State Pension

[baggieal]

Heard someone make an interesting point...

We have 2m more pensioners than we had 30 years ago. We are now living longer than ever, which is obviously great, but it does present a problem.

Each pensioner apparently costs the tax payer around £25k per year. When you take into account Pensions / NHS usage / Winter fuel allowances etc.

The average person in this country pays £5k in tax per year. Which means roughly speaking, we need 5 working people to pay for each pensioner.

Now the issue is...our indigenous population isn't growing - its levelled out. Younger people are putting off having children / having fewer children etc. because of the cost of living probably.

So in the last 30 years, we needed an extra 10m workers to pay tax, just to pay for the increasing number of pensioners there are today compared to 30 years ago.

The biggest issue we face is not immigration, but an ageing population and an increasing number of pensioners to pay for.

We really need public services to be improved to cope with the additional workforce we require. And the responsibility of not improving/investing in public services does not lie with immigrants, it is with governments.

Don’t disagree with any of that! Money needs to come from somewhere to improve public services so the question needs to be asked:

Do those who are comfortable need state pensions and free NHS?

Most decent employers offer private health care for a benefit. Should more companies be forced to do this?