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.

there were no 100% mortgages available in the late 80s

We didn’t have savings on one wage

Should have worked harder or stopped going to the pub 🤷🏻‍♀️.

Like you?

I have a home & savings...

So do I now. 🤣🤣🤣

Sorry, that should be “so de we now”

Abbey National introduced them in 1978.

Your memory isnt serving you very well at all is it ?

If I went back full time now, we wouldn't get any tax free allowance and even with 30 free hours, our childcare bill would still be over £2k.

It is ridiculous. If people want equality for women, more productivity, why is this mot addressed? We have the most expensive childcare as a percentage of average salaries of any country in the world.

It has been proved in multiple other countries that making childcare very cheap (as in, a couple of hundred pounds per month max, in many cases entirely free) improve productivity, grows the economy, reduces sexism and "gender pay gaps" etc. Skills and talents wasted, children growing up needlessly in poverty when state subsidised childcare pays for itself. We know this. The international data shows it. That is why pretty much all Governments in developed countries do it! So why doesn't ours?? Add that to my earlier list of questions that I am baffled that people are not asking of their MPs.

We weren’t earning enough money for the Abbey National, my memory is extremely good thanks, it’s the body that has been affected with manual work 🤣🤣

Well in that case they are, apparently, ignorant of the facts, but that is not an attack.

They are ignorant of the facts, indeed.

The facts have been stated to them.

They continue to deny them.

Seems to be a theme in the UK since around 2016.

And yes, they have attacked people with viscious and insulting comments. Unnecessary and very crass.

We all have differing opinions, and just because I’m not agreeing with you fully you start trying to bully “why can’t you accept that”

Opinions and facts are not the same.

And asking somebody to accept a proven fact is not "bullying". 🙄🙄🙄

@ElephantMeetRoom - but these "facts" make certain posters question their beliefs.

They believed that they paid enough, more than enough. These awkward facts you mention are upsetting that

"Also the 70s saw huge growth in salaries, something that is never mentioned."

I remember reading a report by an economist arguing that the high interest rates (I believe at the time linked with high inflation) combined with salary growth was great at diminishing mortgage debt. Sorry cannot remember the report author. Certainly makes a lot of sense.

Well, as the Chernobyl series concluded:

"The truth doesn't care about our needs or wants, it doesn't care about our governments, our ideologies, our religions. It will lie in wait for all time."

The scourge on our society in the UK these last few years has been the conflation of fact and opinion, or science and belief. They are not the same. They never will be.

So basically youre just making stuff up and when simple google searches show you up you resort to attempts at garnering sympathy for your poor situation/health ?

Thats the plan this time around too, inflate the debt away. It might work.

As I said above, inflating away debts only works when salaries rise with inflation. This entire thread was sparked by the anger at the fact that that is not happening. Hence the strikes, hence people turning on pensioners and the disabled many of whom absolutely need inflationary increases just to survive. Everyone else is having a real-terms paycut, again. That is where the anger comes from. It's completely different to periods of inflation where salaries rose to match. It means people become poorer each year.

Salaries have not risen in real terms in 15 years which is unprecedented. Due to that measurement now being based on CPI not RPI, salaries have in fact fallen substantially already in that period in real terms, because housing is a huge proportion of most households' living costs.

Now, there will be another 5-7% drop in real terms net incomes over the next two years. Again, unprecedented.

Anybody denying that the generation of people whose working lives and time to establish careers spanned this period have not been royally screwed over is either deliberately ignoring facts or is significantly intellectually challenged.

@ElephantMeetRoom my salary has gone up 25% since January, there is nothing to suggest drops of 5-7% in my industry sector.
Quite the opposite

Opinion and belief are not the same thing and generally most English people can understand the difference.

You are just meeting people who do not want to know the difference.

Thats the plan this time around too, inflate the debt away. It might work.

For the Government it'll work. That's certainly their plan. They've fucked up so they'll devalue the pound and make everyone poorer to cover it up. They're doing a Harold Wilson. It won't work for normal people of course, because the Government are actively encouraging that nobody should get pay increases in line with inflation (i.e. have publicly stated that their policy position is to make all of their citizens poorer).

Do you think this is a good thing?

Good for you. I'm talking about national averages.

People I know don't think like this, my friends are intelligent. I wouldn't have such people in my life! I mean the absurd comments I see online like in this thread.

I don’t think people will accept less than inflationary pay rises now, and given that we have the lowest unemployment since World War II and brexit, I do rather think we have the government by the bollocks at the moment.

Well given the public sector payrises offered are well below inflation - someas low as 1% so effectively a 9% paycut in a single year! - and that the Government have publicly urged private employers to "resist" demands for inflationary increases (i.e. simply maintaining pay for employees at its current level in real terms), I don't think your assessment reflects reality unfortunately.