Finally: the idea that individual resident docs have experienced pay stagnation is daft.
Resident docs have the best pay progression around. A trainee in 2017 on £27k base could be on £50k core training by 2021, then £110k consultant by 2025!
More: www.thetimes.com/article/895f...
Fourth: compared with several other benchmarks, resident doctors are not badly paid. Trainee docs in England are paid more than in Ireland and New Zealand.
And when you include pension contributions, their total remuneration is more than other equivalent professions.
5/6
Third: 2008 was a high point in resident doctor pay. Compared with the 1990s, early 2000s and 2010s, junior doctors are relatively well paid.
4/6
Second: the union still persists in using the retail prices index.
Using RPI: pay has fallen 21%.
Using CPI: pay has fallen 6%.
Using CPIH: pay has fallen 4%.
There are no sensible use cases for RPI. It overstates inflation.
3/6
First: resident doctors want pay restoration to 2008 levels. Except in some ways, they’ve already achieved it: their base pay is the highest it’s ever been. They are only down at all when we consider the extra hours that were done on top as part of the 2002-2016 contract
2/6
Are resident doctors still underpaid?
The BMA’s case for industrial action is undermined by the way the union uses data.
1/6
www.thetimes.com/article/895f...
Every pensioner deserves a "decent" retirement.
But the agreement of the welfare state isn't universal basic income. It has always been to provide a "basic foundation" so that "individuals may build freely upon it".
More: 🔗 www.thetimes.com/article/152d...
The state pension is a benefit. You pay NI for the entitlement to access it, but the cash you get back does not come from your own contributions.
Be thankful that it does not: the typical 60-year-old has paid in £134k in NI, but will get back £222k in SP payments.
4/5
Thanks to private pensions, if you deduct housing costs and adjust for family sizes, pensioner households earn practically the same as working-age households.
Plus, if we want to reduce pensioner poverty, raising the state pension is a very ineffective way of doing it
3/5
Two: now it is enshrined, no politician will dare say whether the state pension is high *enough*
The new state pension is a third of earnings, high by historic standards
Compared to Europe, our provision is low. But just 12% are solely reliant on it, falling to 4% in 2063
2/5
There are two big problems with the triple lock
One: it makes future spending impossible to predict. If we keep it, pension spending by 2050 could be a just a little higher than it is now. Or, if we have anything like recent volatility, it could be tens of billions higher.
1/5
1/ Good explainer in today’s Sunday Times from @tomcalver.bsky.social on why renewables are not cheap. I’d add this:
The wholesale market price of electricity is the *short-run* marginal cost. When renewables dominate, it will often be close to zero.
The Greens are doing well in urban areas with insufficient incomes and poor access to housing. They have gained traction among the growing cohort who have gone to university and moved to the city but are struggling to keep up.
(£) www.thetimes.com/comment/colu...
By @tomcalver.bsky.social
Demographically, Green and Reform voters could not be more different. But they do share a nihilism that expresses in different ways
Reform voters believe things were better in the past.
For the Greens, things were never good to begin with.
2/2
Column:
www.thetimes.com/article/d6f7...
Green support is rising under Zack Polanski. Who are its new voters?
The party's new voter base is younger, student-y, more female, and less financially comfortable than their 2024 voters.
They are the heirs of Corbynism: 39% of current supporters backed Labour in 2019
1/2
By 2030, our prices will be slightly more decoupled from gas prices than they are now.
But Britain still desperately needs a proper gas strategy for when it's not windy or sunny.
More in my column www.thetimes.com/article/0227...
Having more renewables will mean we turn to gas less frequently. But it will still provide marginal support when there's no wind or sun.
This is what experts think a typical winter week will look like in 2030. There will still be lots of times when gas sets the price.
3/4
Britain, like many countries, uses a merit order system. Cheap solar, wind and nuclear are used first.
When you need more, you turn to gas. In 2021, gas set the price of electricity 97% of the time. But Britain imports half of it, and has just 12 days' storage capacity!
2/4
Will the rush to net zero save us from future energy price shocks?
Since 2004, the UK has engaged in a risky experiment: generating less electricity. The bet is that enough wind will reverse that by 2030.
But gas – overtaxed and neglected – will still matter
www.thetimes.com/article/0227...
Typo* - the other way round, of course
Britain's top unis are thriving – so much so that UK-born graduates are increasingly competing with international students for places.
But the lower end is rapidly expanding, and dragging down the average graduate premium.
4/4
More in my column www.thetimes.com/article/983b...
We cannot know for certain whether students going to post-1992 institutions would be better off not going to uni at all until the DfE releases the full LEO salary database.
But it is only fair to question why former polys are expending low-value courses at such a rapid pace
3/4
This gap exists even when we partially adjust for A-level grades. Students with BBB at post-92 unis earn more than those with AAA at pre-92 institutions
2/4
This week's column: choose your university wisely
Post-1992 providers have been rapidly expanding business, law and computing courses. Yet the returns for students 5 years after graduating from these courses have, to date, been woeful
1/4
The death of the housing ladder
The average income of a first-time buyer is £61k. But the average second or third-time buyer is earning £91k!
Poor price growth in starter homes, plus rising moving costs, is trapping Brits in the first homes they buy
www.thetimes.com/article/9302...
Scrapping the Equality Act would not conjure up better schools in coastal towns, or new graduate jobs in post-industrial areas. The real divide is between thriving places and surviving ones, which is a far more expensive problem to fix.
(£) www.thetimes.com/comment/colu...
By @tomcalver.bsky.social
The irony is “RPI + 3%” was meant to be progressive, a way of making sure high earners didn't pay their loan back too quickly
Yet freezing the bands is anything but.
More in my column www.thetimes.com/article/a660...
So the Treasury pulls a lever. Every time it looks like future graduates won't pay enough back, it freezes repayment thresholds and the rate at which higher interest kicks in.
Had these risen with wages – as was intended – these thresholds would be £38k and £70k by 2028
3/4
Treasury modelling had assumed post-2012 graduates would continue to enjoy the wage premiums that pre-2012 graduates enjoyed.
This didn't happen. Grad wages were lower, and so were repayments.
By 2021, the government expected back just 46p of every £1 repaid.
2/4
Here's the real reason the government keeps freezing the student loan threshold
The part of the loan that's repaid is classed as an asset on Treasury spreadsheets. But when plan 2 student loans started to be repaid, the percentage received back was less than expected...
1/4