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.

So you didn't go back and read my posts? I specifically said I had gone back a few pages. There are 800 ish posts...

Why can't you accept that SOME policies need to be directed at improving things for younger people and future generations, too? Again, you are not reading what I have posted. You are shouting at me for things I have not said.

So again, HOW would you start? What policies and procedures would you put in place to manage the 2-tier system you now agree you would be setting up?

@SamphiretheTervosaurReturneth your resentment at the very mention of policies that might help working-age people - or indeed those who are children now - speaks volumes.

Why depressing? Because your wishful thinking is being questioned as to its practicality?

We can all make a list of ways we think the current system could be changed for the better. I imagine we all agree it needs to be changed. But when it comes down to the realities of the thing the first questions that has to be asked is: where the fuck do we start?

What resentment?

Sincerely, you are making that shit up!

I am working age!

@AlarmClockMeetWindow - yes it is depressing but it is the reason I tell my children to aim high, do not depend on the state. Telling them there is a state pension to come at a defined age is wrong. I do not believe it will exist in the same way in two years, let alone 40.

Pensions by the state will be set higher, and by life expectancy. There is a lot of media discussion about it which is testing the response.

I am hugely relieved that I just slipped into the band of people who could retire at 60. Since then I have: nursed my OH through a terminal illness, broken my foot, had a failed hip replacement, had surgery to a slipped disc, and had two cataracts removed. And I am not that old yet! How could I have worked? Who would have nursed my OH?

There is logic in the retirement age rising with rising life expectancy, but it is worth asking what the quality of that longer life is and whether it is compatible with being able to work efficiently and safely.

So many women in their early 60s are struggling to do jobs whilst in pain from arthritis. Just because people live longer it does not mean they are all fit to work.

Many pensioners are of course fighting fit and having a great time - but I doubt if it is the majority. I have seen so many people soldier on till retirement age and then die of some horrible affliction, as happened to my OH.

The challenge of aging people drawing pensions for 30 years is huge and morality suggests that they should not live in poverty. I am sure no-one wants that.

No-one will grasp the nettle on care funding - I had to sell my home in order to pay for OH's care - the basic SS care options were wholly unacceptable - I would go so far as to say appalling. And made me weep - literally.

The challenges of an aging population have never been top of anyone's agenda - just too scary.

I am of course concerned for my AC, but each in their own way has found solutions and they are living good lives - hard-working lives, just as I have had. And bringing up happy children.

People over pension age are not blind to the challenges facing young families and I am sure that, like me, they do all they can to help. I have willingly provided years of free child dare for the GC, even when I was in pain; and I help all I can - paid for holidays for them all this year. Please do not think we do not care. Don't make this a generational battle - it is the result of successive governments refusing to bite the bullet and tackle the needs of an aging population.

Ummmm, by enacting the list I posted above?

I am not sure why you think this is so impossible. It's not.

What's your alternative suggestion? Leave things as they are and wait until it all implodes as everyone gradually gets poorer and poorer?

People over pension age are not blind to the challenges facing young families and I am sure that, like me, they do all they can to help. I have willingly provided years of free child dare for the GC, even when I was in pain; and I help all I can - paid for holidays for them all this year. Please do not think we do not care

Please do not think this is the norm/ universal, either. I'm a lone parent. I've never bad a single day of family "childcare" for my DCs. Not once.

*had

And I know I'm not alone in that.

Ultimately social structures can't rely on family kindness because that's simply not available to many people.

How to enact it is my question.

I am not saying it is impossible. Just that your list is not a process.

My alternative suggestion is that I am fully aware that this is needed but complex and, like many here and across SM and MSM, I have no idea how to start the process. But at least I see that there is a process and that a wishlist is not it... . Sod all about leaving things as they are, that's you embroidering again!

Oh absolutely. I tell mine the same and have always done the same myself.

My point was that very simple changes can make things much better than they are for many people, without negatively impacting current pensioners.

They seem to want solidarity from the working age population. I am happy to provide that. Why is it no reciprocal? Why do they not support changes that would help younger people, too?

@AlarmClockMeetWindow - that is the flip side actually, which is with an ageing population there is no proper social care or funding. So that will come from pensioners, and probably a targeted levy. I doubt it would be socialised given the current demographic issues.

Given that HM fucking government has just screwed my pension of two year's worth contributions with their antics in November, no I fucking not. I'll need that TL just to stay afloat.

Do I sound ever so slightly unhappy😠

Well yes. That's a horrible problem. Unfortunately what was paid during their working lives was nowhere near enough to fund it (and all spent already).

Again, options: take the hit now or set up another unsustainable ponzi scheme. Neither palatable.

I think I've had a grand total of about 5 nights in 9 years 🤣🤣🤣🤣.

How to enact it is my question.

I am not saying it is impossible. Just that your list is not a process.

Not sure I follow. Thingsn that the public support en masse get enacted. More people making plain to their MPs that these things must be enacted will get them enacted. Have you emailed your MP about any of them?

The process is:

People tell MPs they have to enact this, en masse.

MPs will then enact it.

The end.

😂

Oh, thanks for that! That has lifted a pretty grey, miserable day!

I think I've had a grand total of about 5 nights in 9 years 🤣🤣🤣🤣.

So jealous of people who do have this family support but the endless posts suggesting it's the norm are grating, aren't they?

I mean, not a single day out or overnight stay, ever, in my case. 🤣🤯

Quite. Only "babysitting" we've had was when I was in labour. Even then my mum went home before dc3 was born. My neighbour had to step in. My mum has "done her bit".

Not sire why it's funny.

Why do you think the triple lock stays in place? An innate sense of fairness from MPs? Concern that UK pensions are low by international standards? Huge empathy with the elderly?

Or perhaps, the fact they want to keep their jobs. Political pressure.

If as well as demanding your people support your pension payments (as I've said many times, I absolutely do), you reciprocated by demanding politicians enact these policies which would help current working age people and future generations, then likewise, those things would happen.

Why don't you?

*young people support

Quite. Only "babysitting" we've had was when I was in labour. Even then my mum went home before dc3 was born. My neighbour had to step in. My mum has "done her bit".

Lol. Mine are similar. Retired at 50 and 55. Didn't even show up until either DC was 2 weeks old. Never spent time with either without me present too. Didn't even come to see I was ok when ex-H walked out on me on Christmas day with two babies. Such selfless people. 🤣

It's not really funny. It's depressingly naive!

I know no-one in my age bracket and amongst friends and acquaintances who do not provide free child care - and lots of it! They are always rolling up with GC in tow!

I am very sorry that there are also many who do not get that help. I find it unimaginable that I would not do this - it helps them and is a such a joy for me.

What is naive @SamphiretheTervosaurReturneth is the idea that the status quo can persist, without any changes.