| If we're looking to cut the ballooning welfare bill 07:42 - Mar 27 with 3092 views | NeedhamChris |
Shouldn't ending the triple lock be up for discussion?
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| If we're looking to cut the ballooning welfare bill on 07:56 - Mar 27 with 2050 views | bsw72 |
I reckon it is being discussed, after all Labour never explicitly committed to retaining it, and a pensions review has been talked about. Remember they appointed Torsten Bell as the UK’s pensions minister with his prior advocacy for replacing the triple lock with a “smoothed earnings link” that adjusts according to economic conditions. |  | | |
| If we're looking to cut the ballooning welfare bill on 08:00 - Mar 27 with 2042 views | Crawfordsboot |
| If we're looking to cut the ballooning welfare bill on 07:56 - Mar 27 by bsw72 |
I reckon it is being discussed, after all Labour never explicitly committed to retaining it, and a pensions review has been talked about. Remember they appointed Torsten Bell as the UK’s pensions minister with his prior advocacy for replacing the triple lock with a “smoothed earnings link” that adjusts according to economic conditions. |
Yes - I think it should but I suspect that the strength in numbers of the pensioner vote make it unlikely. |  | | |
| If we're looking to cut the ballooning welfare bill on 08:01 - Mar 27 with 2038 views | thebooks |
Nope. Taxing vast wealth and profits, yes.
“Ballooning” is great journalese. |  | | |
| If we're looking to cut the ballooning welfare bill on 08:09 - Mar 27 with 1991 views | Herbivore |
They won't go after pensioners again, not yet anyway. Nearly 20% of the population is retired and they are a demographic that tends to vote so you don't want to piss them off too much.
At some point though someone needs to be brave enough to have a grown up conversation about things like the ageing population in the UK. We have an increasingly large percentage of our population that is past retirement age and no longer in work, and that demographic is also much more likely to use the NHS and to require support from social care. It's not just the pension bill (which is huge) it's the impact on other services. We've got good at keeping people existing for longer but that comes at a cost. Our economic system - based on constant economic growth - can't really cope with this and it's one of the main reasons legal immigration has gone through the roof, we need working age people to keep the economy flat lining let alone growing.
I'm not sure how you resolve the problem. I don't really want to see retired folks living in poverty and I don't really want us to stop treating or caring for them and just letting them die either. But to fund the kind of lives we want older people to have we either need mass migration or we need a very different economic system that doesn't prioritise growth and capital over everything else. Sadly, there's very little appetite for either of those things. |  |
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| If we're looking to cut the ballooning welfare bill on 08:15 - Mar 27 with 1968 views | bournemouthblue |
Ditching the triple lock would be political suicide, I'm not sure how popular Labour already are with the winter fuel payments, the farmers, the private school stuff, national insurance and now the welfare cuts
I know the Tories handed them a hospital pass and there's a reason Rishi called the election when he did but it doesn't seem to be going overly well at the moment, not that it necessarily go well for a while
Thatcher of course had a war and saved herself, rejoining the EU will resurface as an idea at some stage (not necessarily under Labour). [Post edited 27 Mar 8:15]
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| If we're looking to cut the ballooning welfare bill on 08:32 - Mar 27 with 1873 views | Churchman |
Attached is a briefing on pension provision. It’s a bit long but looks at provision a wider context, which is the right way to approach it.
https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN00290/SN00290.pdf
However, relating to your question directly and looking at state pension alone, the U.K. spends less on provision as a % of GDP than nearly all peer countries.
End triple lock? If they do, it would hurt those who need it most. If you get the max state pension it’s about £11,500 pa and if that’s your only income, you won’t be frequenting your local curry house too often.
And this is the point. Unlike rich people, pensioners, particularly those who don’t have other income sources, put every single penny back in the economy which means income for the hard working taxpayer.
So how about means testing? Well that just penalises those who have put money aside for their retirement. How can it be fair that I pay into something for decades and get nothing back?
To the point, on balance I’d keep triple lock but as I’ve said in other threads, I’d make everyone beyond a certain income pay NI after retirement. Either that or scrap NI altogether and pay one rate of income tax, which no govt will do because if the people saw the horrific amount of tax they pay, the govt would get booted out.
I’d also go after those that don’t pay - rich people and some self employed, big corporations and serious criminals who steal £billions every year from the people of this country. |  | | |
| If we're looking to cut the ballooning welfare bill on 08:38 - Mar 27 with 1861 views | bluelagos |
| If we're looking to cut the ballooning welfare bill on 08:01 - Mar 27 by thebooks |
Nope. Taxing vast wealth and profits, yes.
