To be raging at Dispatches "rich and on benefits"

[crashdoll]

It's talking about pensioners and all they get from the welfare state regardless of income or savings. Cue clip of David Scameron saying he won't touch their benefits.

[infamouspoo]

Not all pensioners 'paid in' Orwellian. Many, mainly women, didnt work.

[crashdoll]

There is a weird double standard here. If anyone suggests that benefits should not exceed the average wage or suggests some of those receiving benefits should not do so, they get thoroughly pasted. it is however seemingly OK to bash pensioners.

I admit am judging. However, I am judging entitled wealthy pensioners who think they are immune from the welfare cuts.

[landofsoapandglory]

HintofBream, Why does a pensioner who has in excess of £100k in the bank need Winter Fuel Allowance?

They don't, yet a single mother wrote to our local paper this week saying she is being asked to find almost £300 out of her benefits to pay towards her council tax! How on earth is that fair?

[nkf]

I thought pensioners were, on the whole, quite badly off. Because most people don't earn enough in their lifetime for decent pensions. Are you sure they are rich? I mean, everyone seems to know a pensioner who takes six cruises a year. But then everyone seems to know someone on benefits with a flat screen TV who smokes and drinks and intends never to work. Are you sure it's not just another prejudice. And there is nothing to stop younger people from voting.

[HollyBerryBush]

This a turn about for MN , attacking old people

Why does a pensioner who has in excess of £100k in the bank need Winter Fuel Allowance?

same reason CB is dished out I suppose - you earn it, you save it

[Darkesteyes]

It was the im alright jack attitudes of those pensioners in that golf club that pissed me off.
They were going on about how people just a decade or more younger than them were "scroungers"
They had it easier with housing and jobs than any other generation. They didnt have to compete to get a paying job from a company that uses workfare.
Can you IMAGINE the uproar if workfare had been around while they were still working.
i NEVER EVER thought id live to see the day when Peter fucking STRINGFELLOW put someone to shame but thats exactly what he did with the golf club pensioners.
And that one at the end laughing and saying "ooh id bet next years membership on it. Sickening.
And before anyone starts i dont mind them getting these benefits or at least some of these benefits.
Its their attitude about it and their attitudes towards others who havent been as lucky as them which STINKS!

[BreasticlesNTesticles]

You can make a voluntary contribution of £13 per week (ish) if you don't qualify for NI. You need 30 years contributions to obtain a state pension.

So if you don't work and don't pay any voluntary contributions, you will not get a state pension.

[OddBoots]

Orwellian is that really all? I always thought pensioners could get HB and Council tax benefit too. And isn't there pension credit too, or has that gone?

[HintofBream]

I do wonder how many of those whinging about their affluent parents' million pound houses will refuse to accept the vast inheritance that will one day be coming to them.

Sorry land without the full story it is hard to comment.

[BreasticlesNTesticles]

Sorry, I should say that isn't the case if you are claiming benefits - in which case you would still be counted as contributing I think.

[expatinscotland]

I watched it all. Sickening.

[landofsoapandglory]

They have cut CB for higher rate tax payers Holly, so why not cut WFA? Why shouldn't pensioners have to face cuts like the rest of us? Disabled people are fair game, children are fair game, even disabled children are fair game. Why not rich pensioners?

[MrsKoala]

not people who need the money Hint, but i think having pensioners be a sacred cow when there are a lot of them better off than most is ridiculous. Even if they have put thousands in the pot, they have used thousands too. so unless you see it as a savings account where you only get what you put in, it is not fair when others are really suffering.

(And to the poster who said about wealthy people with a joint income of 80k that isn't our case, DH earns just over the threshold and i can't afford to back to work because of childcare costs. Our outgoings are £££ because we can't afford to live in London but he pays £600 per month on fares alone. BUT i understand why we lost it, as i said fine, but then my dad and his mates - who are all loaded - don't get means tested at all.)

i would like the money to be ring fenced for pensioners and means tested, then give more to those who deserve it, that way pensioners are still getting it, it is just being distributed more fairly. if that makes sense.

