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.

To clarify: real terms incomes after tax will decline by 5-7% on top of 15 years of stagnation. Not gross salaries.

This is just more divisive stuff.

Housing used to be more affordable on one salary.

Childcare in the UK is the most expensive of any G7 country, including the "subsidies".

Mothers and women generally still face huge discrimination even though it's technically illegal now.

Pensioner bashing is not ok. Everyone should have a decent standard of living. The triple lock is a good thing: UK pensions are too low.

Simultaneously younger people face and have already faced a much harder economic situation than your generation have, and will continue to do so. This is an objective fact. Many of us want to support you and see it as a moral duty. A little solidarity in the other direction e.g. pressuring Government to enact policies that would actually help younger people (with no detriment to you own situation) would be more appropriate than the pretence that it was just as difficult for you. It wasn't.

@AlarmClockMeetWindow Unless I've missed another post, I am the only person who has stated they are an economist. And the post you have just quoted was not written by me. I think you may have become muddled

The poster who started the thread claims to be an economist.

And while we're at it, pensions and taxation should all be calculated on a household basis as they are in France and many other countries, if you want to allieviate poverty and make things more "fair".

Where is the campaign for that?

Most pensioners who are poor are single pensioners (majority women). Most child poverty is in single parent households (90% women). Most working age poverty for people without children is among single people.

You want to improve tax revenue and outcomes and health and reliance on services and productivity? Then tax by household, set levels of child benefit/ state pension/ tax free childcare etc by household. Systems already in place, immediate and HUGE impact. Economy improves massively.

Anybody bothered to contact their MP about this glaringly obvious way to improve things in the UK??

Ah ok. My mistake, I missed that.

Also find that incredibly hard to believe!!!!!

@AlarmClockMeetWindow - good idea! I doubt my Tory MP would like it but I do.

Easy to implement (relatively speaking), much fairer, huge positive benefit to productivity, reducing poverty and to society in general.

If people want things to improve in the UK this is the type of thing they need to be pressuring MPs to do, instead of attacking each other. MPs want to be re-elected. If their inboxes fill with people demanding this, it'll happen. But I bet hardly anybody on this thread will even bother to send an email to suggest it.

AlarmClockMeetWindow · Today 14:20
And while we're at it, pensions and taxation should all be calculated on a household basis....

Benefits are already calculated on 'a household basis'. The result ? Couples preferring to maintain separate households, rather than live together, and lose benefits. I suspect taxing 'households' as 'households' would have the same effect.

Nope. The Government doing that for welfare benefits them. Doing that for taxation benefits the population. Because the cash flow is reversed. That's why it's designed that way and why it needs to change.

Also find that incredibly hard to believe!!!!!

A couple of us posting yesterday afternoon were a bit 😕over that claim.

People campaigned long and hard to secure the right of married women to be taxed independently of their husbands, and that financial independence began only in 1990.

Without that, the lower earner essentially loses all their personal allowances, and their income is added on to the higher tax paying souse and is taxed in its entirety at that (higher) rate.

On top of the loss of financial autonomy (for all those who are not seeking taxpayer funded welfare payments), it would reduce household incomes, and push more into HRT. Is that what you really want?

In which the case, the working young would be better off campaigning to maintain and even increase benefits and services. Instead they are the literal definition of turkeys voting for Christmas! A Christmas that might be 40+ years away but which is going to come along regardless. What sort of society are we creating when we begrudge the elderly a few percentage points of an increase in their state pension? What makes you think the young in 40 years time won't treat you with the same disregard? We reap what we sow.

meditrina · Today 14:35
People campaigned long and hard to secure the right of married women to be taxed independently of their husbands, and that financial independence began only in 1990.

They did indeed.

Who told you life was fair?….its never been fair 🙄…..I’m 58 …..I have my share of shit but I’ve taken my nhs pension which nurses can at 55 still….and I’ve gone back 2 days a week…..I’m lucky in that….certainly not moaning……but my kids will make their own way in life…..I will leave them what I have left….and I already help out with my 3GD ( money wise and child care) ……but they are doing ok…..none of them are expecting a state pension…..they are looking out for their futures already….they weren’t brought up to believe life was fair

I don't see that this idea creates poverty. It redistributes the rate of tax according to relative income and then allocates benefit accordingly. It is a fair way of addressing actual need, not imagining a certain payment gets allocated on a hypothecated basis.

Which doesn't happen anyway and that is the problem!

@AlarmClockMeetWindow I think you have succeeded in shouting at me enough for things I haven't said.

I was agreeing with much of what you said. Using some different words.

none of them are expecting a state pension…..they are looking out for their futures already….they weren’t brought up to believe life was fair

What point are you trying to make here? Because your dc don't expect to get a state pension it's ok so others should stop complaining about it?

No, it wouldn't, because tax allowances would need to be adjusted accordingly, that's the entire point. It is nonsense for a household with two adults to share working/ caring responsibilities between them to be able to earn twice as much tax free as a single parent doing everything. For them to be taxed at higher rate at £50k when the couple - who have twice as much time to juggle everything between them and therefore need less childcare - to be able to earn £100k before that happens. For single people to get only 25% reduction in Council tax. For a single parent to lose all child benefit at £60k when a couple can earn £120k before that happens when again, they have twice the time to devote to earning/ caring. For a single parent to lose tax free childcare/ nursery funding at £100k yet a couple can get it up to £200k household income. For single pensioners to be the only group of pensioners generally experiencing poverty, when each household could receive say £16k pension, rather than pensioner couples receiving £20k and single pensioners £10k.

Times have changed. This is neccessary and it's undeniable that a household basis for all taxation etc would be create a huge benefit to the UK in terms of reducing poverty, increasing productivity and improving society.

Indeed.

Sorry: no idea what this means. 🤷🏻‍♀️

What a selfish thing to say. I'm alright Jack don't you think your DC should have some comfort in retirement ? And not worrying about their healthcare bills.

someone asked me what was fair….. not that it’s any of your fucking business 🙄

But you do reap what you sow. We are now spending more on state pensions than education which has been voted for by many pensioners.

So yes, you can see this younger generation are not so keen for that to continue. Because they pay for many things and don't have similar views to the older generation.

I'm a HCP and the pension isn't as generous anymore. So we will have to work just as hard pay more tax and retire later great !!

And of course there can be (again simple to administer provisions) where people would have to opt out otherwise their household allowances would automatically be hypothecated between them, maintaining autonomy for those in couples. That is not an argument for deliberately disadvantaging financially the huge swathes of society that are single, which is the cause of much of the UK's problems.