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.

Well no, it's not. Because the OP's question was framed as "why should X get this and Y get that", like the economy is a cake to be divided up. It isn't. You can redesign it, or make it grow, improve productivity, and therefore not have to choose between helping X at the expense of Y: both can be helped. So it isn't possible to answer the OP's question in a meaningful way without pointing this out.

Recessions have happened and then there's been a recovery, salary growth and rising living standards. For the last 15 years this hasn't happened, and is now about to get worse again. It's not comparable.

@ElephantMeetRoom on the particular question of university fees, we can no longer compare like with like as the role of university education has changed so drastically.

With nearly 50% of youth attempting tertiary education it cannot be funded in the same way that it was when less than 15% attempted it. And when many jobs require a degree that did not used to, the benefits to society are less clear cut. Are the degrees really necessary and beneficial? In my discipline the answer is yes. I have my doubts about some degree programmes I have audited.

Hence IMO the question simply muddies the present waters

PS@ElephantMeetRoom I agree with you that the economy can and should be improved to avoid pitting generations or sectors against each other.

Per my earlier posts, my suggestion was that the number of University places be scaled back to jobs where a degree level education is needed either for knowledge or to demonstrate high academic capability, and that we introduce far superior technical education and apprenticeships like in Germany and other European countries. That way university can be funded like it used to be as a public good, and employers can't demand degrees for jobs where this really shouldn't be necessary. This also saves people wasting 3 years of working life and payrises, pension contributions, skills and experience for unnecessary degrees and means that young people aren't lumbered with an additional 9% income tax (in many cases through most of their working lives). Basically, reverse the Tony Blair effect. It was bad policy and helps nobody. So I agree with you but I had already dealt with this issue in detail in an earlier post.

This is the entire problem and what my posts were about in terms of practical things that can be done to change this. The intergenerational strife is being stirred up on purpose, is a distraction, and won't fix anybody's problems.

Divide and rule seems to be working out very well for the Tories.
Trashing the poor and immigrants while bunging Dido Harding 37 billion, and the Michelle Mone thing stinks to high heaven, and look to be the tip of the iceberg re the PPE VIP lane.
We have some of the lowest pensions in Europe.

If you can point at any words I posted that said I think older generations had it worse... I said we understand it because we too have lived through recessions, many of them. That you actually typed that I can't have been affected by any down turn is laughable. The kind of wilful blindness that a generation who have been taught that older people are the root of all evil swallowed far too easily!

Compassion? Like that shown for the 'Boomers' so many revile for no other reason than they are old and are living with what their lives gave them. Stop looking for a demon, you won't find a real one. What you will find is the usual circle of boom and bust that Brown said he would stop, but only made worse when he introduced WTC - supposed to help employers in time of trouble now morphed into yet another benefit trap that does real harm.

And yes, it is utterly tone deaf @SamphiretheTervosaurReturneth for people to bang on about Netflix or avocados or phone contracts etc when none of that would make even the slightest difference to the situation.

Which shows, yet again, that you can't hear what is being said! I did explain it. You chose to rely upon your childish moaning.

This is just yet another in a long line of threads that pit generation against generation. With a determined poster wanting to make 'Boomers' the bad guys, others gulled into agreeing because it is easier than working out what a recession actually is. Blame pensioners instead of global finances? OK! That makes perfect sense.

This is the entire problem and what my posts were about in terms of practical things that can be done to change this. You did nothing of the sort. Your idea of actually implementing your Christmas Wish List was "Tell MPs to do and they will have to implement it"

The intergenerational strife is being stirred up on purpose, is a distraction, and won't fix anybody's problems. And yet here you are. Vociferous on a thread that is predicated upon that!

@ElephantMeetRoom I agree that the series of events since 2008 are the most toxic combination for a century and that it's hitting younger generations hardest of all because the opportunities to accumulate wealth and assets have been circumscribed. However, this is traditionally what people do in their 40s onwards.

When even Telegraph columnists think the UK lacks appeal for young ambitious people, it's really time to worry.

I noticed that this morning but I’m not convinced by The Telegraph’s stance which is totally at odds with its editorial policy. It looks like a bit of meaningless virtue signalling to me.

It is off-message @Blossomtoes , but I read it as indicating that even the Torygraph is having to concede that all is not well and that they may have been part of the problem.

That’ll go down well with its readership! 😉

Look up winter of discontent of 1978/79 then tell everyone who remembers it, that you have got it harder than people then. No one is happy nowadays unless the government is giving handouts to all and sundry who think they deserve more and stuff the pensioners as they are all rich and shouldn’t be getting anything. It’s about time todays ‘poor me’ youngsters who need their arses wiped by the government grew up!

1979 wasn't that bad, i was working then, loads of jobs, free Uni, cheap housing at 3x avg earnings, rents were next to nowt and councils houses were plentiful.

Far less traffic too, kids played in the street without risk of getting run over by a 70yo in an SUV.

now the only sector of society getting the "handouts" are pensioners having guaranteed inflation linked pensions... not saying thats wrong but to then have a go at the younger generation is a bit rich.

The late 70s were starting to improve a bit, but I studied for my A levels by candlelight in winter 73/4. My parents' house halved in value between 72 and 74. It took my divorced/cast off DM 20 years to get back to owning a snug two up, two down terraced house rather than renting. This could be the real world for most people when the wheels fall off the cart next year.

