To think we can't afford the triple lock

[paddleboardingmum]

Things seem very weighted against young people right now in terms of tax, student loans, and then there's the cost of mortgages and childcare. I know there are some older people struggling and I do feel sorry for them. But plenty are not and I think we just can't afford the triple lock at the moment. AIBU

I do I am looking after MYSELF

Huge numbers of jobs/careers that weren't previously "graduate" jobs now are. That means huge numbers of youngers do NEED to go to university. Unless we force employers, such as the police, NHS, social services, as well as private businesses, to scrap their graduate only recruitment processes. It's not been youngsters who wanted to spend 3 years at Uni, get into £50k of debt - it was a decision driven by politicians (particularly the idiot Blair) and employers, including most public sector employers.

Who do you think will wipe your arse in a care home if people don't have children? We're already facing a demographic timebomb of falling birth rates, older people being a larger proportion of the population, etc. We have a shortage of workers, so society NEEDS people to have children.

Things ARE weighted against young people. Particularly housing costs, childcare costs, etc that are way out of proportion to wages compared to 2/3/4 decades ago when they were proportionally far cheaper.

So 3 pages in and no one has said what the actual cost is for the whole country? What would it deliver if removed?

Keep triple lock for now
Freeze pension credit

I wonder what the crossover is of pensioners who think “you had kids you pay for them” who also didn’t make any provisions for their retirement?

It should be changed to a double lock to reduce costs.

If we rejoined the EU and GDP growth picked up, the triple lock would raise pensions even quicker.

It might be worth joining the EU for other reasons. Economic growth makes everything other than the triple lock more affordable, but crucially, it doesn't actually help with the triple lock.

There are a total of 13 million pensioners. The average income per pensioner is £24,000, so basically very similar to national minimum wage for full time workers.

The small proportion of pensioners in poverty are protected to a degree by pension credit, rent and council tax reliefs, etc.

What we need to do is means test the state pension at a relatively high level in the first instance, maybe £50k h/r tax threshold or £60k threshold (similar to the child benefit means testing), so we continue to protect the poorest, but stop paying benefits to people who don't "need" them, i.e. those with above average incomes.

Yes and No.
If a person is dependent on the state pension of approximately £12,000, the impact on them of, say, a 5% price increase, is proportionately greater than it is on a person earning minimum wage of approximately £28,000.

For those with very low pension oncome, particularly those who have a little more but remain ineligible for pension credits, I think it should remain, for people whose combined state pension and occupational pensions take them to and beyond minimum wage thresholds probably not. But then there is the cost of applying a means tested benefit.

For those who argue against benefits and think it's an easy gravy train I would urge yiu to think again. My mother, aged 90, with significant health issues now has attendance allowance and a blue badge. Both applications were complex to make and I question how those not used to completing complex paperwork and providing significant evidence cope. Also the experience of a dear friend who has a very disabled grown up son, in sheltered accommodation, with on-site carers. She, a professional woman, had to take three days off work and attend a course run by a charity to resubmit the application for PIP. Claiming is not as easy as most people think it is.

Yeah, because pensioners are not doing anything. They are just... demanding that the already squeezed young ones pay for their life style with often bigger disposable income than many young families have.

We do need to cut non-pension benefits as well, and expecting a higher level of personal responsibility around money and health would be a good start.

Another the young have it so hard thread as opposed to the old who had it easy. Can this please stop? This division. Every generation has problems. Just different ones.

I do wonder if some of these posts are dished out by politicos. Road testing a policy line. If you are please remember mumsnet does not speak for the whole population. It voices opinions of a few who join it, and then post.
Not the majority.

But. Go to an airport. I have just come back from one. See the cars there. See how many younger people are driving them. Big cars and lots of them. Around where I live the people who live in the fancy four bed detached with double garages are young. Not over 50 should I say. Not old people.

But it always was. When I worked in the city you saw young people driving very flash cars aged about 20. I was earning a pittance.

Not every young person is well off. Nor is every old person.

