If we all in this together what cuts have oaps faced?

[3asAbird]

As my title says im struggling to see any.

Winter fuel allowance -stays universil-too expensive to means tesrt
same with free bus passes.

part of their social care is paid so they can leave wealth to their families

They excempt from bedroom subsidy so they allowed to under occupy and biggest group.

Pensions I think went up

This new married couples allowance maybe another additional benefit to them if they large proportion of this group.

Housing-they brought at right time probably paid off mortgage and have lots equity.

They moan about interest rates but they fortunate enough to be able to save.

If social-how many homeless pensioners are there? Are they always band a?

Maybe im being harsh and some pensioners have it hard.

But locally they have several holidays a year, holiday homes, brand new cars.

wondering how exactly we all in this together ad should there be mass turnouts under 60 to vote at next general election.

[bigkidsdidit]

My dad spent his wfa on getting his new jag valeted.
Honestly.

[vj32]

I think all benefits should be means tested, including WFA and pensions.

Pensions were originally supposed to combat extreme poverty in old age. Somewhere along the way they became something that all old people were supposed to comfortably live from. People started to believe that you somehow paid into a pot of money that became your state pension, which was never the case. That idea is not sustainable. Unless you are too ill or infirm (in which case you should get a top up) you need to live from savings or work. And yes, given that I am only 30 now I fully expect to have to work until I am at least 70 unless I can save enough money to stop work sooner.

[DuckToWater]

YANBU - baby boomers have on the whole had it easier in many ways than the generations that follow them, yet they are the ones who complain the most about everybody else in my experience and who are most likely to have right wing views and vote Conservative and UKIP.

I don't mind people of that generation who acknowledge their good fortune, but some of them think they have some kind of moral superiority which has led to them doing well in life.

It's not just that generation of course, entitled, selfish people can be any age.

[georgettemagritte]

beast the state pension is not a savings plan, despite the erroneously-named National Insurance - and it never has been. It was designed to be paid out immediately as it goes in, eg NI contributions are not sitting in some kind of national fund somewhere, current NI contributions from those working are paid out again inmediately in the state pension. Because of the effect of inflation and real interest rates, pensioners as a group always take out in retirement more than they contributed in tax/NI. (If the entire state pension for 20-30 years on average per pensioner had to be paid for via their contributions, they would each need to save more than their entire net income for the entirety of their working lives!) The system relies on GDP rises, inflation, productivity and standard of living improvements and population growth to keep working.

This works fine when the birth rate rises steadily or remains at replacement so that number of pensioners is always a steady proportion of the number of workers. However at the present time we are about to see a large bulge of boomers retiring and the proportion if the working-age population is actually shrinking in comparison. Today's pensioners will take out far more than they ever put in, whilst also benefiting from property price rises which mean smaller younger generations will be paying in more and struggling with higher essential costs (particularly housing), to keep the older generations in entitlements they won't ever see themselves. The system doesn't work well in times when standards of living are dropping.

OECD statistics show that pensioners, closely followed by boomers, were the age groups to increase their wealth most (in asset and income terms) during the 1998-2008 boom. In contrast, the only group that saw a drop in income and wealth, compared to previous years and older cohorts, was the cohort who were in their twenties at any point during that decade.

As soon as young people realise this then generational politics will become very very nasty. When pensioners were the poorest group in society young people did not mind paying for them. When young people realise they are being shafted to preserve the entitlements of asset-wealthy baby boomers it will suddenly get very difficult to persuade working-age people that they should pay for health, social and state care for those in the older generation who are not wealthy.

[Beastofburden]

becs- true, the OAP may be a far better employee. My point only works in the artificial situation where all other things are equal, because it was made in the context of whether OAPs needed jobs more than others, not whether they would do them better.

I just wish we had a clear and reliable way to target all benefits to people who were poorest, regardless of age. My MIL is very entitled and complains that she has no state pension in her own right because she never made enough NI contributions. This is somehow my FIL's fault. The fact that she is rolling anyhow on her widow's pension and her capital (all of which FIL earned of course) does not strike her at all. I would happily personally remove every benefit from her in a heartbeat. But I also know many OAPs who live in a very worrying financial situation.

[ParsingFright]

Whereas I think that universal benefits are a great idea.

It's expensive to properly means-test and then police the means-testing of benefits - which is why Child Benefit has been done in such a cack-handed way.

But it costs no more to administer a tax rate at 26% than 25%, because the mechanism's there anyway.

So it makes considerable sense to have flat rate universal benefits wherever it's not completely ridiculous (so not for housing), and to pay for it out of our nice, progressive tax-system.

This also means there's less of a cliff-edge where benefits suddenly stop if you earn thrupence more.

[becsbornunderadancingstar]

wish we had a clear and reliable way to target all benefits to people who were poorest, regardless of age. totally agree. Some young people are in poor health and shouldn't have to struggle to work. Some old people are in excellent health and could be working. Some people can switch on the heating without a second thought, spending their WFA on getting the "Jag valeted" (totally believe you bigkidsdidit and it's just ludicrous isn't it?). Some children live in cold damp homes.

I think the sense of entitlement is the biggest problem 'I've paid in, so now I'm getting something out'. So the preemie baby who hasn't paid a penny in NI doesn't get NHS care then? So a young person with cancer has to worry about getting back to work while still having treatment because they 'haven't paid in' yet? We pay NI so that the system is there for those who need it, not so we can draw it out later for ourselves. It's a tax, not a savings scheme.

[Monty27]

OP you seem to have a dislike for old people. Is that because they've had a long time to pay off their mortgages and have some savings which they hoped would keep them comfortable in their old age? Savings of which is no longer gaining much interest.