Plus, there are not many two-up, two-down terraced houses left for ordinary families with one child and a baby. In my mum's street, in an ordinary town in middle England, with lots of work oppportunities, most have been divided into one bed flats.

Pensioners should be considered for a yearly increase - depending on their annual entitlement (i I hate the word entitlement but it seems to be the word of the season 😔). If a single parent with 6 children, who has a partner, living with his parents and working 40 hours a week, but staying at his gf’s home, 3 nights a week, can claim UC as a single parent, why should the over 70’s be happy with just over £100 a week to live together?

Everyone has to suck up increasing costs of living. Single parents are “entitled” to a home via the benefit system , regardless whether their partner is involved with the family.

What provision is there for pensioners who have paid into the pot all their working lives?

None!

If my mum decided to leave my dad (not that she would) there would be no social provision for her. In the meantime they have no choice than to live on a paltry pension every week. They have no financial scope to take a day out of their mundane lives.

I invite them over to mine once a week for a hot meal and to keep warm for a few hours - that’s all I can offer at the moment.

I think pensioners deserve a pay rise.much more than than those who choose not to work- because the benefit system pays them not to work.

The benefit system needs a complete overhaul imo. Those who are in need don’t get because those who are capable of working pull the wool!

I have 2 close family members who cannot work - Mobility, breathing, physical difficulties. The PIP form takes no notice of their day to day struggles, yet the neighbour who works as a roofer manages to climb on roofs every day gets PIP. How is this allowed to happen?

I am so disillusioned with the morals of this Tory Govt. I’m not enamoured with a Labour Govt who think that a man dressed as a woman is a woman.

Honestly I give up

Im Just one of many who find ourselves politically homeless

Really? Not that bad? All the rose tinted hindsight in the world cannot wash away the reality of the fight between Thatcher and unions. Almost exactly what is happening now... If you didn't live through it you had better believe those of us who did. Find a god and ask him nicely not to let it happen again!

theconversation.com/winter-of-discontent-how-similar-is-todays-situation-195838

This writer is a similar age to me and this is pretty much what I remember

www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/really-bad-what-really-like-21725414#comments-wrapper

Don't shrug off what we experienced back then. As I keep on saying, we know! We are fully aware of what is likely to happen, are not dismissing it but are trying to explain how we managed, scraped by, lived through it... and saw the boom that followed.

And then of course a further bust... We know! Why continue to dismiss this as Boomers booming?!?! Stopping your ears to the realities won't help - and in some cases will leave people unprepared. Because shouting at me, the government, anyone else, is more fulfilling than taking a step back and looking to see what you might be able to do to help meet the realties of what is quite likely to happen in the next few months? I can't fathom that!

I left school in 1978, i had a large range of jobs to choose from... i had free evening classes in 79.. i then went to FE again for free, in fact they paid me 1200 per year as a non repayable living grant.. i then went on to be a higher rate tax payer for most of my working life... my DD works for a relative pittance in the NHS, owes 43k in student loans and a Govt that says she is in league with Putin......

I just listened to a woman who has had her gas cut off, owes £70 on the meter, she can't afford to live, her kids fear living in a shelter.

People today have seen (even with govt support) seen energy prices double and in April.. treble.. this simply didn't happen in the 70s... so many poor people are in private rents and have no protection from rent rises... unlike in the 70s.

Instead of going on about how tough you had it, how about accepting that very large numbers of people in the UK are really suffering.. esp in regard to housing costs.

As to "Pray it doesn't happen again..." it already is... has been for years but now is far worse.

Aaaaaaargh! Why?

Nobody is saying that the 2 situations are identical. ffs! We all know that things were very different back then. More things were free at the point of access. But other things taken for granted now did not exist. BECAUSE THEY ARE DIFFERNT TIMES!

Why keep on doing that? Its infuriating!

What do you want? To have the world and its dog say "Oh, it's far worse now than it ever was before" or do you want to discuss a working, every day solution to the things moany people can change, right now, to help get through this winter?

To moan or to find ways of coping with the bits that can be coped with?

To be part of in individual solution or add to the general bile and bitterness that solves nothing?

To look only at the larger political scenario, and blame 'Boomers'. Or acknowledge that boom and bust is a really thing, a cycle many have been through before and to take heart, and even some advice, from that fact?

Wallow in it or do something proactive?

If those who get their wish see state pensions means tested, what would they suggest the cut off should be? How much should a single pensionr, ir a couple have to live on? The same as younger, non working people get on UC?

The old basic state pension is already, to an extent, means tested. It discriminates against those who have small extra pensions, by awarding Pension Credit to those who may have earned as much or more but didn’t save. I’ve gone to pension seminars where there have been people, mainly women, in that exact scenario. Because they tried to be responsible, they are penalised. Total means testing of the state pension will discourage low paid, or part time workers from setting up a pension, because they will be penalised at retirement age.

A pensioner with a six figure income must be paying far more in tax than they receive from the state?

A pensioner with a six figure income must be paying far more in tax than they receive from the state?

They are. A pensioner with an income of £100k will be paying three times the amount of their state pension in tax. I imagine those pensioners are pretty few and far between though.

I still pay tax BTW, state pension and work pension,plus share of my late husband's pension, so I am over the threshold.

You’d think so. I’m just curious as to what the people who want pensions means tested really mean? Would they stop paying it to anyone who pays 40% or above income tax? Or what about any income over the basic tax threshold? Or as I asked earlier, to the level of UC?

Would couples be means tested separately as for Income Tax, or as a household as for DWP benefits?