Huge numbers of jobs/careers that weren't previously "graduate" jobs now are. That means huge numbers of youngers do NEED to go to university.

I so agree with this. I'm a boomer, and I had friends who qualified as civil engineers, accountants, solicitors, surveyors etc without going to uni. You could train to be a nurse and get paid while you were doing it. You could train to be a teacher with 5 O-levels and get a grant to live on while training.

It was a big factor in social mobility, as bright kids from working class backgrounds could move into professional jobs with relative ease.

Soo... are you saying that funding previous generations' benefits should be higher priority than one's own education and having one's own family? Surely not?

If more people took responsibility for working, this issue would be solved.

Badbunny for PM.

Unfortunately the pensioners would probably vote you out in short order.

Plus why do they not have to pay tax on universal credit no matter how much they get?

I get the state pension plus a little extra because I did not opt out of SERPS. I get nothing else but because it totals a little more than the tax allowance ( a massive £2,367!) I have to pay tax.

Huge numbers of jobs/careers that weren't previously "graduate" jobs now are.

They wouldn’t be if the supply of graduates dried up.

This exactly

Politicians of all parties have been raiding the UK bank account and distributing BILLIONS of taxpayers funds to their pet causes.
Add on the BILLIONS for economic migrants who haven’t paid a penny into the system..
British pensioners have paid into the system for 40 or 50 years of work.
British women have had to wait an extra seven years to access their state pension.
Once you’ve reached retirement age, your employment prospects sink, that is iF you are even well enough to keep working.
So, you’re trapped on a fixed income being robbed blind by profiteering utility companies, supermarkets and the rest.

Successive governments are trying to divide the population- pensioners are an easy target. Young people should realise the same fate awaits them and focus on holding the government to account for its appalling lack
of fiscal responsibility.

Not all pensioners get a full pension. Just to make that clear. Many public sector workers get a reduced state pension. Many who have not worked 35 years do not.
I only saw you needed 35 years of contributions after leaving work having done 30 that for decades was the required amount. And not all full time. So I don’t get a full pension.
Please do not assume everyone gets a full pension. They don’t.

A pension is not a benefit in the way that a ‘benefit’ is usually termed and understood.
You paid in, you get out is how it was sold. And yes I know technically no. But that is how people understand it. You can even buy more years. And look up your forecast. It belongs to you. That was always the ‘deal’.

And pensions were invented because without them what happens ? People working until they die. People starving. People unable to heat their homes. Really, think about it for a moment. There was a time when no pension existed. And society became ashamed. Not everyone can ‘save’. Not everyone has a job that pays enough to save.

Keeping a pension is a decent thing in society. Keeping a pension that keeps its value with inflation is a decent thing to do.

Do not tell me, when there is suddenly millions of pounds of money for all manner of things needed in an emergency ( Covid clothing etc), there is not money for pensioners. There is.

I’m a pensioner and agree it’s time for the triple lock to go.

The triple lock has done its work; it was bought in to bring pensions up after years of decline and that’s been achieved. We do have modest private pensions as well as our state pensions, but that’s the norm nowadays.

(In fact all those concessions for OAPs should probably be knocked on the head too - i really don’t need a discount at the cinema).

In the past couple of years I’ve given my state pension increase and my winter fuel allowance (which REALLY REALLY needs to go, they should have held their ground on that one) to my adult kids. They need it far more than I do.

It would become like the NHS which is now totally reliant on immigrants via recruitment drives in other countries. Despite shortages, no sign of the NHS changing their minimum entry requirements!

Agree. The German economy especially is really in the doldrums.

No one is arguing get rid of pensions.

Just the amount at which they are currently increasing is unaffordable.

I doubt having a private pension is the norm for many. Many will not have a private pension at all.
The pension at work as compulsory only came about in 2018. For many years people worked without a pension at all.

Totally reliant on immigrants, whilst at the same time there are too few vacancies for doctors and nurses who studied here. Not only is it unfair on UK graduates, it also takes medical talent away from other countries. Madness.