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.

Never. because it doesn't fit the rhetoric. Just as poverty stricken pensioners; pensioners working and paying tax etc, don't. So are conveniently ignored.

I have no idea why anyone would set out to misunderstand, spout casual disinformation, But they seem to enjoy doing so, even in the face of further clarification!

But that is not because pensioners are drawing their state pensions, which they are owed. Or because provision is made for those pensions not to lose value.

The problems in schools (and indeed in all public services) are caused by this government's skewed values and the priority they place on competition and privatisation. It is steadily destroying our public services.

Yep. But again, that's entirely successive Governments' fault: it doesn't takea genius to work out that if you set up a scheme as a ponzi scheme (with current contributions used to pay current liabilities) then eventually there'll be a demographic shift that is unfavourable and it will be a mess.

When the state pension was first introduced, hardly anybody received it: you had to be 70 years old (in a time of much lower life expectancy), have no gaps in work history (at a time when many were day labourers etc with no permanent contract) and no criminal record. So, at that time, it could easily have been paid from current tax as an add on, and contributions from everyone else invested in a fund, with no big hit to national finances.

There have been many, many opportunities to remedy this mistake over the decades, but it's never been done, so the problem has become increasingly worse. It was entirely foreseeable that this would happen: Governments knew this and have done nothing about it.

Retirement planning is a long-term thing. Moving goalposts when people are mid-working life or later is totally unacceptable.

Of course they'll try to. As usual expecting the British population to accept a lower standard of living because of their absolute failure to govern properly. The same as they expect people to accept real-terms decreases in salary, pathetic services, lack of food and energy security, appalling infrastructure etc, all also entirely caused by complete failures in long-term Government policy making.

That doesn't mean it's ok, though. Ire should be directed at politicians, not pensioners. You break it, you fix it. People in the UK are far too accepting of poor governance leading to completely avoidable problems that negatively impact their quality of life. See also Brexit.

Like I said earlier in the thread, mathematics is clearly not some people's strong point.

You need a private pension pot of around £400k to buy an index-linked annuity of equivalent value to the state pension. How anybody expects the majority to achieve this with the pathetic levels of mandatory employer contributions - especially on salaries that haven't risen in real terms for 15 years on average across the UK economy! - is beyond me.

Casuistry! My pension pot is funded from the money taken from every wage slip I have ever had. That's 43 years and counting of full time wages. My pension pot. My money. Like everyone else I have an account update now I am nearing 60.

How that is paid is a government mechanism. If they choose to ring fence / not to protect, etc is not my choice, not in my purview. My having worked for 50 years by the time I get to pensionable age, is my choice, based on my needs. By the time I get there I will have at least a decade of additional years worked. Given I have never claimed a single penny in any benefits since I started work at 17 that means a decade of contributions that will be paid to A N Other. That's how the Welfare State works.

Times change. Citing 'Boomer' doesn't mean anything at all, given the incredibly disparate demographic you are referring to.

@Mischance - I take your point but the thing is, the party that supports and puts this forward is persistently voted in, and many of its voters are pensioners. A society that does not support its young is not going to flourish. Young people need real sustained support but they are not getting it.

Instead the benefits of tax are being focussed on a much older group. Consistently.

I will be voting for a party that looks at support for the young long term. We need them to be successful.

Given how long it took for the pension increase to "soar" ahead by £1,000 that'll be at least what, a century or two!?!

Interest rates on lower amounts” but wages were lower so mortgages were not more affordable in relative terms.

I'm sorry but that's absolutely wrong.

Because it's still far too low by international standards.

It isn't an either/ or choice. Proper economic management to increase standards of living by improving productivity would increase everyone's standard of living. And reversing Brexit. The UK economy/ tax revenue isn't a cake of a fixed size to be carved up.

Precisely. And the higher rate tax band should be around £90k, not £50k...

a) The generation who keep banging on about how older people had it so good as if this is the one and only time people have ever struggled. And by struggle I don't mean because they have to choose between a new tattoo and a weekly meal out.

This is the divisive nonsense that needs to stop.

I have been one of the millenials posting in support of increasing state pensions. And how Government can achieve this while simultaneously not placing an increasingly unfair burden on working age people.

However, the complete inability of older generations to accept that objectively - based on the data - things are much harder for my generation is ridiculous. There has been no significant period of growth for 15 years now, where standards of living have improved. We have had the global financial crisis, Covid and Brexit and now this current crisis: each having a more serious impact than most recessions in recorded history (some impacts immediate, some like Brexit causing longer-term compounding damage that will increase over time). This is unprecedented, for real wages not to rise for 15 years. For housing costs to be such a high multiple of joint salaries. For tax to be so high. For services to be so poor. For higher education to be required for so many roles but to result in an additional 9% tax. Etc. For most people to have enormous childcare bills because few households can be sustained without at least 1.5 x full time wages.

