To think the UK unfairly taxes families?

Similar. Was alone from 7-7, Saturdays too when mum worked over time, from aged 10. From around 11, locked out all day because id left the grill on one day making toast and she came home to an house full of smoke. No idea if there was any “childcare” available. Next door neighbour sometimes gave me some squash and biscuits.

"Roughly 79 per cent of those aged over 65 own their homes, with more than 4 per cent still having some mortgage to pay off. Soaring asset prices have, in turn, created immense household wealth that subsequent generations have not benefited from; cohorts born after 1970 have acquired property wealth at a significantly lower rate, with most of the benefits accumulating to those born in the 1950s. Savills have estimated that as a result, the over-50s account for about 78 per cent of the UK’s privately held housing wealth."

"The result of these higher prices has been to trap people in the private rented sector even as rents soar. In 2022, housing costs took up 24 per cent of the income of a typical household renting in Britain, as opposed to 16 per cent of the budget of those who were paying off a mortgage. Both sets could feel hard done by relative to previous generations, however: in 1980, a 30 year old could expect to spend about 10 per cent of their income on housing."

"In 2018-19, the government spent roughly £14,655 for each child in Britain, £10,178 for each working age adult, and £20,789 for each pensioner. Spending on the last group has risen even as spending on other groups has fallen. Similarly, NHS spending on the over-65s has hovered around two fifths over the past decade, with spending on this group set to rise as its numbers swell. "

I know the truth is uncomfortable but it's still the truth. We have an ageing population and as a whole they have taken more out of the system than they have put in. This doesn't mean every pensioner is rich or there aren't young feckless people. But it does explain part of our issue with productivity & growth.

Families with young kids get other things though, like tax relief on childcare, child benefit, tax credits, depending on income obviously. Pensioners don't get the equivalent. It probably evens out? Pensioners have usually paid in for a lot longer too and have had all their lives to build up assets, so are bound to be better off in general as a group, than those just starting out.
I do think income tax and NI should be combined though, and both workers and pensioners should pay the same. It makes things overly complicated to have 2 taxes that differ depending on age.

If your children are earning the same as you were years ago then you must have been on an above average salary and your children haven"t got themselves lucrative careers

Fair enough. I don’t know what stats are. Grew up with a ft working mum too (I’m 61 now, as did my husband, 67) though part time.

Maybe a line for the price of avocados would change everything though?!

When was this?
Social housing hasn't been plentiful since the 1960s. Both my parents grew up in postwar council houses but, when they married in the mid60s, found that waiting lists in London were years long. They were living in one room in an HMO for the first couple of years of married life, both working double shifts to save a deposit. Were they alive now, both would be in their 80s.

Plenty of people who are now pensioners are 20 years younger than my parents would be. They (soon to include me) grew up watching all the social housing being sold off while we were still at school. We bought houses with 100% mortgages and watched prices tumble, living in negative equity for years.

Lots of people on this thread have a very odd idea of when "pensioners" were young.

I don’t think this is the best example of problems in the uk tax structure. Reducing taxes on pensioners is a structural design.

look at things like how 2 parts of a couple can earn 99k, but if one person earns 101k, the tax rules change entirely. These are ways tax laws hurt working families.

But women did work , however if they hadn’t worked and contributed they would still get state pension

@NamelessNancy great graph, it will get ignored though.

Families get so much more today than I got when I had my first child in 1993.

Do they @Katypp? Child benefit was universal then wasn't it?

Would you like to go back to the days of six weeks at 90% pay maternity leave followed by 12 weeks at SMP?

I had my dc in the 00s and it wasn't that different to the above. I only got the "free" hours for a little bit.

Younger parents are so quick to jump on everything they think pensioners get, but forget - or ignore - that they have had hardships too.

I think you are confused, pointing out government policy has made pensioners richer and younger people poorer doesn't mean no pensioner is in poverty or experienced hardship. Why would you conflate the two?

And of course, when it is suggested they may like to pay into a pension so they can have the comfortable retirement they so resent the so-called boomers for, they also think they are uniquely placed in struggling to find the money to do so.

But private pension schemes are not as generous now & state pension age has increased despite no increase in healthy life expectancy so how can it be the same?

No we just didn't have the money available to spend.

It’s going to happen, they will abolish NI but they’ll do it by gradually adding to income tax. Employers will still be left with a NI bill. People should be taxed equally.

I don't know anyone who could afford to be a SAHM in the 70s, 80s or 90s. Tbh there wasn't any childcare for much of it. My mum used to leave us at home alone to go to work with the neighbours keeping an eye out. My sisters and I broke into (and out of) our home everyday because mum locked us out while working. We did walk to school on our own at 5 years old too.

You've watched too much TV. Working class women have always worked. The SAHM mum is a myth unless you were middle class.

Quite.

Yep, any excuse on here.

National insurance makes you eligible for in work benefits as well as a state pension. By default when you get to state pension age, you are no longer eligible for those in work benefits even if you are still working. Hence NI only being payable by those under state pension age.

I think there are greater issues with those choosing not to work and the self employed avoiding paying NI rather than a cohort of pensioners who have paid it during their working lives.

@MrsSkylerWhite i'm talking statistically though?

NI is paid towards earning a state pension and provides working age benefits.
Why should pensioners still pay NI once they've paid the required years and are no longer entitled to the benefits NI provides.
Current pensioners didn't constantly moan whilst they were working about what previous pensioners were paying in tax - most of them raised their kids without the tax credit/UC largesse of today - no working 24 hours and being topped up by the state back then.
Perhaps if we stop subsidising young families to not work we can all pay less tax/NI

I agree we need to abolish NI snd tax income fairly.

I didn’t go out work when our kids were young (30 and 22 now) because my husband worked away from home a great deal but I hosted sixth form students. Most mothers we knew worked at least part time, many full time in professional careers. Nursery fees were huge then, too.

I think maybe if people stopped frittering and spending money on endless tech, frequent expensive holidays, take aways, coffees, nails, new cars etc ( all things older generations managed to do without)they may find children far more affordable.

Yes, it's nothing to do with housing costs and wage stagnation 🙄

Families get so much more today than I got when I had my first child in 1993.
Would you like to go back to the days of six weeks at 90% pay maternity leave followed by 12 weeks at SMP? Or no flexible working? Or no subsidised/free childcare?
Younger parents are so quick to jump on everything they think pensioners get, but forget - or ignore - that they have had hardships too. And of course, when it is suggested they may like to pay into a pension so they can have the comfortable retirement they so resent the so-called boomers for, they also think they are uniquely placed in struggling to find the money to do so.

God. How far back are you going for that to be true?
We are pensioners. Dh worked full time and in the early years I became a child minder and then worked opposite hours to dh. I was a sahm for 3 years. We didn't have a holiday until youngest was 5 and that was a caravan in Wales. Please don't believe the myth that we had it easy. We didn't.