Should 1950s WASPI women be compensated?

Silvertabby

GibbsRule_No3 wrote: »

I just heard the Five Live news and there was McDonnell mentioning WASPI and how he is going to stand by them. Settles it then, I must vote Labour:beer::rotfl:

Just heard McDonnell promise to scrap Universal Credit and to replace it with something else (not clear what). Also said that the benefits bill would reduce, due to their immediate increase in the minimum wage (for all ages) to £10 per hour. Really? That's just short of £20K for a full time job. Any job. Regardless of skills or experience.

Small businesses, such as corner shops and hairdressers, just won't be able afford to pay these salaries and will either shed staff or close completely. Larger businesses, such as supermarkets, will just put up their prices. Instant job losses and inflation - yet a reduction in the benefits bill? Methinks Dianne Abbott has been let loose on her abacus again.

And will the unions be happy at the huge reduction in differentials of pay? - because they certainly weren't back in the 1970s.

nigelbb

Silvertabby wrote: »

Just heard McDonnell promise to scrap Universal Credit and to replace it with something else (not clear what). Also said that the benefits bill would reduce, due to their immediate increase in the minimum wage (for all ages) to £10 per hour. Really? That's just short of £20K for a full time job. Any job. Regardless of skills or experience.

Small businesses, such as corner shops and hairdressers, just won't be able afford to pay these salaries and will either shed staff or close completely. Larger businesses, such as supermarkets, will just put up their prices. Instant job losses and inflation - yet a reduction in the benefits bill? Methinks Dianne Abbott has been let loose on her abacus again.

And will the unions be happy at the huge reduction in differentials of pay? - because they certainly weren't back in the 1970s.

For far too long wage rates in the UK have been held down by in work benefits providing a subsidy to poor employers. Far better that workers get paid a decent wage in the first place.

JoeCrystal

nigelbb wrote: »

For far too long wage rates in the UK have been held down by in work benefits providing a subsidy to poor employers. Far better that workers get paid a decent wage in the first place.

I agreed. All in-work benefits should be removed.

Paul_Herring

For far too long wage rates in the UK have been held down by in work benefits providing a subsidy to poor employers. Far better that workers get paid a decent wage in the first place.

Not entirely true. Wholly true for WTC, not so much for other benefits: https://www.adamsmith.org/blog/welfare-pensions/are-benefits-a-subsidy-to-workers-or-employers-yes

[...]

Here in the UK we really only have one major work conditional benefit, working tax credits. Those really are a subsidy to low wage employers. The impact of the rest of the benefit system is to raise wages.

The interesting out come of this is that if you want wages for the low paid to rise then you should almost certainly be arguing for the abolition of working tax credits. Not that this would increase the incomes of the poor but it would stop that subsidy of low wage employers.

Triumph13

nigelbb wrote: »

For far too long wage rates in the UK have been held down by in work benefits providing a subsidy to poor employers. Far better that workers get paid a decent wage in the first place.

I definitely agree with you on this one. Blair and Brown's wholescale gerrymandering to 'buy' votes by getting more of the population onto benefits has had appalling consequences. Not only did it remove most of the drivers that should have lead to higher pay and hence higher productivity as expensive labour gets swapped for capital, but it left a much smaller proportion of the tax take available to spend on services like the NHS.

LHW99

Personally I don't see why compulsory state pension contributions shouldn't pay for the majority of income in retirement. That's what happens in other EU countries & is why UK state pensions are so far behind.

It is quite difficult to compare pensions worldwide. This 2019 article suggests the UK is not that bad in terms of (presumably) the total system.
https://www.investopedia.com/articles/personal-finance/042914/top-pension-systems-world.asp#how-all-countries-ranked
While the nordic countries certainly rank ahead of the UK, France, Austria, Japan and the US rank below, all of which could be regarded as countries on a level with the UK generally.

