation have been dealt a very poor hand. I have seen many people retire at 55 with ample pension without having to spend much or any time in further education. Jobs have been plentiful for skilled and unskilled workers. Free dentistry and the NHS have been at it's peak. Education was also much better funded.

This has been eroded by poor administration. It's something we will all suffer from. If pensioners want better pensions they need to support a government that is interested in supporting the welfare state. Unfortunately, in my experience those that complain about foreign aid, often vote against those interested in the Welfare State.