JazzG Or maybe it is something set up to look after our elderly, I would have thought that is the kind of society we want.
Not to state the obvious, but the failure to index social payments to inflation is a widespread public policy ill in the "post-Fordist" western economies. You're absolutely right but the "triple lock" should apply to doles, disability payments, student payments and more.
Governments of these economies since the Thatcher and Reagan 80s have persistently sold their publics on "tax cuts" that, even though they reduce the headline revenue and spending figures of governments, have had the same fiscal profile as handing piles of what used to be tax dollars available for public services out every financial year, with a bias to the wealthiest.
The irony of it all is that the top 10–20% of income earners, who in most of these economies have been the overwhelming beneficiaries of this antisocial largesse, are incapable of self-identifying as the "welfare recipients" they despise, at the exact same time they're acutely aware and protective of the resulting incomes.
I'm modestly well off down here in Australia and having done a few renovations on an investment property I own last year, was easily able to claim tax deductions with a nett value close to a year's worth of our dole in my annual tax return recently. It's a situation that'd be farcical if it wasn't generating shocking poverty and homelessness.
