The state pension is expected to top \u00a313,000 next April, reigniting the debate about its long-term affordability and generational fairness.<\/p>\n
It is expected to rise by \u00a3488 to \u00a313,036.40 a year, based on the latest official earnings figure released on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
The so-called triple lock pension policy guarantees that annual payments will increase by either average wage growth, inflation or 2.5% – whichever is highest.<\/p>\n
Labour made a manifesto pledge to keep the triple lock, however economists have warned about the cost of the policy and it will mean tough spending choices in next month’s Budget.<\/p>\n
The policy is “crazy,” Ruth Curtice, the chief executive of the Resolution Foundation think tank, told the BBC.<\/p>\n
The triple lock is creating a “ratchet effect” where “pensioners’ living standards grow even faster than just a typical worker,” she added.<\/p>\n
The policy was introduced under the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government. <\/p>\n
Curtice told the BBC’s Today programme: “It’s not affordable in any situation to simply have pensions rising faster than earnings because earnings are a big part of the tax base. <\/p>\n
“Pensioners have seen living standards grow three times more than typical workers over the last 20 years.”<\/p>\n
Average wage growth, including bonuses, eased to 3.9% between May and July, according to the Office for National Statistics. However, it remains above inflation at 2.9%. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The state pension is expected to top \u00a313,000 next April, reigniting the debate about its long-term affordability and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":771261,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[84,4176,4174,4175,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-771260","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-personal-finance","tag-business","tag-finance","tag-personal-finance","tag-personalfinance","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/771260","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=771260"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/771260\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/771261"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=771260"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=771260"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=771260"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}