The Pensions Triple Lock has to go

[Flammkuchen]

When it was introduced, the aim of the Triple Lock was to increase pensions faster than earnings as the state pension was low. The TL has been very successful: pensioners now have a higher standard of living and more disposable income than working families. A pensioner couple each getting the full state pension receive £20k per year, with any private pension income on top.

This is great for them, but it comes with a trade-off. In order to increase pensions by over 10% a year, there is less money to pay nurses, teachers or doctors. Highly skilled public sector workers have low pay and there is a recruitment crisis.

AIBU to think that now that on average pensioners have higher disposable income than those in work, a policy that aims to increase pensioner income by MORE than average earnings - and so keep increasing the income of pensioner households faster than working households - needs to be rethought? Even just linking the state pension to average earnings would be better.

Get your facts right you can’t claim disability benefit if you are of pensionable age.If you are already on DB when you retire then it carry’s on.Their are more people of working age on DB than pensioners.This ageist bashing is disgusting.

Because they were told to pay NI and the state would provide for them in their old age. That was the deal. Work for 50 years - 15 to 65 and then retire. And until recently retirement was compulsory in many roles.

Because employers have only had to provide private pensions since 2018.

They are doing what they were told.

@Willyoujustbequiet - it is one of most iniquitous things that talented young people have to pay. It used to be recognised that the UK had talented young people and investing in them aided the future of our country.

Now it's pay up. People wonder why doctors and nurses may strike. They have debts from the education and less loyalty to the NHS.

Yes, same for mine. I don't begrudge them their long retirement, wouldn't we all if we could. But it's just not possible any more. I can't even claim my (almost non-existent) work pension until 65!
I don't think there will be a state pension for us.

You can claim attendance allowance which has no mobility component

I’ve only read a few of the replies and I feel quite ill Op.

i don’t understand how you think £175 a week (£25 a day) for a single person (providing they have paid the correct NI) to pay electric, gas, council tax, water rates, tv licence, phone.

Ive read that even the Conservatives are struggling to touch pensions to much, because people born around the 1963-1974 years will be the poorest pensioners.

The teachers strikes that started in the early 80s that went on for years disrupted education massively.

Final Salary pensions have disappeared for almost everyone now, but no provisions were put in place for the now age range of 45-60, meaning workplace pensions haven’t built up like they will for people who start contributing at 25.

And finally, for those under 55, the council sold its properties, and it’s been harder and harder to get on the property ladder. In the late 80s/90s it was nigh on impossible for the working class to get a mortgage to buy a house (repayments were thru the roof with high interest rates) and couples weren’t allowed to do three/four/five times both salaries because building societies rightly or wrongly didn’t think there would be two full time wages coming in when children came along.

When Labour got in, in the mid 90s “buy to let” mortgages became available which were unheard of before, two people could get bigger mortgages, a flat down our street went from £30,000 in 1995 to £109,000 two years later.

ive drifted off slightly, but the point I’m trying to make is, unless you are already retired (those who have had the benefits of cheap property) or you under 35/40 where if you pay into a decent workplace pension, you are going to be old, cold, skint and miserable

My mil can barely survive on her meagre pension and pension credit. She was turned down for attendance allowance even though she can barely walk. We pay towards her monthly energy direct debit.

👏👏👏

For the love of God....

Pensioners did not pay to go to uni. You can try and twist it all you want but the system at the time meant that it was essentially free or they could enter white collar professions without even needing to uni in the first place. An entirely priviledged position in comparison to young people today.

As I said my dad was down the pit at 14 so you have a bizarre take on what is elitist.

@ScroogeMcDuckling - I am certainly in the 45-60 bracket as are my brothers and sisters.

All of us have or make extra provision for our retirement. The state pension has never afforded a good life by itself, and that has been true for 40 years at least. I don't think our family are unusual, I started working in the late 1990s

My brother is 66 he lives in a council house he's never worked ...age 11 he was pushed from a bus and in a coma for 6 months....my mum (disabled as a 21year old nurse) was handed back an 11 year old baby. He's made amazing progress ..can walk, speak, make a cuppa but he has memory issues ...forgets he's left gas on, what time it is etc ..he's sitting home alone in the cold right now his house is so badly insulated and built with concrete floors it eats heat. He's never been ridiculously comfortable and neither was my mum wheelchair bound from 40 dad cared for them until he got cancer....never drew a pension. I now care for him whilst caring for my sister...also disabled riddled with arthritis and unable to pull her knickers up....but some job advisor denied her pip said she could work sat down...despite needing surgery in lower spine, shoulders, neck, both hands fused and being in constant pain. We can't heat her house either...she's 68 now so getting a basic state pension ..her son is autistic so I care for him too....in between my 40 hour working week

Several pp have misunderstood pension credit. If a pensioner is on the new full state pension of slightly less than £10k currently, they are not entitled to pension credit, so they won't be getting any top ups from the state.

Where can someone under the age of 35/40 access a decent workplace pension scheme?

@MintJulia But when they were told all this the state pension was pitiful and there was no triple lock. They knew they would need extra to live a good life. Why didn't they save more, like they expect the young to do?

But it’s a choice to go to Uni and with it the burden of a loan.Too many young people go to Uni without a career plan,the degree they get is virtually useless.Much better to spend those 3 years doing an apprenticeship with a job at the end,instead of wasting 3 years having the “Uni”experience

i don’t understand how you think £175 a week (£25 a day) for a single person (providing they have paid the correct NI) to pay electric, gas, council tax, water rates, tv licence, phone.

If your income (as an OAP) is £175 a week, then you wouldn't pay Council Tax (you would receive Council Tax Benefit). You would also get £500 Winter Fuel allowance (£600 over 80), £150 Warm Homes Discount, a free TV licence (if over 75), and would be eligible for discounted (social tariff) water rates, and phone/internet connection (BT basic). In addition you would receive free bus/rail/tram travel (exact combination depends on where in the UK you live), and free prescriptions.

No OAP in the UK lives on £175 a week, unless they choose to.

Better hope sickness and accidents give your lot a wide birth then......

Pensioners loose disability and just get pensions so their money goes down.

How could people save what they didn't have in the first place?

Over 75s don't get free TV licence unless on pension credit

It's not really a choice for lots of jobs though is it

@jannier - as you implicitly point out, it's a tough life if you have to depend on the state. My experience is that they give the minimum possible and it is hard to obtain.

Realistically, sickness and accidents happen - all I am saying is work hard, make your own comfort for the hard times. That is a good life. The state in my lifetime has only given the very basics.

@Isleoftights it is still a pittance.

@LadyMary50 I don’t disagree with you, either. I think the three of us are saying that degrees have become an artificial necessity for certain jobs, amongst other things.

@Willyoujustbequiet you began many pages back by citing free uni attendance as a perk of the pensioner generation. You’ve still not addressed the fact that less than 14% of them were in a position to make use of it. Hardly a generational asset. (Agreed it was easier for the middle class to get a white collar job with a couple of A levels 30 or 40 years ago. But that is a long way from your original point)

But you are assuming the retired all have good private pensions because you don't live in a poorer area where people have worked on low wages all their lives, where women were given reduced pension contributions or refused membership to company pensions because they had children....in the 90s

I said this on page 1 ….but PP keep harping on about getting pension credit…..you might as well talk to the fucking wall