by Summary:
I'm collecting here all the pieces I have written on the UK state pension and its problems. What a shambles. Here are my recent posts, in disaster order. WASPI As I explain in these posts, I would be supportive of WASPI if they were only concerned with addressing the blatant injustice of the 2011 acceleration of the pension age rise for women. But they aren't, and what they are actually after is seriously unfair to other groups. So I can't support them. And I don't like the way they and their supporters behave towards people who don't agree with them. But the 2011 change IS unfair. Kudos to Mhairi Black of the SNP for getting the 2011 acceleration debated in Parliament, and a very impressive result - 158 to ZERO in favour of rethinking it. The angry WASPIs Here I stand, I can do no other (Position paper on WASPI) Dylan Thomas and the Furies The new State Pension The new State Pension is an unutterably inadequate response to the pensions timebomb. It enshrines expectations that we already know to be unsustainable, and sets up intergenerational injustice on an unprecedented scale. Not only that, but Treasury penny-pinching makes it unfair to a good many older people, too. It is a disaster.
Topics:
Frances Coppola considers the following as important: basic income, benefits, pensions
This could be interesting, too:
I'm collecting here all the pieces I have written on the UK state pension and its problems. What a shambles. Here are my recent posts, in disaster order.I'm collecting here all the pieces I have written on the UK state pension and its problems. What a shambles. Here are my recent posts, in disaster order. WASPI As I explain in these posts, I would be supportive of WASPI if they were only concerned with addressing the blatant injustice of the 2011 acceleration of the pension age rise for women. But they aren't, and what they are actually after is seriously unfair to other groups. So I can't support them. And I don't like the way they and their supporters behave towards people who don't agree with them. But the 2011 change IS unfair. Kudos to Mhairi Black of the SNP for getting the 2011 acceleration debated in Parliament, and a very impressive result - 158 to ZERO in favour of rethinking it. The angry WASPIs Here I stand, I can do no other (Position paper on WASPI) Dylan Thomas and the Furies The new State Pension The new State Pension is an unutterably inadequate response to the pensions timebomb. It enshrines expectations that we already know to be unsustainable, and sets up intergenerational injustice on an unprecedented scale. Not only that, but Treasury penny-pinching makes it unfair to a good many older people, too. It is a disaster.
Topics:
Frances Coppola considers the following as important: basic income, benefits, pensions
This could be interesting, too:
Frances Coppola writes We need to talk about the state pension
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WASPI
As I explain in these posts, I would be supportive of WASPI if they were only concerned with addressing the blatant injustice of the 2011 acceleration of the pension age rise for women. But they aren't, and what they are actually after is seriously unfair to other groups. So I can't support them. And I don't like the way they and their supporters behave towards people who don't agree with them.
But the 2011 change IS unfair. Kudos to Mhairi Black of the SNP for getting the 2011 acceleration debated in Parliament, and a very impressive result - 158 to ZERO in favour of rethinking it.
Here I stand, I can do no other (Position paper on WASPI)
The new State Pension
The new State Pension is an unutterably inadequate response to the pensions timebomb. It enshrines expectations that we already know to be unsustainable, and sets up intergenerational injustice on an unprecedented scale. Not only that, but Treasury penny-pinching makes it unfair to a good many older people, too. It is a disaster.
Where do we go from here?
My Forbes post at New Year traced the history of the State Pension and explained how we got into our current mess. We are at a turning point. Something radical has to be done, and the new State Pension isn't it.
Unfortunately the Slog took exception to this piece on the grounds that it didn't support the WASPI argument for restoration of the state pension to 60 for all women born in the 1960s. Since the piece wasn't about WASPI his demolition of it was distinctly odd, but he didn't like me pointing this out. I've included this piece here because it makes the same point that I made in the WASPI position paper. The solution to these cliff edge and entitlement problems is a Universal Basic Income.
(I'm told the Slog has written another demolition piece. Frankly I can't be bothered to read it.)
In summary:
- the existing State Pension system is complex, irrational and not fit for purpose, and attempts to tinker with it over the last few years have only made matters worse.
- the new State Pension is set fair to be a foul-up on a similar scale to Universal Credit, and the fallout will last for decades.
Oh, and while I am on the subject of the disaster that is the benefits system - which Universal Credit will make worse - here is my post on the sheer hideousness of benefit sanctions. They deliberately hurt people. And they don't work anyway. This matters, because those people who don't qualify for pensions (including quite a lot who thought they did) have to claim benefits instead. We cannot reform the State Pension without also reforming the benefits system.
Can we please have a comprehensive review of the entire State Pension AND benefits system, with a view to replacing the whole lot with something that actually works?