“Ballooning” is great journalese. |
Not at all.
Each year the number of OAPs increases significantly and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. (The baby boom of the 60s is now approaching pensionable age)
We are also living longer due to medical advances.
And the triple lock means the pension goes up ahead of inflation if inflation drops below 2.5% or wages are ahead of inflation.
It really is an unsustainable model going forwards - but politically it is a hot potato. Is why successive politicians bottle out of proper pension reform and instead target those on other benefits when looking to keep national spend under control. |  |
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| If we're looking to cut the ballooning welfare bill on 08:41 - Mar 27 with 1858 views | BudapestByBlimp |
| If we're looking to cut the ballooning welfare bill on 08:09 - Mar 27 by Herbivore |
They won't go after pensioners again, not yet anyway. Nearly 20% of the population is retired and they are a demographic that tends to vote so you don't want to piss them off too much.
At some point though someone needs to be brave enough to have a grown up conversation about things like the ageing population in the UK. We have an increasingly large percentage of our population that is past retirement age and no longer in work, and that demographic is also much more likely to use the NHS and to require support from social care. It's not just the pension bill (which is huge) it's the impact on other services. We've got good at keeping people existing for longer but that comes at a cost. Our economic system - based on constant economic growth - can't really cope with this and it's one of the main reasons legal immigration has gone through the roof, we need working age people to keep the economy flat lining let alone growing.
I'm not sure how you resolve the problem. I don't really want to see retired folks living in poverty and I don't really want us to stop treating or caring for them and just letting them die either. But to fund the kind of lives we want older people to have we either need mass migration or we need a very different economic system that doesn't prioritise growth and capital over everything else. Sadly, there's very little appetite for either of those things. |
I agree with many of your points and that we need to have a sensible discussion about an aging population but I do take exception that people see pensioners as being "out of work". Certainly, for many that will be the case, but just in the last week I've seen pensioners running libraries, helping at museums, being involved in work at 2 local nature reserves and helping at a hospital. I know many of them are paying Income Tax due to having private and state pensions.
There is a hidden, older population - "not working" but contributing to our public services and society in general that needs to be included in that discussion. |  | | |
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| If we're looking to cut the ballooning welfare bill on 08:53 - Mar 27 with 1827 views | bluejacko |
You could also put all pensioners on the same pension,as it stands my wife and me get the ‘new’ pension and a small army one,that puts us in the tax bracket and also obviously not able to claim any benefits,
Whoever’s. On the ‘old’ pension gets pension credit which brings them up to £3 below the new rate!
On top of that they are eligible for all sorts of help with their costs,free eye tests,help with council tax etc,so in reality they really are better off!
Now put everyone on the same rate up it a bit and work out the costs saved by cutting all the admin etc required to sort this mess out!
As for the triple lock don’t make me laugh the money I would receive from that has already gone in the extra living costs! | | | |
| If we're looking to cut the ballooning welfare bill on 09:19 - Mar 27 with 1783 views | OldFart71 |
This old chestnut about pensions is frankly p*ssing me off. Regardless of what these morons who run the Country, whether Tories or Labour say the State Pension is not a benefit. What other benefit does the recipient have to pay in to for 35 years. No maybe the amount paid in isn't equal to the amount paid out. Whose fault is that ? certainly not mine or any other pensioner. At one time pensions in this Country were regarded as the best in the world. Not because of the State Pension, but because of Final Salary pensions paid into by employers and employees. Good old Gordon Brown came along and decided to tax share dividends and thus started the death of FSPS. Successive Governments have had census and Births and Deaths for many years to calculate how many pensioners would come into the system in any given decade and could and should have made provision for that. At a time when MP's have just hit over the £90,000 a year mark and if the Triple lock remains,pensioners will be paying tax on their pension if it goes above the £12,570 that is not right. A pensioner isn't even getting the minimum wage and their outgoings are many of the things that have become the most expensive such as food and energy. | | | |
| If we're looking to cut the ballooning welfare bill on 09:24 - Mar 27 with 1768 views | giant_stow |
| If we're looking to cut the ballooning welfare bill on 08:38 - Mar 27 by bluelagos |
Not at all.
Each year the number of OAPs increases significantly and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. (The baby boom of the 60s is now approaching pensionable age)
We are also living longer due to medical advances.
And the triple lock means the pension goes up ahead of inflation if inflation drops below 2.5% or wages are ahead of inflation.
