Detail Grey Squirrels; Another Sop for Elderly Britons   Oleh:  [s.n] Jenis: Article from Bulletin/Magazine Dalam koleksi: The Economist (http://search.proquest.com/) vol. 406 no. 8823 (Feb. 2013), page 14. Topik: Government; Working-age; Welfare Payments Ketersediaan Perpustakaan Pusat (Semanggi) Nomor Panggil: EE29.75 Non-tandon: 1 (dapat dipinjam: 0) Tandon: tidak ada     Lihat Detail Induk Isi artikel The government is looking after the old, and younger people are bearing the brunt of cuts. That's wrong "We're all in this together," intoned George Osborne, soon to be Britain's chancellor of the exchequer, in 2009. Fiscal austerity would be grim, he warned, but the pain would be spread evenly. The catchphrase went down so well that Mr Osborne has repeated it in other speeches. It has been turned into a T-shirt--yours for Pounds 10 ($16) in the Conservative Party's online shop. But it is beginning to fray. Britons below retirement age are indeed in it together. The working-age poor are being pinched by a cap on welfare payments. Wealthy parents have been stripped of child benefit. University tuition fees have rocketed. Everyone is paying more VAT. But austerity seems much less austere if you are old. Pensioners, who fared notably well in the boom years, have been coddled in the bust. Whereas public-sector salaries and benefits for working-age people are set to rise by a miserly 1% a year over the next few years, pensions have been "triple-locked": they increase by average earnings, inflation (currently 2.7%) or 2.5%, whichever is higher. Perks such as free bus passes, free television licences and winter fuel payments have not been touched (although Mr Osborne is daringly pondering whether to axe fuel subsidies for Britons who have retired to sunny Spain). Opini Anda Klik untuk menuliskan opini Anda tentang koleksi ini! Kembali

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