Silvertabby

Triumph13 wrote: »

I definitely agree with you on this one. Blair and Brown's wholescale gerrymandering to 'buy' votes by getting more of the population onto benefits has had appalling consequences. Not only did it remove most of the drivers that should have lead to higher pay and hence higher productivity as expensive labour gets swapped for capital, but it left a much smaller proportion of the tax take available to spend on services like the NHS.

Absolutely. Without Brown's attempt to get as many people as possible onto the benefits 'payroll' (thus enticing them to vote Labour) wages would have gradually increased. This huge jump, however, will just be unaffordable to small businesses who will either shed staff or close completely.

There's another post on these boards in which parent says that his/her 17 year old son is too wise to be taken in by this offer - he has a little part time job at just over £5 per hour, and knows that his employer won't be able to afford more. So, instead of going from £5 per hour to £10 he will go from £5 to zilch.

And what about paper boys and girls? Having to pay them the best part of £50 per week will mean the end of newspaper deliveries.

JoeCrystal

Triumph13 wrote: »

I definitely agree with you on this one. Blair and Brown's wholescale gerrymandering to 'buy' votes by getting more of the population onto benefits has had appalling consequences. Not only did it remove most of the drivers that should have lead to higher pay and hence higher productivity as expensive labour gets swapped for capital, but it left a much smaller proportion of the tax take available to spend on services like the NHS.

OBR expects tax credits spending in 2018-19 to total £26.0 billion (on a ‘no-UC’ counterfactual basis), with 3.6 million recipients paid an average of £7,170 each. :eek:

ex-pat_scot

Seabee42 wrote: »

Some of this is because someone else did I should be able to. The old rules in the civil service of doing long service and getting undiscounted pension from age 50 and so on. The cost is enormous and continuing it was stupid. There is a massive discrepancy between civil service pensions and the private sector provision this will cause resentment amongst some when they cannot afford to retire.


Although people do live longer they do not recognise it, i.e. 75 is not old and yet 40 years ago it very much was. If you get your pension for twice as long you get twice as much (okay its not that simple but you get the point) who pays?


Governments have always had choice with state pension, it is not generous as it is so reducing it pay it for longer seems like a non starter that will just mean more people get a benefit top up. Increasing the taxation on the next generation to pay for people to retire earlier than them again seems unfair (except to the beneficiaries of course like WASPI). Do you cut the spending on the NHS to pay for the extra pension knowing that will prevent people living longer?


There are no easy fixes.

There are two fundamental questions that need a "national conversation":
1. how much of our lives should we expect to spend in education, in work, and in retirement?

2. how much provision should the state (NI) make for your retirement, and how much should you be expected to make yourself?

In respect of the first, current thinking / planning is that 32% (if I recall) is the planning figure for retirement, and so the State Retirement Age is therefore aligned to forecast mortality tables ie death x 0.68.
Should this be set at the point at which one can no longer work effectively?
Should this therefore be gender -specific, owing to mortality differences?
Should it indeed reflect "other factors" eg local life expectancy (Glasgow males dying on average before SPA) or job/ career ("how can you expect a bricklayer or other manual worker to keep on until 68-70").
Should it instead be pegged at the age at which health factors kick in - which would perhaps give a different result to the mortality x68% equation, as increasing lifespan is not matched by increased healthy ageing.

In respect of the second, there are differences in approach across the EU and wider. We have a relatively low standard State Pension, supported by pensions credits and a modest amount of private provision. This is increasing slowly as a result of Auto Enrolment.
To increase the role of the state in pension provision, we'd have to increase the tax income required to fund this, and are rather hampered by the "pay as you go" approach to how NI and state pensions are used.

badmemory

Auto enrolment will prove within a few years to have been totally inadequate & needs to be increased over the years as people get accustomed to it. Let us face the truth. People are being conned into thinking that a total 8% contribution is going to provide for their retirement. That 8% isn't always even on all their income. There are a lot of people who are not that financially acute who believe that they have a non-state pension that is going to be good enough, they may very well be mistaken.