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 I guess if you have such poverty of ambition to believe we can only help one group at the expense of others, and it's now the pensioners' turn to suffer. Or maybe we could do better as a whole?

What are we going to do in 20-30 years when today's young start to retire and far fewer own homes?
Surely that's when the real pinch will be felt?.
IMO house prices and RTB are the biggest source of generational inequality surely

Have to say the the number of people on this thread who see the real problems rather than the easy line the OP takes is heartening

Your brother does not rent because his wife decided she didn’t want to be married to him any more. He rents, because he hasn’t been independently financially responsible for his whole life

I don't usually use this word, but have you been a cunt all your life or just started today?

He's renting because she's in the house with teenage children and they're sorting the divorce issue out. How you come to the conclsuion that he isn't financially responsible for his life because of that beats me, you'd have to be stupid to think that. Oh wait....

I don't think people realise exactly how much some pensioners get especially if claiming a disability premium on pension credit and then the disability benefit itself, then getting all rent and council tax paid. Lets say a pensioner gets £150 a week state pension, they will then get topped up with another £100 a week approx of pension credit. They could possibly be on higher rates of PIP daily living and mobility because if you claim that prior to turning pension age you get to keep the whole lot indefinately so that could be another £600 every four weeks, then potentailly £600 a month all rent paid and £130 ( lower estimate ) of council tax all paid because they are on pension credit guarantee. So this all adds up to near on £2500 a month. It's madness. I know that disability benefits are there to pay for the extra costs of a disability but £600 a month for potentially 20-25 years post retirement is an awful lot. The whole system needs a review asap. It's totally unsustainable.

Yanbu.

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.

Meanwhile kids today are saddled with debt, stuck living with their parents not able to afford a home on zero hour contracts with the prospect of having to work until their 70s.

Its so incredibly unfair and imo offensive.

An unemployed 25 year old can get off their arse and find a job…..if they are too sick to work they can claim pip and extra UC….my nephew has mental health problems…..he’s 24 ….he get £505 PiP and £600 UC ( cos he’s in the support group) ….he lives at home….he’s waaayyyy better off than many pensioners

Yes there will be huge numbers of people claiming housing benefits for large private rents for potentially 20-25 years on end because they've never been able to get on the housing ladder or have lost their homes through divorce or whatever. I think the government will have to think ahead to build affordable retirement accomodation.

You obviously mix in different circles to me🙄…..I don’t personally know( friends or family) a single pensioner who went to uni

If HS2 was cancelled there would be much more public money to go around.

It could be mothballed until the country is more prosperous?

What I would change for state pensions ?

I would scrap the "winter fuel allowance" & any other odd one off amounts that are paid annually

I would just increase the state pension !

Where is the respect for the older generations ?

Well said!!

Going forward, the next pensioner generations will have an entirely different life. They will still be supporting DC's at Uni as well as elderly parents. We are not far off ourselves, with one DC still at Uni and rellies in their 90's. Each generation is having children later, so the last couple of generations, who had their children in their 20's, who retired at 50/60, with no DC's to support and already dead parents, and pissed off around the world having a lovely time, won't be possible for many going forward. We will just be over this hump, in our late 50's now, but we already know of a few retirees with kids still at Uni, and oldies to care for. The generation after us, will be even more impacted, working longer, and having more dependents to still look after.

@latetothefisting some of the activities tou cite contribute massively in the aggregate to the UK economy , even if they do not come with a pay check. Here on MN we see frequent posts from mums whose work is made possible by the fact that DGPs are providing free, and frequently exhausting, childcare. Someone of pensionable age is naturally likely to have limited energy for a part time job after that.

According to a report of 01/09/2021 on the NCVO website, the ONS had recently calculated that voluntary work contributed £20bn annually to the UK economy.

Implicitly suggesting that these two activities should be dismissed in favour of paid work was a disservice. And that is before the very real problem of pensioners obtaining any kind of work, owing to ageism, as PPs mentioned.

@Babyroobs

But those retiring on the current pension rate won't get pension credit, will they? And they may not be disabled and claiming PIP, and they won't then get their rent paid or their council tax paid.
So they will get £200 a week.
Slightly different to £2500 a month!

So who stopped you having kids in your 20s? I was all done with my 3 early…..so yes all off my hands early…..but didn’t have much in my 20s ….it’s all about choices….my DD is 28 ….she’s had her girls young …started at 21….by the time she’s 40 they will be largely off her hands….my youngest DS had his DD at 20 …..lots of people still have their babies young where I am

@Willyoujustbequiet To back up @kitcat15 , by the end of the 1970s only 14% of the UK population were attending university. True, they did not have to cope with loans. But only a small minority of today’s pensioners even had the chance to attend as young people.

My grandmother was a nurse. She didn't need a degree. Nurses now need a degree.
It's meaningless to compare % of degree holders without comparing % of jobs requiring degrees.

Yanbu. Boomers should have practiced what they love to preach, being financially responsible, and planned for their retirement better.

It's ridiculous that a generation who benefited from unprecedented growth and stability (while also laying waste to the planet) expect future generations, who will have none of the opportunities they've had, to fund their comfortable retirement to the detriment of society.

I'd say the bigger problem than pensioners are the people on universal credit who should either retrain to a better paid career or be forced to look for a job or move to a part of the country where there is more work for them.

Fundamentally the UK can't afford to be such a soft touch. You don't have a right to a job for life, if you won't retrain you miss out on better paid opportunities, if you won't move for a job why should the state pay to house you.

You might moan and say how heartless I am but in 20 years when the welfare state is even bigger and the choice is between paying people universal credit and pensioners starving you might question why lazyness and fecklessness have been subsidised for so long.

I wouldn't want to grow old in the UK.

The reason why teachers and nurses don't have payrises isn't pensioners it's 20 years of zero growth productivity in the UK and the massive expansion in the amount of working age people reliant on the state for some form of income support.

So who stopped you having kids in your 20s? I was all done with my 3 early…..so yes all off my hands early…..but didn’t have much in my 20s ….it’s all about choices….my DD is 28 ….she’s had her girls young …started at 21….by the time she’s 40 they will be largely off her hands….my youngest DS had his DD at 20 …..lots of people still have their babies young where I am

No-one, obviously, it's a choice. However, on average, first time mums are now 30/31. You and the people you know are all younger than the average. I don't know anyone who had their children in their 20's.

Where are all these 20 somethings going to live with their children?

But those retiring on the current pension rate won't get pension credit, will they?

No they don't. Flat rate pension is meant to exclude the need for PC, that's why it's at a higher rate.

I happen to agree with you about the link between jobs and degrees, @Kabalagala . I was merely responding to the idea that the current pensioner generation as a whole had it easy because they weren’t burdened with university loans. Only a few of them got a free university education.

So how many recent pensioners will be getting this mythical £2500 a month state pension/benefits then? And how?