Time To Break The Triple Lock On Pensions?

[jake-the-peg]

In 2010 the Government introduced the 'triple lock' on pensions

A guarantee to increase the state pension every year by the higher of inflation, average earnings or a minimum of 2.5%.

Pretty much all of us working to pay for these can only dream of such a deal as average earnings slip compared to inflation.

Not only that but today we learn that those of us born in the 60s and 70s will be poorer in retirement than our parents.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-25411181

Is it time to end the triple lock?

[youngmafbog]

Well it has to come, lets face it you and I will probably be means tested for a pension and unless we have fallen on hard times wont get a penny from the State.

The sums simply dont add up for anything else.

Plus we have to work longer.

But that wont stop the current bunch of OAP's from moaning.

[mushroom25]

well jake, it ill becomes those who think it's a marvellous idea to allow unfettered immigration so the incomers can be bound down to the slavery of minimum and sub-minimum wages, to complain that the side-effect of that is a reduction of the "average" and a consequent reduction in everyone's pension entitlement as a result.

[emmie]

like my mum you mean, who raised a family almost single handed, worked part time when we were children, was not able to put monies into a private pension scheme, because that was meant to feed and clothe us all and there was nothing left over for niceties.
If she moans occasionally its because it's not a lot to live off at the end of the day. She gets state help and i am sure she is grateful,

[youngmafbog]

OK, emmie there will always be exceptions. But I suspect you also know what I am getting at.

ie Some of us have paid in all our lives but are unlikely to get anything back, but constantly we hear the bleats (from well off pensioners) that they paid in so it is their right for all sorts of benefit.

[Boto]

2.5% on the basic state pension is only £2.75 pw.

[youngmafbog]

Boto, might not seem much individually, now multiply it by 12 million and see if that sounds expensive.

[emmie]

sorry but there are plenty of pensioners who don't have a lot of money, my mum is not the exception, you have to remember that during the war years people had trouble putting food on the table, still had families to feed, and the men were away at war, so those pensioners many of whom would be in mid 80s 90's did their bit. There was little or no private pension schemes, unless you worked for the government perhaps or maybe the unions, but as i said the men were away and women had to make do and mend, no time to fritter away dosh on their pensions.
the children of those old folk are now pensioners, 60's and over, from some experience many worked, men and women, so did they put in to private schemes, or were they available then, say in the 1950's, also
those who worked, contributed to their later state pension, no?
so wouldn't they be entitled to get help when they retired

[emmie]

i personally don't know any well off pensioners, not one,
one friend of my mothers gets no state help at all, her husband had the misfortune to pass away and so she has his pension, or part thereof, so has to pay everything out of that.

[emmie]

and many can say goodbye to inheriting if their parents were planning to leave them their property, a home, if that money is used to pay for their care home if needed.

[Graham-W]

The demise of the "Final Salary" pensions in the late 90s/ early 00s made the potential pensions of those born in the 60s/70s very much lower.
If those effected want a decent retirement they must start putting extra money into pension schemes very early in their lives.
The difficulty is, most of these same people don't have the spare cash to be able to do this because of the savage increase in general household bills.

[New Judge]

The State pension scheme is quite sustainable for those who have made the necessary contributions. What is not sustainable is paying full "pensions" to those who have made little or no contribution.

What I should like to see is not a break to the triple lock (which is, after all, only three years old and things have not deteriorated so radically in that time) but a break between genuine pensions linked to contributions made and retirement age benefits which are simply a continuation of working age unemployment benefits.

[youngmafbog]

Emmie, people who did their bit were born before the 40's so are not in the equation of this discussion

The IFS analysed the economic circumstances of individuals born between the 1940s and the 1970s.

[emmie]

those people worked as i said already. until we hit the skids in the 70's...

[youngmafbog]

NJ, the ECHR would never allow that.

And more and more immigrants will be piling in (again mainly due to Europe) all not paying fully in meaning there will not be the money for all.

[Gromit]

I know a chap of 60 who lost his job this year. He has worked all his life and paid into the system and he gets £280 per month JobSeeker Allowance to live on. His father who is 82 gets £440 per month + several other allowances.

[emmie]

presumably the father worked, is that a state pension money, because quite frankly i would be surprised. not to mention that the rules on retirement age has changed because we can't afford to retire so early now, not enough money in the pot. So if he had been eligible for retirement, he would surely have got the same as his dad.

[Gromit]

Emmie,
The basic state pension is £110 per week. Jobseekers Allowance is £71 per week, out of which you have to pay some Council Tax.

[jno]

the time will come after I am dead. In the meantime, keep working, chaps, it will do you good.

[youngmafbog]

Will do jno, make sure you enjoy it for me :-)

[jake-the-peg]

There's lots of argument based on people who 'worked all their lives' as opposed to scroungers

The deserving and undeserving poor argument so beloved of the right wing press

Conveniently forgetting that most benefit claimants themselves actually work -through benefits we subsidise employers who don't pay a living wage, but that's another matter entirely.

Politically this is now difficult - pensioners are highly active voters and none of the partys are sticking their heads above the parapets to challenge this policy.

Seems to me the country is full of pensioners giving out about scroungers bleeding the country dry until you turn the attention to their benefits and their winter payments and free TV licenses and then it's all stories of 'I worked all my life down a pit gimme gimme gimme'.

I don't begrudge pensioners a living pension - but then I don't begrudge it of those who have to claim benefits to make ends meet either.