£200,000! That’s the cost of scrapping your state pension and nobody can afford it

The triple lock has helped boost the value of the state pension since it was introduced by the coalition government in 2010, and scrapping it would be hugely controversial. The mechanism increases the state pension each year either by inflation, wages or 2.5 percent, whichever is highest. No wonder suggestions that it should be scrapped cause outrage and alarm. Even with the triple lock, the UK is still said to have one of the lowest state pensions in the developed world. Yet pensioners are still getting poorer rather than better off. Some argue that the triple lock causes intergenerational unfairness but the state pension is not just there for those who have retired. With luck it will be around for future generations, too. It will be sorely needed as more than one in four people over 50 has no pension savings of their own, rising to a third for women, according to new research from SunLife. Almost two thirds of over-40s are anxious about retirement, said Shona Lowe, financial planning expert at wealth manager abrdn. ‘It is particularly daunting against a backdrop of rising interest rates and the cost-of-living crisis.’ Everybody should be saving all they can for the future but it isn’t easy, as the sums required are so huge. The true value of the real of the state pension is double the average person’s total retirement savings, including company and personal pensions. Only very wealthy would be able to replace it from their own resources.