It really is an unsustainable model going forwards - but politically it is a hot potato. Is why successive politicians bottle out of proper pension reform and instead target those on other benefits when looking to keep national spend under control. |
There's also a huge issue in Inter-generational fairness to consider. Young people are getting absolutely hammered in so many ways. Yet most will never know the lifestyles older people have enjoyed, but will have to cope with ever increasing taxes to pay for the pensions of those same older people. |  |
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| If we're looking to cut the ballooning welfare bill on 09:26 - Mar 27 with 1762 views | giant_stow |
| If we're looking to cut the ballooning welfare bill on 08:41 - Mar 27 by BudapestByBlimp |
I agree with many of your points and that we need to have a sensible discussion about an aging population but I do take exception that people see pensioners as being "out of work". Certainly, for many that will be the case, but just in the last week I've seen pensioners running libraries, helping at museums, being involved in work at 2 local nature reserves and helping at a hospital. I know many of them are paying Income Tax due to having private and state pensions.
There is a hidden, older population - "not working" but contributing to our public services and society in general that needs to be included in that discussion. |
My mum is now 86 and still works hard - even when she's not earning, she's volunteering, but we are talking in generalities.
Edit: i should add that shes lucky that her work ins't physical. She's also earnt respect in her world and is now approaching semi-guru status, so in some ways its easy for her to work as she loves it and the demand is still there, so she's not common example, but you're right - such people are out there.
[Post edited 27 Mar 9:29]
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| If we're looking to cut the ballooning welfare bill on 09:38 - Mar 27 with 1720 views | Herbivore |
| If we're looking to cut the ballooning welfare bill on 08:41 - Mar 27 by BudapestByBlimp |
I agree with many of your points and that we need to have a sensible discussion about an aging population but I do take exception that people see pensioners as being "out of work". Certainly, for many that will be the case, but just in the last week I've seen pensioners running libraries, helping at museums, being involved in work at 2 local nature reserves and helping at a hospital. I know many of them are paying Income Tax due to having private and state pensions.
There is a hidden, older population - "not working" but contributing to our public services and society in general that needs to be included in that discussion. |
I don't disagree but in our current political and economic system they are seen as not working because we don't value things like volunteering despite the huge social benefits they have. Under a different system, that type of work would be highly valued and encouraged and I'd love to see that, personally. | |
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| If we're looking to cut the ballooning welfare bill on 09:43 - Mar 27 with 1697 views | Herbivore |
| If we're looking to cut the ballooning welfare bill on 09:19 - Mar 27 by OldFart71 |
This old chestnut about pensions is frankly p*ssing me off. Regardless of what these morons who run the Country, whether Tories or Labour say the State Pension is not a benefit. What other benefit does the recipient have to pay in to for 35 years. No maybe the amount paid in isn't equal to the amount paid out. Whose fault is that ? certainly not mine or any other pensioner. At one time pensions in this Country were regarded as the best in the world. Not because of the State Pension, but because of Final Salary pensions paid into by employers and employees. Good old Gordon Brown came along and decided to tax share dividends and thus started the death of FSPS. Successive Governments have had census and Births and Deaths for many years to calculate how many pensioners would come into the system in any given decade and could and should have made provision for that. At a time when MP's have just hit over the £90,000 a year mark and if the Triple lock remains,pensioners will be paying tax on their pension if it goes above the £12,570 that is not right. A pensioner isn't even getting the minimum wage and their outgoings are many of the things that have become the most expensive such as food and energy. |
Your taxes and my taxes aren't going into our own pension fund. I take the point that if you've contributed to society and paid into the pot then you should be looked after when you're of an age where you're no longer in paid employment but your pension is being paid for by the current tax take, mainly from working people, much as your taxes paid for the pensions of older people when you were working | |
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| If we're looking to cut the ballooning welfare bill on 09:45 - Mar 27 with 1668 views | thebooks |
| If we're looking to cut the ballooning welfare bill on 09:24 - Mar 27 by giant_stow |
There's also a huge issue in Inter-generational fairness to consider. Young people are getting absolutely hammered in so many ways. Yet most will never know the lifestyles older people have enjoyed, but will have to cope with ever increasing taxes to pay for the pensions of those same older people. |
And they’ll never know them if pensions are lowered. Young people do eventually become old people. | | | |
| If we're looking to cut the ballooning welfare bill on 09:47 - Mar 27 with 1651 views | J2BLUE |
| If we're looking to cut the ballooning welfare bill on 09:19 - Mar 27 by OldFart71 |
This old chestnut about pensions is frankly p*ssing me off. Regardless of what these morons who run the Country, whether Tories or Labour say the State Pension is not a benefit. What other benefit does the recipient have to pay in to for 35 years. No maybe the amount paid in isn't equal to the amount paid out. Whose fault is that ? certainly not mine or any other pensioner. At one time pensions in this Country were regarded as the best in the world. Not because of the State Pension, but because of Final Salary pensions paid into by employers and employees. Good old Gordon Brown came along and decided to tax share dividends and thus started the death of FSPS. Successive Governments have had census and Births and Deaths for many years to calculate how many pensioners would come into the system in any given decade and could and should have made provision for that. At a time when MP's have just hit over the £90,000 a year mark and if the Triple lock remains,pensioners will be paying tax on their pension if it goes above the £12,570 that is not right. A pensioner isn't even getting the minimum wage and their outgoings are many of the things that have become the most expensive such as food and energy. |
You were annoyed minimum wage went up by more than inflation. Surely pensions going up with inflation would be acceptable? Why does it need a triple lock?
