The truth about pensioners and tax

The Tories’ ‘Triple Lock Plus’ is a pretty blatant attempt to secure the votes of a demographic group which is more inclined to vote Conservative than any other. That much is clear. The party’s proposal would give pensioners a high personal tax allowance to spare them from having to pay income tax as the state pension rises faster than either inflation or average earnings. If the government wants to spare pensioners from having to pay income tax it could, of course, raise the income tax threshold for everyone. But instead, while pensioners are spared tax, the personal tax allowance for working-age people is due to be frozen for another four years.

But is it necessarily true that pensioners get the best of everything while the young get screwed over again and again? That is the narrative which many have sought to advance and there is, to be fair, some evidence to support it.