Govt ‘took £225 billion from pensioners’
Between £150 billion and £225 billion was taken from pension funds in 1990’s tax grabs, according to the TaxPayers’ Alliance.
Political meddling and managerial incompetence have pushed the basic state pension
down 20 per cent from its 1950 level relative to earnings, the group said.
Terry Arthur, who wrote the report, said: “The UK pensions system has failed to provide a decent retirement income for many people and has been a painful lesson in the limitations of government.”
The pension divide between the public and private sectors is growing, with over 17,000 retired public sector employees having retirement benefits worth £1 million each.
Unfunded public sector pension liabilities are estimated to exceed £1 trillion, over 70 per cent of GDP.
Corin Taylor from TaxPayer’s Alliance criticised the government. “It is not right for taxpayers to be subsidising million pound retirement benefits for the public sector elite while seeing the value of their own pensions plummet,” he said.
The number of active members of private sector occupational schemes has fallen by 41 per cent in the past 12 years, with an even greater fall in defined benefit scheme members.
