State pensions - contributory or universal?

A PPI paper, comparing the ‘contributory’ and 'universal' methods of determining eligibility for a State pension, finds the former to be only partially successful at meeting certain contributory objectives, namely ‘adequacy for all’ has been lost with 4.5 million people not accruing the right to the Basic State Pension each year. Moreover, as a system rewarding work, the PPI believes this has become less true post-Serps, which provide more contributory pensions to people who have earned more. This feature is now being gradually withdrawn, it says. PPI argues the idea for its successor,...