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.

How's this for a Winter Fuel Allowance scandal?

A friend of mine sadly lost his dad in November (ish).

But because he was still alive when the deadline date passed, his family get the money.

The state is paying benefits to dead people and they are well aware of it

I suppose wealthy pensioners do keep the economy going. Where would John Lewis be without smug 60-somethings wandering round buying household goods for the sheer hell of it? And Carnival Cruises has a giant new building here where I live, employing hundreds of people - and, of course, they employ thousands on their ships. There would be no business if it weren't for holiday-mad pensioners.

Mind you, I'd rather pensioners actually handed a bit of their dosh to their dcs. Fil has been retired for 30 years and he has never given any of his dcs one penny, whilst he and mil have shopped in M&S every day and taken five holidays a year. But... guess who now doesn't get too many visits in their care homes?

clouds, not begrudging pensioners a seat on the bus, just that I often get on with the dcs having paid nearly a tenner and we don't get a seat because it's full of pensioners. If they had to pay, they might not take up all the seats. I was talking to one the other day and she admitted that she uses it as she can and often doesn't need to go out, but likes to make use of her 'free' bus pass.

My inlaws are wealthy, although they say they are asset rich and cash poor. I hate that saying, because I think do you really need 3 houses. My dad doesn't do too badly either. None of them have ever given us a penny. I don't expect it, but I do feel a tad pissed off when they come back from Australia after a 6 week trip and ask us if we are doing anything. The answer is always, we might go camping in August!

i have one friend whose parents massively overpaid into their already generous pensions. feeding the kids beans/sardines on toast/pasta and butter, never going on holiday, second hand clothes. Then they retired on one of the largest pension for their sector (it was in the news) and now laugh at my friend - their dc - at how shrewd they were and rub their faces in the fact they have all these holidays and money.

What's wrong with an old lady making use of her free bus pass?

Would you prefer her to sit inside her house alone for days without speaking to people just so that people who have to pay for the bus get a seat?

Seriously, how come everyone accepts these I know a pensioner who hogs up the bus/owns three properties etc stories but not the stories about people who've never worked refusing to take responsibility. Both are anecdotal and I don't know if either are believable.

There's nothing wrong with it, I was just making an observation that people who pay often don't get a seat themselves, because they're full of pensioners having a day out.

I can't understand their attitude at all.
Dh & I will get no inheritance but we were lucky enough to be born when we could just about afford a house and we were the last in to final salary pensions. If the pensions are still there when we are old EVERY PENNY we can afford will go to help the children, god knows they will need it.

CloudsandTrees where I live it is not a lonely old lady on the bus. It is a very active couple in their 60s with two cars on the drive at home.

Excellent point, well made nkf

QUOTE CLOUDS AND TREES:'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.'

What Clouds and trees said plus I would add those SAHMs contributed massively to a stable society/voluntary work and to the emotional welfare of their pre-school kids by not packing them off into daycare for hours on end a day - longer than school hours in fact.
The world has changed I get it but the desire for equality of misery in this thread is ridiculous.

I am sure there are many who don't bother with the bus pass etc etc my parents don't as they both still drive in their seventies.

My dad uses his state pension to pay for is brand new car

Mum uses hers to pay for their holidays

They lived off their private pensions (no mortgage)

They used the winter fuels payments to treat the dgcs

Even they know how fucked up it is

nkf, My PIL DO have 3 properties. I use the bus frequently and live in a high pensioner area, I therefore see them on the bus. Personally, I don't know anyone on benefits other than tax credits. This is based on what I know and certainly not anecdotal.

They are not n grateful though BTW

It's not anecdotal - 96% of Britains personal wealth is owned by the over 60's.

I'm surprised people aren't more incensed to be honest. The disparity is shocking. The ladder has been entirely pulled up behind them

It is anecdotal. You have told us something about people you know. And everybody seems to believe you. But if someone posted about a single unemployed mother with six kids by two different men, there would be a lot of yelling about "benefit bashing" and jokes about goats.

I don't understand why one type of anecdote is accepted and another is derided.

'What's wrong with an old lady making use of her free bus pass?

Would you prefer her to sit inside her house alone for days without speaking to people just so that people who have to pay for the bus get a seat?'

What's wrong? Well, no. 1, 60 is not old. And, in our area, which is rural and has limited transport to begin with, the council has had to cut service even more to pay for plenty of active 60 somethings with comfortable private pensions, no mortgage, etc. to ride for free because they don't want to stump up for petrol.

The ladder has been pulled up behind them, but they didn't do that on purpose. They had no more control over house prices and the benefits they get than any of us do now.

How comforting to think that there is actually a benefit to ageing....if true that the politicians don't want to upset the elderly as an interest group. It would be great to think that were true...political power at last...in old age.

You all seem to have incredibly stingy retired parents as well - they aren't all like that for sure.....well maybe the Tory ones are lol....I wouldn't know.

nfk - there has actually been some research done into worklessness and very very few people have never worked. According to research done by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, despite all of the rhetoric of generations of the same family sitting idly on the dole their entire working lives, less than 0.1% of families have two generations who have never worked. And when they tried to find families with three generations who have never worked, they were unable to. So it's not an anecdote; it's a myth.

I do realise that plenty of pensioners use their WFA for nice meals, days out or at duty free when they are going on holiday, but I don't see how that's any worse than people spending their benefits, including tax credits, on holidays, pets, or anything else they choose to spend it on. It's the same thing. Except one is allowed on MN, and the other apparently isn't.

Lol at 'they didn't do it on purpose'

Yes, they did - they voted for thatcher, for strike breaking, for idiotic wars, for workfare, for no house building for decades so that their properties are worth millions.

I'm so pissed off that every child I have looked after in care will never be able to afford a house - their prospects are shocking. In fact next year dd goes on the housing list as SS will put her on there in the hope that she will get a studio before she leaves care aged 24.

I'm on low rate DLA & tax credits because i can only (due to serious mental illness) work part time.

I am really struggling to afford to live - i can't get HB, & still have to pay £82 a month council tax.

My Dad works full time, plus gets his pension (at age 65).
He gets Fuel Allowance which he would prefer to be distributed to poorer people as he earns quite high wages.

I'm lucky & very grateful because he kindly gives me some of his wages each month - if he didn't i'd be at the Foodbank!!

"those SAHMs contributed massively to a stable society/voluntary work and to the emotional welfare of their pre-school kids"

My mother played squash and had her hair done.
My MIL locked her son out of the house until 6pm every day in case he made a mess.

Are we an emotionally stable generation because they were SAHM?