Some of the savings could go in a national wealth fund to help pay future pensions.
This government is getting a lot of sh1t but the last one cut NI just to spite Labour. That should be immediately reversed. |  |
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| If we're looking to cut the ballooning welfare bill on 09:49 - Mar 27 with 1631 views | thebooks |
| If we're looking to cut the ballooning welfare bill on 08:38 - Mar 27 by bluelagos |
Not at all.
Each year the number of OAPs increases significantly and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. (The baby boom of the 60s is now approaching pensionable age)
We are also living longer due to medical advances.
And the triple lock means the pension goes up ahead of inflation if inflation drops below 2.5% or wages are ahead of inflation.
It really is an unsustainable model going forwards - but politically it is a hot potato. Is why successive politicians bottle out of proper pension reform and instead target those on other benefits when looking to keep national spend under control. |
I don’t know. I guess it is unsustainable in a low tax, wealth and corporate-profit first economy.
It should be good news that life spans are increasing. Any civilised society should be able organise itself to cope with that without immiserating other people. | | | |
| If we're looking to cut the ballooning welfare bill on 10:35 - Mar 27 with 1546 views | sotd78 |
Changing the state pension age increasingly to older age qualification is in a way dealing with the issue.
We will be more likely to take the retirement age steadily towards 70 before we drop the triple lock - whoever drops that as a political party might as well commit suicide. |  |
| Blue shirts/white shorts - sotd78 |
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| If we're looking to cut the ballooning welfare bill on 11:03 - Mar 27 with 1488 views | J2BLUE |
| If we're looking to cut the ballooning welfare bill on 10:35 - Mar 27 by sotd78 |
Changing the state pension age increasingly to older age qualification is in a way dealing with the issue.
We will be more likely to take the retirement age steadily towards 70 before we drop the triple lock - whoever drops that as a political party might as well commit suicide. |
One way to do it would be to scrap pensions. That might sound insane but in a future with UBI it could happen. UBI seems a long way off at the moment but if AI takes off the world could look very different in 5-10 years. | |
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| If we're looking to cut the ballooning welfare bill on 12:01 - Mar 27 with 1384 views | NeedhamChris |
| If we're looking to cut the ballooning welfare bill on 08:09 - Mar 27 by Herbivore |
They won't go after pensioners again, not yet anyway. Nearly 20% of the population is retired and they are a demographic that tends to vote so you don't want to piss them off too much.
At some point though someone needs to be brave enough to have a grown up conversation about things like the ageing population in the UK. We have an increasingly large percentage of our population that is past retirement age and no longer in work, and that demographic is also much more likely to use the NHS and to require support from social care. It's not just the pension bill (which is huge) it's the impact on other services. We've got good at keeping people existing for longer but that comes at a cost. Our economic system - based on constant economic growth - can't really cope with this and it's one of the main reasons legal immigration has gone through the roof, we need working age people to keep the economy flat lining let alone growing.
I'm not sure how you resolve the problem. I don't really want to see retired folks living in poverty and I don't really want us to stop treating or caring for them and just letting them die either. But to fund the kind of lives we want older people to have we either need mass migration or we need a very different economic system that doesn't prioritise growth and capital over everything else. Sadly, there's very little appetite for either of those things. |
Not sure there's a single thing here I disagree with. I agree it's not politically palatable to go there yet - it's just another one of those political footballs that gets kicked further and further down the road because the ideal fix is systemic change and that doesn't fit within our 5 year political cycles.