YABVU.

[adagio]

Excellent post georgettemagritte

Wish there was a like button

[Madratlady]

If they have managed to save and have a good pension from their job then that's good and they'll probably be ok, but those living on a state pension are going to struggle.

Also those moving into residential/ nursing homes - do you know how much they cost? That soon wipes out any inheritance for children and grandchildren.

It's the same as with other age groups to some extent - those that are well off do fine and those that aren't struggle.

[Beastofburden]

georgette is right in that only state schemes such as the state pension and the civil service get to operate this pyramid scheme. Other pension schemes have to have funding to cover their predicted liabilities every time there's a valuation of the scheme, which if you have a guaranteed pension (defined benefit schemes) costs a bomb.

What I meant though is more the way people see the state pension. I am quite sure they don't see ithemselves as being "on benefits". Lol- what would Daily Fail readers do- their heads would explode

Do we think people would accept a move to make it fully means-tested, so if you had private provision, you wouldn't get it? NI would then be much more about insurance- I am insuring myself against not having a private pension- and not so much about being seen emotionally by people as "saving up".

At the moment it's the other way round. The move to the new higher state pension by nuking the state second pension has meant that people who were contracted out of state second pension will be getting it anyway, even though they haven't paid the higher NI towards it. And there was meant to be a way for employers to knock the difference off workplace pension schemes, but I think it got delayed or overturned, I forget which.

[Cantsleep]

I have no issue with laps getting wfa bus pass etc.

What did annoy me last year was the cold weather payments, when I was on is the dcs got them as they get dla. Now that dh works (and we are slightly worse off due to this) we no longer qualify for it as you have to be on is and dla. We still have ill dcs and a house to heat.

Ds who lives at home with DM and doesn't even have a heating bill of her own to pay gets is and dla so got the payment for every week it was under a certain temp, she laughed, didn't tell our DM who pays the heating bill and went and spent the money on new clothes. I was livid. That's the sort of thing that pisses me off not an oap with a bus pass etc.

[ifyourehoppyandyouknowit]

Massive massive cuts made by LAs to day care provision for older people, social groups, meals on wheels and a variety of other services that allow older people to live reasonably full and independent lives, for a start. Cuts to services such as memory clinics and services for the huge chunk of the population suffering from dementia. Cuts to carers services; many older people are caring for someone. Older people might get to keep their spare rooms for no extra cost, but they're being screwed just as much as the rest of us.

[Cantsleep]

Oaps not laps!

[ivykaty44]

councils are swipping another 25% of social care and that is 25% of a budget that has already had 25% knocked of in the last 4 years so in a total of 8 years 50% will have been knocked off, care in the community for oap is the large majority that the budget is sent on.

How much more do you want to take away so that they have nothing left at all.

I doubt there will be any pension left when I retire as the pot will be dry, there is about a day and a half left in the pot opposed to a weeks worth back in the 1970/80's

[georgettemagritte]

beast, sorry you are wrong, all modern Western financialised pension schemes, public and private, were designed, effectively, as generational "pyramid schemes", piggybacking on gains over time in productivity and population growth. If you save into a private pension what do you imagine happens? Your contributions are not in a savings account somewhere. They are used for speculation and the profits from investment in eg the stock market or property are paid out immediately to those exiting the scheme. The fund valuations are on-paper exercises to show that the apparent value of assets cover the total liabilities, but these are fictions in practice. No private pension scheme can guarantee it can cover all it's liabilities in the future across the life of the scheme - just look at what is happening to a variety of large funded pension schemes now. If you are in a private or corporate scheme, your future pension depends not just on the future economic environment, but also on others joining the scheme below you! (Plus, in the UK and most Western economies, the costs of paying into a private scheme are in effect substantially underwritten by the fact that state-backed pensions exist. If the state pension did not exist, the cost of providing pensions fully privately would be astronomical in order to hedge the future financial risk.)

[DuckToWater]

I don't think older people could have done much about the more fortunate state pension and property etc arrangements they find themselves in. What some of them could do though is stop moaning about the younger people who are supporting their extensive welfare burden with their taxes.

[georgettemagritte]

*its - damn autocorrect!

[TrueStory]

YANBU! Pensioners should be means-tested. Alot of them are poor but alot of them are very comfortable, so not sure why the state is giving them extra cash .

[ivykaty44]

tax is less now though that in the 1980's when I started work the income tax rate was 30% for a basic tax payer duck so now tax is less and the workforce is not supporting the extensive welfare burden - that is why we only live a day and a half at a time in this country rather than a week at a time as we used to do

[ivykaty44]

so not sure why the state is giving them extra cash - because there is lot of them and they vote

[StanleyLambchop]

I found that both my parents were indirectly affected by cuts to other services eg my mother has dementia and trying to find a daycentre so that we as a family could have respite care was very difficult as the funding has been cut and so a lot of daycentres have closed, with those that remain operating more as a friendship club for pensioners who are still of sound mind, but not suitable for the special requirements of dementia sufferers. That is just one example, I am sure there are more.

[ninilegsintheair]

As soon as young people realise this then generational politics will become very very nasty. When pensioners were the poorest group in society young people did not mind paying for them. When young people realise they are being shafted to preserve the entitlements of asset-wealthy baby boomers it will suddenly get very difficult to persuade working-age people that they should pay for health, social and state care for those in the older generation who are not wealthy.

I'd say that was already happening, certainly amongst my circle (later 20's-early 30's folk who are either single or with very young families). The mutterings have begun.

[MadeOfStarDust]

Duck... you do know that pensioners mainly USED to work... and their taxes were used to pay for your education, healthcare etc... as well as their older generation's pensions etc.... everyone moans..