JOE BESWICK of the London Renters Union talks to the Morning Star’s new Left on Record programme
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State pensions: a diminishing ‘benefit’ under the Tories
What was once common sense to both major parties – that we all pay a little of our wages to receive a pension when we are too old to work – has been viciously undermined by decades of neoliberalism, explains NICK WRIGHT
one pound coins
TWO days ago my state pension went up in lockstep with the inflation figures for last year.
Useful, if not really keeping pace with the basket of price rises that devalues the average pension, but, raised in line with the Tories’ electorally effective “triple lock,” it is an effective marker of the ways in which the weekly income of working people and pensioners loses its value.
But it is not a bloody “benefit” — at least in the reworked meaning of that word. I paid for it with National Insurance deductions from my wages over decades. The proof is brought home with the carefully annotated reminder that my state pension is a bit higher than otherwise might be the case when I paid Barbara Castle’s enhanced State Earnings-Related Pension (Serps) contribution.
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