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.

I find it unimaginable that I would not do this - it helps them and is a such a joy for me.

You sound very lively and I hope they appreciate you!

Lovely! Lively too, I'm sure. 😁

I know you think you are making a point there. But it is not based on anything I have said. You have been making up my perspective from wholecloth all afternoon - again, I am not retired. But hey! You keep on harping on about me protecting my pension payment and ignoring those of working age etc etc. If that best fits your polemic.

Your, possibly studied, naivety, lack of comprehension, is amusing, bemusing, irritating in equal measure. You wishlist is just that. A wishlist. And if you cannot see that your Cloud Cuckoo Land thinking is nigh in impossible to put into action "simply" as you so blithely state, then you will be doomed to disappointment,.

Have you tried working with your local councillors and MPs? Or do you just write them nice long emails setting out the issues you want to them read and then enact it.
The end. ?!?!

@LadyMary50 and @Justthisonce12: we actually agree that the link between a university education and work is broken. I had commented to this effect on Saturday 03/12 at 15.36 and /or 19.19 in response to other posts.

The only reason I mentioned pensioners' access to free uni education was in response to @Willyoujustbequiet on 03/12 at 15.14 when her first paragraph said

'Pensioners are the wealthiest people I know. Most went to without having to take on debt, bought property on one wage and retired comfortably in their early 50s on final salary pensions. Now sitting on huge amounts of equity.'

This was her evidence for the idea that pensioners have it easy.

She clarified to a later poster that most pensioners she knows did indeed attend uni.

My only point was that as less than 14% of British pensioners attended uni, it is incorrect to claim free attendance as a significant generational asset. But I also don't know any pensioners who retired in their 50s, except for reasons of health.

How exactly does one "work with their mp" on national policies? Beyond making suggestions and asking your mp to represent as such?

What about it do you think is impossible to enact @SamphiretheTervosaurReturneth if (as I've qualified throughout) the public were to bother to pressure MPs so that the will of MOs was there to do it. Why would it be impossible for them to enact? Please do explain.

How exactly does one "work with their mp" on national policies? Beyond making suggestions and asking your mp to represent as such?

Precisely. This is what we are meant to do: tell our democratic representatives what we would like them to do. And when enough people say the same thing they make sure it happens because they want to keep their jobs. It really is that simple. So the people who don't bother to contact their MP and point out that these policies are: a) necessary; b) beneficial for everyone; and largely self-funding long term, are responsible for it not happening.

My only point was that as less than 14% of British pensioners attended uni, it is incorrect to claim free attendance as a significant generational asset.

Of course it was: those who needed a degree for their profession could get one for free, regardless of economic background. Brilliant for social mobility. And people weren't saddled with debts and an extra 9% tax (and wasting 3 years of working life: promotions, skills, pension contributions etc) to obtain degrees which are now essential to gain employment for which the degree is really not necessary. A much better system for everyone.

Well, the obvious way for them not to worry about their healthcare bills would be to support tax increases (income tax is at a very low rate compared to the 1970s and 1980s) and to fund the NHS and other welfare benefits, including state pensions, properly.

The quickest way to ensure you certainly won't enjoy the same benefits as current pensioners is to eat away at them now.

oh dear, I paid into my NHS-pension for years, I’m going to spend it on holidays, cosmetic surgery, shop at Waitrose and waste the rest. All those years of NI and tax for my state pension I’m going to use on bills, I won’t get free council tax because I get the nhs pension, will have to put a bit by for house maintainance cos I’ve paid off my mortgage and won’t get housing benefit, I’m glad I’ve worked for near on 50 years so that moaning minis in their 20s and 30s can tell me I should be dead cos I’m costing them to much… arseholes

why should I pay lots of taxes for services that won't exist when I reach old age?

Why am I paying lots of tax for benefits that didn’t exist when I was young like free childcare, maternity leave and UC for low paid workers? Because that’s how society works. I paid for two generations’ pensions, until 2006 I was still paying off debt from WW2. See how this works? You’re behaving like you’re the first generation ever to be affected in this way.

You make some very good points there.

How much tax do you pay each year? Because unless it's rather substantial, you're not even covering your own costs let alone paying anything towards funding services for anyone else. Only the top 10% of taxpayers are net contributors. Everyone else is being funded by them. So a lot of these types of self-righteous comments are based on an absolute fiction.

Ironically most of the usual "outraged" types are people who have not made a net contribution to national finances over their lifetimes, and have been funded by the few of us who do.

What is wrong with you? What a bizarre comment. Did you even read the thread?

🤣🤣🤣

I think our household paid around
50k in income tax and ni last year. We definitely do not cost the state that much.

I'ved worked. I've read the newspaper every day. I have spent time every single day of my adult life since I was 40 considering how I would retire without worrying. And I am now 66. The preparation is all done. I shall sack off to another sunnier country, pay health insurance. Good luck to the rest of you.

I’m far from outraged. My post was simply to point out that we all pay for services and benefits that we don’t use.

The demands I personally have made on the state in the 51 years I’ve paid tax - at the higher rate for about 20 of those years - have been the birth and education of one child who was particularly accident prone so probably had more A&E attendances than most. I paid for my own gallbladder and cataract surgery and anticipate paying for any further surgery I might need.

i begrudge none of that but I think I’ve pretty much covered my costs to the state. I’ve been happy to contribute to other people’s children’s education and healthcare and I’m delighted that today’s young parents get support I didn’t so it’s just a little annoying to see “why should I pay lots of taxes for services that won't exist when I reach old age?”.

I like winding up the self righteous youngsters of today who think they have it so hard, it’s getting boring

Over 85% of the pensioner generation received no benefit whatsoever from the policy of free university education. Hence, not an advantage for the vast majority.

That was always my point. The complexities of funding, the link between education and work - these are interesting but entirely different questions

'Pensioners are the wealthiest people I know. Most went to (?UNI) without having to take on debt, bought property on one wage and retired comfortably in their early 50s on final salary pensions. Now sitting on huge amounts of equity.'

I did benefit from my higher education fees being paid by the state, and the maintenance that my parents paid me being subsidised because they were means-tested and unable to pay it all. I also had a grant from the Home Office for post-grad studies. I am very grateful for that and sad that my DC have had to get into such debt at such a young age.

But university was different then. The courses were strictly academic, so fewer people chose to go there - now there are lots of vocational courses too so access has opened up. There is no way that the huge subsidies we had could be continued for such large numbers. Hence the horrific debt that young people start their lives out with.

We did manage to buy a home with one wage but the interest rates on mortgages were eye-watering (about 10%) and we lived on overdrafts and loans until I was able to go back to work - no child care as there is now. I waited till they were school age.

I do not know a single person who has retired in their early 50s!

If they were able to buy a property and have become mortgage free at retirement, then they do have equity behind them - but many are not in the position.

I honestly think it is just swings and roundabouts - in some ways we were lucky and in others young families are lucky now. It is tempting to look at pensioners who are now drawing money from the schemes into which they paid, and enjoying being retired and think they have it easy. But it is easy to forget that before they got to that situation, they were working their tripe out for decades with high interest rates and no available child care.

My late OH's high stress job in the NHS wore him down and made him ill; and then when he needed care it was not forthcoming. He did not have time to enjoy retirement.

@XingMing - congrats! I intend to do the same when the time comes. I want to retire early

What a spiteful comment.