To maintain our welfare state we need to rethink how we pay for it

a post by Torsten Bell for the Resolution Foundation blog

Social democracy gave 20th Century Britain the welfare state. But in the 21st Century it’s wandered off for a long post-crisis snooze, just at the time when big challenges to that welfare state are looming into view. It’s time it woke up because, for a new generation of social democrats, there is work to do.

We each cost the state when young, pay in when working and then rely on it again in retirement. But it’s not just individuals that give and take different amounts from the welfare state – generations do too.

The ‘silent generation’, born before war, founded the welfare state and paid for it, despite not benefiting from its expanded education system or recent moves to make state pension more generous. As a result they are the generation that has put most in compared to what they took out.

The baby boomers got a much better deal, benefitting from the expansion of the welfare state, rising longevity, and an underpinning assumption in Britain’s ‘Pay As You Go’ welfare state that the rising costs of their old age will be passed onto later generations. They are Britain’s welfare winners, who we project will take out over a fifth more than they will have put in.

Continue reading

Whilst not doubting anything that the author says I would have liked to see some data back up.

---