Of course, some of the soft left have their own idea of where some of that money might come from. Once again, we have seen attempts to drive a wedge in the working-class by fostering antagonism between old and young. The Tories support for the Triple Lock on pensions is, undoubtedly, founded on their desire to retain the support of older voters, many of whom not only turn out to vote in larger numbers, but a larger proportion of whom vote Tory than amongst younger age groups. But, of course, last year, the Tories, also, failed to implement the protection, as they claimed that the rise in wages had been an anomaly resulting from the ending of lockdowns. So pensions failed to keep pace not only with inflation, last year, but also with wages.
Sections of the soft left are also arguing against the Triple Lock on the basis that the money could be better used to finance other government spending. Pensions are only a fraction of average wages – average wages are currently around £32k, whereas state pension is only £9k – so, even if pensions rise more, relatively, they rise much less in absolute terms. If average wages rise by 8%, on £30k that is a rise of £2,400 a year, whilst an 8% rise on pensions of £9k, is only £720 a year. But, pensioners have to pay the same kind of weekly food bill that others face, the same or higher (because they are in more of the time, and feel the cold more) weekly energy bill, the same or higher cost of running a car, of home insurance, and so on.
In fact, even compared to the Minimum Wage, pensioners are falling behind, even with the Triple Lock. The Minimum Wage is £10.42 per hour, or about £20,000 a year. That is more than double the figure for pensions. The Minimum Wage itself, is barely a minimum to live on, and yet pensioners are expected to live on half that amount! Yet, even with the Triple Lock, pensions would rise by just £720, whilst the Minimum Wage would rise by £1,600, driving pensioners even further into poverty, even compared with those on minimum wages.
Besides, pensioners paid into a state social insurance scheme, on the understanding that they would be able to get a pension out of it, rather than, as is sometimes suggested, it being simply handed to them. You would not pay for car or house insurance, and expect to be told, when you came to claim, that you could only get half what you were entitled to. And, the soft left argue that more affluent or wealthy pensioners get to benefit, but, in total, there are few of them who are truly wealthy, and most of their paper wealth is in the form of the house they live in, which is not a liquid asset, and, as house prices crash, that fictitious wealth will soon vanish. Moreover, the implication of that argument is that the affluent or wealthy should not get access to other aspects of the welfare state such as the NHS, or state education, social services and so on. That would undermine the idea of universality, which underpins the welfare state. If that is what liberals want, then, fine, but they should say so openly, and we could get on with building a worker owned, democratically controlled alternative to the bourgeois, welfare state.
There are significant benefits for younger workers, in defending pensions too, as younger workers in France seem to understand, and not just because, one day, they will want to receive one. The Tories are desperate to try to resolve the growing problem of labour shortages. The number of vacancies, in Britain, is the greater than the number of unemployed, but a lot of that unemployment is also frictional (people moving between jobs), or structural (people with the wrong skills or in the wrong geographic areas) and so not a short-term solution. Attempts to get those with disabilities and health problems to take up employment always fail, because the costs of trying to effectively make the necessary provisions are too costly, on employers. Attracting retired workers back into employment is a different matter.
However, across the globe, governments have had problems getting retired workers to go back into employment, including, after lockdowns, increasing numbers of workers that took early retirement. One answer to that is to reduce pensions, so as to force impoverished pensioners back to work. Hence, Macron's attack on French workers' pensions, and retirement age. So, all of the soft left ageism that seeks to opportunistically attack The Triple Lock, because they can only see it as being used by the Tories for electoral purposes, would actually undermine existing younger workers, because the consequence would be to encourage pensioners to make up for the loss of pensions by taking on employment at much lower wages than either currently they would demand, or that full-time younger workers need. The idea that any tax saved from it would go to benefits for younger workers, is, also, fanciful.
The latest data shows that, despite all of the claims and desires for the economy to slow down, for unemployment to rise, and so for workers to be disciplined, constraining their wages and so on, there has been no global recession, and despite the problems faced, in Europe, arising from the effects of rising energy costs, caused by the NATO boycotts and sanctions against Russian energy supplies, economies continue to grow, and labour shortages continue to form the basis of rising wages, and strengthening of the position of workers.
In fact, there is a great deal of scope yet. As I have described, before, if you used the same measurements as used in the 1960's, UK unemployment is still around 6%. But, back in the 1950's and 60's, as the long wave cycle consumed the existing labour supplies, unemployment fell to around 1-2%. So, the current labour shortages are a long way from the effects on pushing wages higher than existed 60 years ago. Workers have scope to improve their position considerably more, from here, and that will also pose problems for Blue Labour, as it tails that working-class, and falls further and further behind it.
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