U.K.'s ageing population places more pressure on the public purse
The revelation that the UK population has now topped 60 million places yet more pressure on the public purse with an increase in benefit payments, pension arrangements and other social security benefits. While there is no doubt there will also be a significant increase in tax income in due course, the confirmation that there are now over 1.8 million people in the UK over 80 years of age is causing alarm.
Even though the UK state pension has been falling in value in real terms for many years, the revelation that people are living longer and claiming more benefits in later years is not good news for the UK government. Perhaps this is one of the reasons why the UK authorities appear to have decided to tackle the growing problem of the public sector pension which is taking a larger and larger chunk of UK taxable income.
There are many reasons why people are living longer but the main one is the various developments in healthcare which, despite a recent report suggesting otherwise, are better now than they ever have been. The current government and future governments certainly have a battle on their hands to control the demon which is the public purse.
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