Pension, triple lock and inflation

Inaccurate information source MaggsMcG, women after 1955 were affected too.

I was born in 1957, and if I had been informed of the changes, would not have taken my Teacher's Pension early. As for 'keeping up with the news' I was a busy Lecturer with two small children, and my husband worked away during the week. My evenings were spent marking and doing prep once they'd gone to bed, not reading the papers or watching tv for DWP adverts.

The only women that have been shafted are those born between 1953 and 1955 everyone else knew that the pension age was increasing and if they didn't its no ones fault but their own for not keeping up with the news. My daughter was born in 1979 and she knew. If women want equal pay for equal work its only fair that they have to take the bad with the good. Also people are living a lot longer now so its not fair on the Tax Payers to be paying out Pensions for 25 to 30 years for everyone.

I don't need the money now I will admit. However if they keep eroding the pension payments lower than the cost of living, eventually I will be in the position of not having enough money to subsidise my life style and then it won't be long until I will need to claim Pension Credit (which probably wont even exist by then). So they should keep their promises and retain the triple lock, and reinstate this years because inflation is so much more than they even anticipated.

I was sent the usual letter in January telling me that my state pension increase this year would be £11 per month. When it actually came through in April it was actually £6. I decided to phone the DWP to query the underpayment but there’s an inclusion on their recorded message which says they are dealing with underpayments in due course.
Anyone else had this happen?

That money is being paid by the taxpayer btw.

Sunak promised to retain the triple lock at the last election.

Now he is spending £500000 to repair his image.

Why not just restore the triple lock?

Shandy Make sure you apply for your pension as soon as invited - four months before your birthday. I did so but it took ten months before I received it, six months after my 66 birthday. It wasn't a complicated claim. I was told it was sheer backlog of work. If Civil Service numbers are going to be cut further ...

My pension was backdated but still annoying seeing as we WASPIs have already been cheated out of six years pension and the things that go with it e.g. an bus pass (in England) and winter fuel allowance.

I've still got eleven long months to wait for my State Pension, I joined WASPI who are fighting for our cause.

Me too, promised a pension at 60 but it was not honoured.

I expect Johnson will find some 'technical' reason not to give the full triple lock entitlement to OAPs next year, never mind this year. Sunak is well out of touch.

No Government has been any different! I can remember being very upset as a child, now 77, when my DGM had to retire at 60 from a job she loved doing & received a quarter by pension than the amount she had been earning in a not very well paid job, being a woman! I was about 7 or 8 & my DM sat me down & tried to explain that this was the way the law of the land was! I was very angry for my DGM. Then my DM had the same when she reached retirement age! Guess what? Nothing had changed when I received my pension! As for Age UK & their talk of trying to help I am very disappointed in them recently! 3 times I have been asked to talk to Reporters about how I cannot manage! Only once did one of these people bother using anything I said! She was a very nice person from a paper in the US! The other two just wanted as sensational quotes as possible! Because I told them things I have to pay for that have to be cut back but that it would have to be done I did not even get the courtesy of a phone call telling me that my comments would not be used! Then the papers are full of whiny, whinging people who cannot manage on their benefits! Says it all really doesnt it? Pensioners should go sit in a corner & die to make room for all the younger people as we have had our day & are useless now, beyond consideration by any & all Governments over the years! Sorry for long winded rant but have no one else to talk to now who understands! Off to sit in my corner & laugh at all those who think they will never be old & in our position!

Our country has the lowest pension rate in the Europe. We women have been penalised by the Tories and made to work way longer than other countries . Several years ago the BBC did a programme about pensioners starving. Now we have a cost of living crisis and it’s not over yet. Given the pensioners who died before their time in COVID one does start to think this government want to solve their pension crisis by bumping off as many pensioners as they can. After all they won’t object loudly, will they?

My guess is the Government (Tories) will offer Pensioners some kind of 'bribe' as we approach the next General Election and they realise they need the 'Silver vote'. I, for one, will not forget the way they have treated the older generation over the last few years - the Triple lock, the 50s born women and the lack of protection the Care Homes and their residents got at the beginning of the Pandemic to name but a few!

I'm with DiamondLily et al.

I don't trust this government. They lie and mislead people for their own ends. I retired early to enable my son to work being left as a single parent for my grandchildren having saved enough to see me through to 60. Then goals posts continually moved until I could retire at 66.The savings were totally gone well before then. Now inflation is raging and the triple lock is gone. I don't honestly dare believe it will ever be restored. I am a happy individual but life is getting harder. Its becoming a fight to exist these days

Dinahmo

StarDreamer My point is that there are many people who are earning less than the PA so to increase it would be of no benefit to them.

