Clive Walder, Birmingham Socialist Party
Smarting from their forced U-turn on cuts to disability benefits, Keir Starmer’s government are considering targeting another group of vulnerable people to plug their financial ‘black hole’ – pensioners. Pro-austerity politicians and think tanks have started the campaign that the state pension ‘triple lock’ is unaffordable. Currently the State Pension rises every year by CPI inflation, average earnings growth or 2.5%, whichever is highest.
The Financial Times had the cheek to claim that pensioners are the richest cohort in society. Former Tory cabinet minister Lord David Willetts claims that pensioner poverty is a thing of the past, despite 1.9 million pensioners living in poverty. Without the triple lock, pensioner poverty would be considerably higher.
The pro-capitalist Adam Smith Institute say that pensions will be unsustainable by 2036. But their cost is only predicted to rise from 5% of GDP now to 7.7% by the early 2070s! If providing a decent standard of living for people when they get older is considered unsustainable, what does that say about the system we live in?
Over one million households rely on pensions and associated benefits as their only source of income. These pensioners are at greatest risk as the annual pension increase doesn’t keep pace with the escalating cost of rent, food and energy prices – CPI inflation doesn’t factor in rising housing costs. A full state pension is a princely £921 every four weeks, which is hardly a living pension, and lower than nearly every other advanced capitalist country.
We need to fight against any attack and for pensions that can be lived on comfortably and tax free. A mass council house building programme would free millions of us from insecure tenancies and rip-off rents, including pensioners.
Starmer is willing to find money to massively increase defence spending by much more than the cost of the triple lock. We can provide everyone with a decent standard of living by using the wealth and resources in society to democratically plan what we need, not what is considered ‘affordable’ to the bosses who continue to get rich at our expense.
