Boris must face the truth about the ‘triple lock’ pensions promise

The Tories have a pension problem – and it’s not strictly financial. Over the coming weeks, the cost of pension promises is likely to be in the spotlight. The pensions ‘triple lock’, which the Prime Minister reportedly refuses to scrap, means that the state pension is upgraded each year in line with average earnings, the Consumer Price Index or by 2.5 per cent – whichever is higher.

This year, it’s likely that earnings will be the highest of these figures by a long way. Here we encounter a problem: the triple lock was not designed with a pandemic in mind. The crazy world of ‘Coronomics‘ has led to the biggest recession in 300 years, yet average wages increased quite dramatically; they are currently up 5.6 per cent on the year.

This is good news on the face of it, but it’s not all rosy. The mass-loss of low-paid jobs, often held by young people working in services sectors, has played a big role in that average boost; rather than being a reflection of pay increases, it’s a reflection of the economic pain felt acutely across the UK.

This makes for an uncomfortable reality of the triple lock: if this wage trend continues, pensioners are going to get a big boost to their income, because so many young people lost their jobs.