Thank you for replying.

I suppose it needs a negative income tax band so that people earning less than the personal allowance get a take home pay greater than their gross pay, automatically, without needing to apply for a means-tested benefit. I think that it could be done by not raising the personal allowance as such so that people start paying tax at the personal allowance level as now but for those earning more than the personal allowance woud nevertheless pay less tax too.

Mhairi Black on WASPIs:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJrFWGrd_tw

Good speech from oor Mhairi ,she consistently hits the nail squarely on the head.Shame the "real" opposition aren't as accurate or honest .Fascism has been clearly staring us in the face for almost a decade and its now reached a stage where it may be very hard to change the steady march forward the tories are taking with it.
Surely there are politicians who can bring Boris and his vile policies to a halt ...soon ,before its too late .

StarDreamer My point is that there are many people who are earning less than the PA so to increase it would be of no benefit to them.

Mhairi Black: I fear we have been sleepwalking closer and closer to the F word

labourheartlands.com/mhairi-black-i-fear-we-have-been-sleepwalking-closer-and-closer-to-the-f-word/?fbclid=IwAR3hKN9IZn1zN4eEiTibfdC_TFhSQNTXL3mHYPZJ7805Rl_GRTUEJKTqxJs

OakDryad

Me too DiamondLily and Chewbacca. Worked from age 16, widowed young, did my financial planning based on getting state pension as 60 and bam - another six years and, as soon as I am eligible, the triple lock is suspended. Not good for blood pressure to calculate how many tens of thousands of pounds we have been shafted out of.

Equalise a system that dates back to when most women did not work outside the home and most men married women younger than than themselves. Fair enough. WASPIs had no argument with that. But recognise that we had a contract to receive our state pensions at 60 that the government reneged on.

Yes, I am more than peeved about it. I don't think I would have been any worse off not working, providing I'd also sorted out a private endowment pension.?

Me too DiamondLily and Chewbacca. Worked from age 16, widowed young, did my financial planning based on getting state pension as 60 and bam - another six years and, as soon as I am eligible, the triple lock is suspended. Not good for blood pressure to calculate how many tens of thousands of pounds we have been shafted out of.

Equalise a system that dates back to when most women did not work outside the home and most men married women younger than than themselves. Fair enough. WASPIs had no argument with that. But recognise that we had a contract to receive our state pensions at 60 that the government reneged on.

Chewbacca

^when I was 16, I was promised a full pension at 60, if I worked and paid full NI, which I did.^
Then, the goalposts moved and I had to wait an extra 6 years. ?
When I finally got it, I was promised the triple lock, and then that stopped this year.
Two promises broken.

Exactly the same for me too Diamond, I'm feeling like I've been well and truly shafted.

Yes, I'm beginning to feel a victim lol ...?.

I may as well have not bothered to work during the "children" years.?

Whitwavemark2 wrote The treasury are saying that it is technically too difficult.

I can well believe that in the days long ago when everything was done by hand that measuring inflation in September one year and that figure being used to increase pensions the next April was probably reasonable.

As there are now very fast and powerful computers I wonder if, if there were a political will to do it, it would be possible for each month the monthly inflation figure be computed and the pensions increased from the start of the next month, so that if inflation was above 0% then pensions would increase but if inflation were below 0% the pension rate would remain unchanged, so not go down, but that the negative inflation would be carried forward until offset by a future monthly inflation figure or future monthly inflation figures.

That would be good as inflation would be reflected promptly in raised pensions.

DiamondLily

rosie1959

If they are going to introduce a windfall tax then it should be targeted to those most in need giving them a decent size boost to rising costs bearing in mind that all people in receipt of state pension are not hard up

No, but when I was 16, I was promised a full pension at 60, if I worked and paid full NI, which I did.

Then, the goalposts moved and I had to wait an extra 6 years.?

When I finally got it, I was promised the triple lock, and then that stopped this year.

Two promises broken.

I might not be particularly hard up, because DH and I paid in for good private pensions, but I would like the government to stick to the odd promise they made me over the years.?

I also will not get my pension until I am 67 but I feel this is a different matter any windfall tax needs to be spent on those who really need it. For us fuel bills and the increase in food costs are a pain but we will not suffer I don’t have to choose wether to heat my home or feed the family. Spread any windfall amount too much will result in those in greatest need getting less