The UK has already spent an estimated £300 billion on the coronavirus reponse and tax receipts for next are likely to fall dramatically, writes George Grylls, the question is who is going to pay for it? Milennials are facing their second deep recession, while it is the elderly who are most vulnerable to covid-19 – prompting calls from the leutenant governor of Texas to end the lockdown for the sake of the younger generation.
“The Social Market Foundation (SMF) argued last week that part of the answer in the UK lay in scrapping the pensioners’ triple lock”, he explains. This has been in place since 2011 and has guarenteed the basic state pension grows in real terms. Scrapping it could save £20 billion over five years, but the Tories are unlikely to do it – will Labour’s new leader “press the pensions button?”.
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