immigration is just a bandaid in a collapsing dam scenario. what happens to the current uk citizens(its not happening only in the uk, its a developed world problem) will happen to the new immigrants. as their living standards increase they'll have less children and we'll get back to the same problem. not enough new meat for the grinder.

the system needs a foundational reconstruction not patching the roof.

Free childcare would also help. And actually making this country a good place to have children. The main reason people don't want children is economic.

The are approximately infinite ways to solve this "problem", starting with how you even define it. If it's unsustainable at current levels, what does sustainable mean? Is the time period this year, fifty years, a thousand? What's the gap? Does it include administration costs, or just the payments?

Once you define what the question is, you can start to answer it. We could increase immigration (very good point btw). We could raise taxes (if so, which tax? Corporation? National insurance? If so - employer or employee contributions?). We could raise interest rates. We could remove the triple lock. We could just murder everyone over 75. We could do a mix of everything - raise taxes a bit and only murder the over 80s.

How you answer the question depends a bit on facts and a lot on ideology. The fact that this article takes one potential solution and declares it THE ONLY solution tells you a lot about their ideology.

First, immigration is currently calibrated FAR in excess of any demographic gaps. The population is growing rapidly. If the premise were to plug demographic holes, we wouldn’t need nearly this many people.

Second, if the premise were to alleviate demographic issues at the young end of the pyramid, then immigration policies would block any applications for those over 30, or at least heavily bias the young. They don’t.

There is exactly one reason immigration has been calibrated so high, and with such little care for the skills and qualities of the applicants: to suppress wages and working conditions. It’s the same playbook all over the West.

The Baby Boomer phenomenon happened here too... Although class plays a large role here too. When they talk about a retirement age of 71 they are talking about the working class that are dependent on a state pension.

I think ideology plays a big role too. The Conservatives have been desperate to sell off the NHS for decades. You could argue that it has already happened. The reason for this is that, to some extent, they represent a predatory upper class.

They frequently sell off nationalised assets and cushion themselves with kickbacks, although the main purpose is to massage the perception of the economy. For example, in the 80s Thatcher brought in the "right to buy" which enabled occupants of social housing to buy their homes. Effectively privitising the safety net, which no longer exists.

A generation got to buy reasonably sound and cheap homes at the expense of the next.

Similarly the rail network was privitised, and the post office and the telecoms industry. Now we are surrounded by scandals, paying over the odds for essential utilities and getting worse service than ever before.

But a few wealthy folk got wealthier and had their tax cut, so it's not all bad.

It's basically the same yeah. Our parents bought their first homes for a fraction of what they go for now. Extortionate rent, mortgage payments (if you manage to get property), bills, transport etc keep the young poor unless you were born wealthy enough to get a big leg up and/or inherit.

I don’t think it’s even as simple in the states. This whole business of monolithic ‘generations’ with homogeneous economic prospects and political beliefs needs to be taken with a massive pinch of salt. It’s just another specious example of divisive tribalism that seems to infect so much of public discourse.

Not a Brit, just living in the UK, but yes, we have Boomers. The safety nets are not that good and steadily declining, but not everyone of Boomer age is ok with that.