To resent the U-turn on winter fuel allowance?

Sorry, haven't time to read every post in detail but I can't seem to find the announcement that ALL pensioners will revert to receiving the WFA. I thought the latest was that the government have said they will look at it again and maybe raise the cut off point (but not, I believe, in time for the payment to be made next winter). Would be very interested in a reliable link which states things are going back to how they were very soon.

I believe the cut off point was too low and I know many low income older people who are really struggling and it might give them some relief. I don't think everyone should get it and hadn't realised this was now the plan.

I worked all the time whilst rearing kids, no subsidised childcare then. I waited 6 extra years for my state pension, and free school dentists were a nightmare few would want to revisit.

I rent and pay all my rent. No top ups.

I live in the SE where, apparantly, all pensioners are rich.🙄

I pay tax every month and always have.

I seemed to have missed the stereotype.

Having kids is a choice - getting old isn’t. 🤷‍♀️

Why don’t you check your facts? There was no child benefit at all for the first child when I had mine. My dentist treats adult patients’ children for nothing. The bulk of university costs are covered by student finance. We didn’t receive our pension at a younger age, why do you think WASPI women were angry?

However when I started work, back in the dark ages, the basic rate of income tax was 33% with 9% NI on top. I can assure you that didn’t feel very easy.

On an irrelevant note many of us who, as children, did receive free NHS dentistry in the 60’s and 70’s would rather not have had it as we ended up with a mouthful of amalgam fillings and PTSD! Dentists were known to be paid based on number of fillings (drill and fill) and fillings without any sort of anaesthetic were frequently given to children.

I agree with you OP, I’m in Scotland and we get free prescriptions, free bus passes for all children up to age 22 and over the 60s get their bus passes too and not to mentioned free University Tuition for all Scottish young people. I clearly benefit and it’s a wonderful thing to do when you have plenty of government funds however thethe NHS is falling apart and Schools are under resourced, I’d rather the money was spent

and why do you think they are living the life of luxury? Chance?

OP, you must know some very privileged pensioners.

I know several who are already collecting waste wood to store for next winter. Is this really what a G8 economy sees as suitable for our elderly and vulnerable? Collecting scrap from the hedgerows !

Average pensioner income in 2024 was £292 a week for single males, £278 a week (less than 15K a year) for single females & £597 a week (31K) for couples.
There will be high income pensioners, but they are definitely not the majority.

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/pensioners-incomes-financial-years-ending-1995-to-2024

I agree op.
This group of pensioners received full child benefit regardless of earnings, didn’t pay for their children’s dentist, didn’t pay thousands a year for their children to go to university, started receiving their pension at a younger age. I’m not saying they’ve had everything easy and many will definitely need the WFA, but I hope it is now just going to the ones who actually need it.

WFA is already means tested. It’s simply a question of where the threshold should be. I’m going to be even more disappointed in this government if they restore it to a universal benefit. Of course they could make it taxable but that would make it over generous.

How have you concluded that there would be no saving from means testing? Is there data available on how much it would cost?

Like I said before WFA is between £100 and £300 per year. CB is minimum of nearly £1000 a year. Say means testing cost £400 per person/family there would be no saving on WFA but hundreds on Cb

Austerity and Covid responses favoured the Baby Boomer generation

How? Austerity favoured nobody, we’re all suffering from its effects on our public services. The Covid response particularly favoured working age people by paying 80% of their wages.

Yes, I think that's an interesting question too, i.e. why did that one generation end up being so relatively advantaged.…..

Because we had coal, steel, factories, traded, everyone bought our cars, Lorrie’s, made everything, sold everything Which meant we were rich. London was the busiest port in Europe until the dock strikes of the ?70s. Strong unions then.

I think 10 per cent death duty on all amounts above 10k. To be deferred for those married until death of spouse.
10 per cent for everyone on pretty much everything is fine.

Neither state pension nor the NHS was created to fund people living 25 years plus after retirement into old age.

Income taxes on actual work are already too high and disincentive at the higher levels. At most, they can limit pension contributions to a 20 per cent tax saving there.

Yes, I think that's an interesting question too, i.e. why did that one generation end up being so relatively advantaged.

I agree Thatcherism was a part of it, which rolled back a lot of state provision. That can't be "blamed" on the Baby Boomer generation as the electors were, as always, older people.

Austerity and Covid responses favoured the Baby Boomer generation, because by this time, the Baby Boomer generation was the voting generation (and a very large one). We saw that in the Triple Lock and the shutdown decisions. Not reasonable to blame any generation for voting, but the outcome was clear in the spending patterns.

It’s a pointless argument -we need to work out where money can be saved. The Gov have gone after the farmers and WFA - but this totals very little. How can they find more money but without the wealthy moving abroad .

They’ve also gone after pension savings. Doing away with the 2 child cap will cost billions we don’t have.

So where is it going to come from - people have money in their homes but I think care homes can take money from the sale of their property after the resident has died. You can’t force people out of their homes and make them sell.

They can hardly reduce pensions as it’s low compared to other countries already. Increase VAT?
Capital gains tax is about 20%, seems quite high.
Increasing tax but 40% is already quite high -they’d need to increase it across the board I think.
Benefit cuts seems the only way to go.

It was designed to provide a basic living standard for a couple of years. Not 20 years +

Yup absolutely.

While we’re thinking of tax policies that will actually grow the economy rather than those that will personally benefit us can we ditch the ludicrous marginal tax rates? And replace stamp duty and council tax with a land tax. THEN we might be in a situation to increase the number of people getting a WFA.

Ah for a sensibly run government!

The war loan debt was actually pretty small compared to the debt built up in the 80s, 90s and 00s.

It was expected to create a basic standard of living. People weren’t expected to add more.

I called your claim bollocks. You didn’t present any data initially.

The 1980s covered the Thatcher years which were catastrophic in many ways. It was largely our parents’ generation that voted for a low tax government that decided paying down debt could take a back seat. The subsequent rise was due to two global events - the 2008 crash and the pandemic. Obviously austerity was supposed to rectify the results of the former but was an abject failure.

You did comment on the veracity of my claim. You called it bollocks. I'm just asking on what basis.

The YK state pension is not ‘scandalously low’ compared to EU state pensions. It’s about average if you properly look into the different ways pensions work in different countries.

In the UK we have the state pension and workplace pensions. The UK government incentivises people to save into these workplace pensions with a number of tax breaks. In most EU countries your employer pays your workplace pension into a state pension scheme, hence you should always take your workplace pension AND your state pension AND tax breaks given by the government when saving for a pension into account when comparing what you get with another European retiree.

The reason why the state pension is so small is that you were expected to make alternative provisions to run alongside it.