Originally Posted by
Just This Once...
It says a lot when the most optimistic figure is yet-another-real-world-cut in pay. How many years in a row has that been the case now?
Still, I just exited so this delayed announcement will clarify how much pension and lump sum I should have been getting. On my first pension payment they included a scrap of paper that noted my pension would be in error but that there was nothing they could do. Pretty poor way to run a pension scheme.
The last time we had a real term increase was 2015 when we had a dip in inflation with RIP coming in at 0.9%, giving us a 0.1% real term rise! Before then, the last real term increase was 2009 when we had a 2.8% rise and with CPI at 2.3% and RPI at -1.2% giving a real terms rise of around 4% because of the low inflation rate, but 2009 was a bit of an anomaly.
Looking over the years 1999 - 2007 when we appeared to do well with 3%+ rises every year apart from 2004, inflation was also relatively high most years meaning that most years were in fact sub-one percent or negative real terms pay deals. The only time other than 2009 that I can see us having had a decent real terms rise was over the period 2001 - 2002 when a 3.7% rise gave a real terms rise of 1.9 and 2.2% respectively. In fact, I can only find 4 years out of the almost 20 I have been in that real terms pay rises have exceeded 1% once inflation is taken into account.