Quote:
Originally Posted by Ignitionnet
You're actually entirely accurate there. Since 2012-13 welfare outside of that being paid to pensioners has dropped while the pensioner welfare bill continues to rise.
It'll also only get worse if wage growth remains weak, as pensions are guaranteed to rise by at least 2.5% even if inflation and wage growth run below that level.
Ignore Kursk; he appears to live in a different reality. A selfish, misanthropic one at that.
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I got no idea if ignition agrees with me on what should be done with working age benefits, but I 100% agree with ignition that there needs to be something done about the special treatment to pensioners, pensions make a huge chunk of the DWP budget, and yet we have a government claiming much smaller budgets the country cannot afford.
My view is that pensioners should get the same treatment as working age sickness benefits, so increases and decreases are linked, and things like heating allowance, free tv licenses scrapped. Also they should be subject to the same housing changes, so bedroom tax and council tax support changes.
The entire benefit system is geared around giving a level of support depending on your age. e.g. the single room rate for housing benefit threshold was pushed to 35 years of age from 25, and I expect in 10 years it will be pushed again to 45 and 10 years later then 55 and so on. The cuts are been aimed at certain age groups, and of course this applies to pensions as well, as those currently funding the current pensioners will not get the same treatment when they retire.