[Procrastinating]

They are not a myth, I live in a town full of 6 cruises a year pensioners, all rattling around in huge houses.
My experience of wealthy pensioners is that most of them have no idea how lucky they have been. They do not seem very willing to help their children, or even empathise with them and understand the economic situation their children have to deal with.

[ihategeorgeosborne]

I didn't watch it as I knew it would stress me out, and now I'm reading all these comments, I'm glad I didn't. I have no desire to see a bunch of rich pensioners telling us how entitled they are, when everyone else on any other form of welfare is a scrounger.

[Orwellian]

Many pensioners have private pensions which they paid into during their working life. I agree that the it is unfair that pensioners benefited hugely from house price rises but I think it is better to tax unearned wealth but continue with universal benefits rather than means testing which often affects those with few assets but a high private pension/income.

I also don't see why a few wealthy pensioners (they are far more poor pensioners than rich ones) getting something when they have paid in via tax and NI is so much worse than the hundreds of thousands, if not millions getting thousands of pounds in benefits each month who have never worked or worked very little. Why are pensioners an ok target when it comes to "benefits bashing" yet workless families with multiple kids are holy cows on Mumsnet?

[infamouspoo]

'So if you don't work and don't pay any voluntary contributions, you will not get a state pension.'

No but you get the equivelent in pension tax credit plus housing benefit and council tax benefit. So a single pensioner, the poorest pensioner will get roughly 5K a year in pension tax credit at 104 a week (might be a bit more) then maybe £100 a week for a one bed housing association bungalow.
Not mch but better off than disabled people. Pensioners like that need winter fuel allowance etc.

[ouryve]

Crashdoll, you shouldn't be paying much more than about a tenner or so a month for your prescriptions, no matter what you get prescribed. You can buy a pre-payment certificate.

[ihategeorgeosborne]

The only people in the big houses where we live are pensioners. All the families are in the two and three bed semis. They can't afford to pay the entitled boomer asking prices for their overpriced mansions.

[CloudsAndTrees]

They don't, yet a single mother wrote to our local paper this week saying she is being asked to find almost £300 out of her benefits to pay towards her council tax! How on earth is that fair?

It's fair because pensioners in most cases have not spent their entire lives being subsidised by the state. It doesn't matter that much if plenty of women didn't work, they were being subsidised by their husbands, not other taxpayers. Whereas a single mother on benefits is being entirely funded by other people.

The more you try and take from the state, the more you have to lose.

[Kiriwawa]

I think MN is terribly ageist. But there is no doubt that people of a certain generation (and I include myself in that as I'm pushing 50) have had it relatively easy compared to today's young people. A lot of that is down to luck though.

• We got our degrees for free. Today if you choose to go into HE, you could be looking at a 30-40k debt
  

• I bought my first flat after the 80s property crash because I was buying alone. My friends who were in a relationship got totally stung by the boom.
  

My 1 bedroom flat in London cost 56k and I was earning 18k as a PA. Wages for that kind of job have probably gone up 20%, property prices (even in this recession) have gone up 200%.

It's very, very fucked up

[MrsKoala]

certainly not a myth, go to chiswick, hammersmith, shepherds bush, putney, wimbledon, barnes.

there certainly wont be any money left for me Hint!

[infamouspoo]

Will those workless families with multiple kids become sacred when they reach 65 Orwellian. Just wondering...

[Procrastinating]

A civilised society helps the vulnerable, not the rich.

[Corygal]

The main drain on social services budgets is, of course, OAPs. Many more of them increasing annually in numbers, they live longer, etc.

The NHS refuses to admit how much of its budget is spent on the old - but they do admit it's more than 90 per cent.

Of course the current lot of pensioners haven't paid enough in - a lot of women living to 95 won't have paid anything much at all, while even income taxpaying men paid much less in real terms.