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.

Believe me, my situation is fine, more than fine now, thank you for asking.

I listen to the young people around me, they all own their own properties, they aren’t in debt, drive beautiful cars, go to various locations for hen/stag dos, and aren’t worrying about paying for childcare etc etc.

Thst is because they earn a small fortune, and good luck to them.

i would imagine they are still out partying and having fun.

Yhe public sector make up what percentage of the workforce??? Tbh they reap what they sow, nobody goes into the public sector for the financial rewards so it shouldn’t be a shock when they dont receive them.

Not sure what type of enclave you live in.

I am now lucky enough to live around and work with many such people and live a pretty decent life myself but at least I am aware it's a bubble.

The national data on the average experience of working-age people now paints a different picture of the difficulties most people face. Do those people not matter just because you don't encounter them in your daily life?

I wonder what percentage of pensioners getting a 10% increase are against or in favour of public sector workers also getting a 10% increase?

I think they should be keeping up with inflation

Yhe public sector make up what percentage of the workforce??? Tbh they reap what they sow, nobody goes into the public sector for the financial rewards so it shouldn’t be a shock when they dont receive them.

How callous of you.

Yeah, why bother educating kids or treating sick people or protecting people from crime. Nobody who decides to do that deserves a decent standard of living.

They make up around 20% of the workforce. And as I said, the Government have actively encouraged - in public speeches on television! - private employers to also NOT give their employees inflationary payrises i.e. to give them a pay cut in real terms.

So this isn't about whatever weird vitriol you seem to have against public sector employees. Government policy is that ALL employers should give employees a pay cut i.e. make its own citizens poorer.

You think this is good governance? Fuck the economy and make your citizens take the brunt of it, then turn them on each other to blame each other instead of you?

Maybe it is good policy. I mean, this thread shows people learned nothing in 2016 and are still thick enough to fall for it.

Meanwhile MPs continue to get payrises and expenses and noone not even OP will say thays wrong and maybe the money we save there can go towards helping citizens.

And all the useless vanity projects

No no no turn a blind eye and just go for dog eat dog among citizens

The MPs salaries and pensions etc should be subject to exactly the same restrictions that they apply to other public sector workers on principle.

However, this is a drop in the ocean in terms of the national finances. The money saved by addressing that would make no realistic difference to anything.

The policies I set out in a list earlier in this thread absolutely would. Most would pay for themselves and improve life substantially for everyone.

I've still had no answer from the posters arguing with me regarding whether they have emailed their MPs asking them to implement those policies. And if not, why not?

Wow, Mumsnet really is a Tory Party test ground these days.

It is very depressing. Especially the proportion of posters who will happily deny that publicly available proven facts exist.

Spot on

And you know this how?

And if it is the case, so what?

When (not if) it is the case (given that it's not plausible that all of these people who spout this no sense are in the too 10% of taxpayers and therefore net contributors) it is fairly absurd for them to be moaning about how "unfair" it is for them to be funding childcare provision or UC or whatever for others given that - by definition - the haven't even funded their own withdrawals from the state let alone anybody else's.

"I've paid in for fifty years!" blah blah and then this self-righteousness and judgemental attitude about how dare younger people have childcare or heating (we loved the ice on our windows, we did) or eat an avocado etc is pretty amusing when those people are furious that they believe they're paying for these things when in fact they haven't even paid their own way and we're subsidising them.

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.

It was a route out of poverty for bright, poor children especially.

Yes the people who didn't go benefitted from it, every time they needed a dcorr, accountant, lawyer etc.

this self-righteousness and judgemental attitude about how dare younger people have childcare or heating (we loved the ice on our windows, we did) or eat an avocado etc is pretty amusing

Has anyone actually said this?

Well of rhats the case then let's all just funds our own lives then shall we, no more benefits for anyone. No childcare, no universal credit no state pension no NHS. Everyone funds their life, that way noone can claim they haven't put enough in, noone can moan that others shouldn't be getting x amount it isn't fair.

Settles the argument once for all. Are you happy to sign up for that? ...I doubt it

Yes the people who didn't go benefitted from it, every time they needed a dcorr, accountant, lawyer etc.

yep, not sure why people think that just because they didn't go to university they haven't benefited from it. It's good for society to have an educated workforce.

You're assuming a mortgage free, house owning, private pension owning scenario double income.......this isn't the case for many older adults I know. I don't believe that it should go.

Settles the argument once for all. Are you happy to sign up for that? ...I doubt it

Plenty of higher earners would sign up for that because it would save them a lot of tax.

Family allowance was paid after the last war, for the second child onwards. When married men stopped receiving tax allowances for children, it was changed to child benefit, and paid to women.

It started second child on, and then went to every child. Not means tested, although at one time (1980s). single parents could get extra on it.

But a lot of us retirees have got something you haven't. Happiness and contentment with our lives.🥂

Misery, discontentment , envy and a begrudging attitude will get you nowhere....😉

For, if not more, particularly for nurses. And believe I should be taxed more to pay for it.

@Spectre8 there’s a thought! Our DC would be quids in if they paid our state pensions instead of income tax and NI. They already have private healthcare via their employment, except ironically the one who works for the NHS. Unlike us, none expect to work after 60.

No matter the system, there are always winners and losers. As a reviled baby boomer, I can accept that a large swathe of my age group ‘never had it so good’. But surely the children of that generation benefited also? We weren’t well off, but our DC didn’t leave school at 15 to go to work. They went into further and higher education, opening doors to better careers, from which they have benefited, and our DGC are benefitting now.

i have recently left the university I was working at (legal services, not academic) because I was offered a massive pay rise to go back into the public sector. The university lecturers are getting a 3% pay rise this year, and we have been told that they couldn’t give a bigger pay rise as they were under pressure not to give pay rises to keep inflation under control. The university pension benefit has been cut by 1/3rd in the last year too.

The private sector firm I am moving to have an 8% pay rise minimum last year, and a £2k bonus to all staff.

The chasm between public sector / 3rd sector wages and private sector had been narrowing, but in the past year or so has grown exponentially again. I can see public services suffering as a result. for me the ‘high inflation erodes my mortgage debt’ idea will work, but it won’t for university workers.

Nobody’s said that. In fact I said that I’m happy to fund stuff I’m too old to have benefited from - in response to the question as to why someone’s taxes should pay for pensions when they think they won’t get one.