Don’t punish pensioners for state of national finances - Yorkshire Post Letters

In your edition of Saturday, May 9, 2026, the Money and Finance page contained an article about the State Pension and the Triple Lock by Sarah Coles.

It is a reoccurring subject that always seems to have a one-sided attitude each time.

She does not mention whether those investigators paid attention to the following points.

1. Those who rely on the state pension have always been told during their working life that part of the National Insurance contribution they paid on their earnings was to contribute into their rights to receive the state pension.

This is effectively still true as recipients' right to a full pension, or restriction to a lesser amount, are calculated on their ‘contributory years’.

If that connection is to be changed then it can only be for future arrangements with existing accumulated rights sustained by pensioners and contributors at the time of changeover. A long distant project.

2. The effect over the years since 2011 until recent date is compared to being higher than wage inflation by a small percentage.

No comment is made about the relevance to the maximum state pension being less than £12,000 per pensioner per year against the average employment earning of anywhere above £25,000 per year.

And the VAT, Council Tax, and all living costs are at least as high for pensioners (some may be on special diets) as the level level for everybody.

3. There is no comment about whether the £150bn, quoted as total yearly cost, is the payout for the basic state pension, or the total of the pension bill through that section of the department’s accounting, which could also include payments for graduated pensions and other such schemes separately paid for by the pensioners during their working lives.

4. There is no mention that the eventual State Pensions paid to pensioners is means tested. Sadly, now being brought into the means testing system for a large proportion of pensioners due to the constant freezing of the income tax zero rate allowance level.

All pensioners will effectively pay tax at the highest rate that their total annual income dictates, some will be paying back 40 per cent of their pension as additional income tax to the state coffers.

5. Do those who think the triple lock should change really understand the subject and the distress those who rely only on the state pension feel.

The triple lock does not give all three elements but only the option to give the highest. If wage rates are suddenly soaring as in recent years, that level is used, if wage rates are low but inflation is higher that level is used.

But all the publicly quoted dispute negotiations highlight that the demand is for pay to match inflation. Why therefore not for pensioners who are considerably lower rates than those who are publicly demanding more.

The attention sometimes brought to this subject is trying to hit people who have worked considerably hard during their lives. It is a right contributed to by those who have worked.

The attention to national finances should be directed at controlling wastage and inefficiency and greed.