The other aspect that's linked to this is that the economic situation and difficulties getting on the housing ladder etc, have all contributed to a shrinking number of children being born. So we're expanding the old age dependency at one end whilst having a less than optimal number of people being born that will need to sustain that older population. It's a ticking time bomb, and will only result in greater strain on a shrinking working age population (proportionally anyway), until ultimately there's a serious re-think.
This problem isn't going away though - and extending the retirement age will help - but again it'll disproportionately benefit the retired people of today vs those of the next generations. | |
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| If we're looking to cut the ballooning welfare bill on 12:11 - Mar 27 with 1326 views | DJR |
As someone due to receive their State pension in November, I think this is a debate we should be having especially given the following.
Overall spending on working-age adult benefits, at about 5% of UK GDP, has changed little in two decades, according to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. The UK spends more on incapacity and disability benefits than it did before, but this is offset by reductions in spending on other working-age benefits.
Over the same period, benefit spending on pensioners rose from 5.3% to 6% of GDP, an increase yet to attract the same political attention.
But any changes must be fair, something the withdrawal of winter fuel payments was not because it affected people above the pension credit limit who were not well off. [Post edited 27 Mar 12:12]
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| If we're looking to cut the ballooning welfare bill on 12:56 - Mar 27 with 1235 views | bluejacko |
| If we're looking to cut the ballooning welfare bill on 09:47 - Mar 27 by J2BLUE |
You were annoyed minimum wage went up by more than inflation. Surely pensions going up with inflation would be acceptable? Why does it need a triple lock?
Some of the savings could go in a national wealth fund to help pay future pensions.
This government is getting a lot of sh1t but the last one cut NI just to spite Labour. That should be immediately reversed. |
You do realise that the pension is way below the minimum wage dont you? | | | |
| If we're looking to cut the ballooning welfare bill on 13:09 - Mar 27 with 1219 views | OldFart71 |
| If we're looking to cut the ballooning welfare bill on 09:43 - Mar 27 by Herbivore |
Your taxes and my taxes aren't going into our own pension fund. I take the point that if you've contributed to society and paid into the pot then you should be looked after when you're of an age where you're no longer in paid employment but your pension is being paid for by the current tax take, mainly from working people, much as your taxes paid for the pensions of older people when you were working |
Agree with what you say but I didn't hear a whisper about pensions when I worked and I am still paying tax therefore contributing in a roundabout way to my own pension which given that my State Pension was paid from 2015 means I am on a lower SP than someone now retiring. | | | |
| If we're looking to cut the ballooning welfare bill on 13:11 - Mar 27 with 1217 views | SuperKieranMcKenna |
I don’t think people should be punished simply for getting old and not dying. That government actuaries got their sums wrong in terms of life expectancy and the number of people living to old isn’t the peoples fault. The state pension doesn’t look sustainable though, and the fact we are adding a million people to population yet are still having these conversation, shows the model is broken. Record population growth will of course need even more people to pay the pensions of those people as they grow old.
As a millennial I don’t expect to receive a state pension, and if I do it will be a miserly amount. The most sensible way out of this in my opinion is to shift pensions provision to employers (we’ve already started down this route). It should be part of any employment package, and in theory the self employed should be making provisions too. Since this will shift the burden from state to private sector, and increase operational costs for firms, the govt could offer some kind of NI rebate to compensate (at least in the short term). | | | |
| If we're looking to cut the ballooning welfare bill on 13:14 - Mar 27 with 1212 views | Herbivore |
| If we're looking to cut the ballooning welfare bill on 13:09 - Mar 27 by OldFart71 |
Agree with what you say but I didn't hear a whisper about pensions when I worked and I am still paying tax therefore contributing in a roundabout way to my own pension which given that my State Pension was paid from 2015 means I am on a lower SP than someone now retiring. |
You probably heard less about pensions when you were working because we had a much smaller proportion of the country who were retired as people didn't live as long and we didn't have the baby boomer generation all reaching retirement age. We also didn't have public finances and services like the NHS and social care being in such a dreadful state either. We've had 15 years of austerity or austerity lite now and for most of that time, pensioners have been less affected than working people. I don't want pensioners to suffer but we're at a point where there's not much left to cut and if we're not going to have a fairly radical rethink about how our society is structured and what we value, then it's inevitable that pensioners might start to bear some of the brunt unfortunately. | |
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