Charity raises questions about the IFS report on 'pensioners prospering'
Following the publication of an IFS report resulting in headlines such as 'Young suffer as pensioners continue to prosper’, Simon Bottery, Director of Policy at Independent Age, raises questions that he believes, need to be answered.
If you are one of the estimated 1.6 million pensioners in poverty in the UK, you might be forgiven for hanging on to your copy of today’s IFS report on Living Standards and putting it on the fire this winter to save on your heating bills.
Not that it isn’t sober and thought-provoking research, analysing masses of data to raise important concerns about working age poverty. Most older people – many as parents and grandparents - will share those concerns. But the sheer scale and complexity of its analysis inevitably leads to simplification of its findings and the simplest of those can be seen in the BBC report: ‘Young suffer as pensioners continue to prosper’.
But hang on, you might think, doesn’t the report say that 12.8 percent of pensioners are still in absolute poverty? Isn’t that quite a lot of, you know, actual people? It will be little comfort to you that your chances of being poor has fallen and that rates are higher in other groups. You are still one of the many older people trying to survive on less than £138 a week.
You might also wonder why everyone over the age of 60 is regarded as one large homogenous group, with no attempt made to distinguish between the younger generation and the older, ‘silent generation’ of those 75+ among whom average incomes are much lower. Is that a failure of the data, or the analysis, you might wonder. Perhaps it is just easier to think of all people over 60 as ‘older’.
Even if you’re not in poverty, you might be annoyed that parts of the report are not explored more. For example, the report explains there are three reasons why fewer pensioners are in poverty: benefits, pensions and work income. Now benefits includes the state pension which is hardly a ‘benefit’ in the sense that most people use the word. But it is true that it has been protected by a triple lock. However, the increase in private pensions cited is - at least in part - a result of people choosing to save more during their working life. You might wonder why you are taking the flak for that now. And the final reason pensioners are less likely to be in poverty is that more of them are working beyond retirement age – nearly 1 in 10 of them. Again, you might think that pensioners continuing to work, support themselves and pay tax might be a source of congratulation rather than reproach.
This is not a criticism of the IFS. But how are we to have meaningful debate about the future of pensions, benefits, social care and so many other issues if we persist in viewing everything through a prism of ‘prosperous pensioners’.
Answers to Theresa May please.