These are facts. Denying them and spouting nonsense about tattoos, iphones, holidays or avocados won't help your case. You are shooting yourself in the foot.

Accepting that younger generations have had a worse deal than you instead of insulting them doesn't mean accepting you should not get the pension you do (or more in my opinion). What you SHOULD do is be supporting the younger generation by voting for policies which will also improve the situation for them, and recognising that they are - as a group - facing harder problems that yours did. You can't demand solidarity and show none yourself.

The generation with Costas in manicured hand every morning getting in their 4x4

This kind of crap. It's utterly pathetic and will win you no friends.

Investment in services is not on this government's agenda - they have dogmatic political dogma top of their list. They have never had my vote and never will.

I am totally unable to understand how they get voted in - and the older bias in Tory voting is regrettable. And often habit and tradition rather than logic.

All expenditure that focusses on prevention has been slashed: Sure Start, which helped families with disadvantages; education for all with a broad curriculum to cater for all abilities; care of the elderly and disabled to prevent falls and preventable illnesses. We are reaping what they have sown in the form of teenagers with mental health problems, high crime rates from young people who feel shut out, elderly people struggling on for years with problems that are eminently treatable etc.

It's a bloody mess and makes me furious.

There has been no significant period of growth for 15 years now, where standards of living have improved. We have had the global financial crisis, Covid and Brexit and now this current crisis: each having a more serious impact than most recessions in recorded history (some impacts immediate, some like Brexit causing longer-term compounding damage that will increase over time). This is unprecedented, for real wages not to rise for 15 years. For housing costs to be such a high multiple of joint salaries. For tax to be so high. For services to be so poor. For higher education to be required for so many roles but to result in an additional 9% tax. Etc. For most people to have enormous childcare bills because few households can be sustained without at least 1.5 x full time wages.

This is it, exactly. It's a fucking travesty!

Like you I don't understand the reluctance to acknowledge it. You can't attempt to fix anything until you at least acknowledge its existence.

Exactly. And our Government will do anything to avoid acknowledging the increasingly obese elephant in the room.

Why aren't older voters unhappy their children , grandchildren , great grandchildren are facing a future without the NHS, no retirement age and no state pensions but are having to pay more in? I'm increasingly worried for my DD I want her to have a comfortable retirement. Thankfully we are ok and have planned to gift her a property this won't be possible for most. I dread what it will be like for the future. I don't understand most want their children to be more comfortable than they were but many of the older generation aren't bothered? It's like the elephant in the room.

Well you ain't never gonna find a party that does that...that have any chance of getting to govern.....its the older people who vote....so they will be protected....argue all you want ....thats the way it is

Of course they worry for their children.....dick head comment 🙄.... but ultimately we have to look after ourselves when our children have grown and flown

My pension pot is funded from the money taken from every wage slip I have ever had.

If you are talking about the state pension, no it isn't saved in a pot with your name on. How do people still not understand this 🤦🏻‍♀️

Given I have never claimed a single penny in any benefits since I started work at 17 that means a decade of contributions that will be paid to A N Other.

This doesn't make you a special unicorn. I paid contributions at 17 despite working around school. Many younger people will be paying decades of NI more than need too.

Okay - but my point is that even on the voting pattern now, we can't afford to maintain it. So it won't be.

We spend more on state pensions than education. That is a grim thought.

It is okay if, you have your own means. And that is what I mean about private pensions, owning a home, having your own assets. If you have grandchildren or children without those things, then what happens to them?

There will be a state pension but quite clearly there are cuts elsewhere like health and social care. And that is coming fast. Those people who are relying on the state are in for a tough time are they not?

And our Government will do anything to avoid acknowledging the increasingly obese elephant in the room.

I get why they don't want to acknowledge it but why do so many of the population? particularly older ones. And whenever someone brings up about the growth in population you have posters saying people need to stop having more children & stick to 2 😆

You can think of your NI contributions however you like. Doesn't change the fact that it's not a savings account. Most people are net takers, regardless of how long you pay in.
It relies on a social contract where workers fund pensioners, children and those otherwise unable to work. That contract should have been amended many times over to accommodate a changing population. It hasn't been.
Regardless, it's really irrelevant since the OP was merely questioning why there is money for pensions, but nothing else. And for that I've yet to see a good response.
Yes, you're right times change. But why is it only the young who should adjust their expectations?

My pension pot is funded from the money taken from every wage slip I have ever had.

This is only the case if you have paid contributions of circa £400k over your working life (in today's money). Few have, even if they worked for 5 decades. This is also why the idea of means testing is ridiculous: aside from the practicalities being unworkable (see my earlier posts) it would deny the only people who are keeping the system afloat their own state pension (which is actually worth less than the contributions they have made, anyway).

Like I said earlier in the thread, mathematics is clearly not some people's strong point.

I actually never realised until the last few years how uneducated so much of the population is, it's depressing.

I agree with this. Go after inheritances not pensions.