The true basis of Social Security

I would have thought that it was obvious that in a coherent civilised society we all support each other. This is the true basis of social security. But to read repeated comments in the right wing press (i.e. most of the printed media) about how older people will become an ‘increasing burden’ on younger people in the future, there are those among us who have a much narrower outlook.

This is at a time when, having initially given the impression of being on the side of pensioners, the coalition parties are now looking for every possible way to minimise this commitment and maximise claw back. Witness the attempted redefining of RPI (to give lower values and consequent lower upratings of course) and the talk about cutting winter fuel allowances, travel passes and TV licenses for supposedly ‘better off’ pensioners.

All this as if current and soon-to-be pensioners were not contributing substantially already. All pensioners with savings (i.e. most of this generation) have been severely hit by the artificially and historic low interest rate policies, losing hundreds or thousands of pounds in interest every year. Annuity values for those coming up for retirement have also tanked as another consequence of the nailing down of interest rates.

There is also the practice of the financial cartel in salami slicing the interest rates on Isas so that there’s now hardly any benefit from the tax-free nature of these investments. Another thank you to our wonderful financial services ‘industry’. In this regard building societies have been infected with the same ‘squeeze the punters’ attitude to savers as have the banks.

All of this represents a massive transfer from the older generation to those much younger people who have run up debts or who have mortgages – or both. How much longer pensioners can continue supporting borrowers to this extent is unclear but no doubt we’ll soldier on and reflect on all that was built up in our society (prior to the curses of globalisation, cutting and privatisation) during our most active years?

Despite this wretched government's favouritism towards the truly wealthy there is still a sense in which we are all in this together across the generations. Taking a long view also involves a look at the past and the near present - especially the last four years - as well as projected futures. So let’s understand that we have a mutually supportive society – something that’s going to be needed as the age of austerity is dragged on by misconceived policies.