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.

Excellent post by pagwatch and nokidishere.

So plain that the thrashing of teachers has palled and new targets are needed.

This is a really depressing thread. Is it Thatcher's children talking?

In the 60's there was The Who and 'Hope I die before I get old'.

Now, all these young people envying the elderly. They have their youth and their health and their future. (At least they'll be alive!)

The elderly have none of these and they want their benefits cut?

I know, it's shocking, old people, who have worked and saved all their lives for their retirement actually being able to afford to enjoy their later years. They should all be freezing in rags in the poor house. Shame on them.

The basic rate of tax was 33% in 1979 and took until 1988 to be cut to 25%.

so income tax is much lower now.

Why is the mere mention of the need to evaluate who gets what at a time of huge cuts seen as an attack on the elderly?

Why is this group over-sentimentalized above all others, "worked all their lives" etc (well, maybe some of them did, but they're not alone!) ?

Why is any debate seen as Thatcher's children talking (never voted Tory in my life!) or selfish, envious words?

Why is any discussion in general terms answered with individual examples of hard-working pensioners?? The two aren't mutually exclusive. Of course there are many deserving, hardworking pensioners who have suffered. And others less hardworking etc, just as in every other generation.

toomanycourgettes ".......... My M&D both left school at 14 - absolutely no thought of Higher Ed. They moved into a rented ROOM when they got married , not a house, not a flat, but a ROOM. NO HB, no WTC. They lived in rented accommodation until they were in their mid forties and finally managed to buy a tiny 3 bed semi.

My mum suffered bullying and harrassment at work, but there was nowhere to go to complain.

they never had a new car, never ate out, in fact rarely went anywhere that would cost money, rarely bought 'stuff'.

They are comfortable in retirement, and you know what, I'm really happy about that. their health is failing, and I'm glad they don't have to worry about heating and food bills.

I look at my life and if it's OK, I'm happy. I don't need to be on a level with the jones' to validate who I am, and I don't look at possessions and wealth as an indicator of success.........."

----

I believe I look at my life and if it's OK, I'm happy. I don't need to be on a level with the jones' to validate who I am, and I don't look at possessions and wealth as an indicator of success.........."

• a lesson in how we should live!!

My mother is a pensioner. She has worked part time for most of her life, whilst bringing up her children as a single mother. She did not pay enough tax to attract a full state pension, so receives a mixture of pension credit, and part state pension. She lives in a 2 bed council house. All of her rent is paid, all of her council tax is paid (unlike people on other benefits) and she receives £145.40 a week. She would like to get £300 a week. When I explained to her that if she included her housing benefit and her council tax support, she is indeed on over £300 a week, she said she doesn't include that in her calculations, and wants £300 a week after rent and council tax are paid to keep her in line with everyone else!!

What I don't understand is if state pensions are so low as to attract sympathy from people as to how a pensioner is supposed to survive on a state pension, why is the same concern not extended to single people or indeed couples who are carers, unemployed, childless people on NMW, single parents?

A state pension for a single pensioner is £110.15, and if you are entitled to maximum pension credit, £145.40 per week for a single pensioner, and £222.05 per week for a couple.

Compared to £59.45 a week for a carer, £71.70 a week for an unemployed single person, and £112.55 for an unemployed couple, that makes pensioners 2 and a half times better off than a carer, twice as well paid as a single person on JSA, and on almost double the amount an unemployed couple receives?

If it is so difficult to survive on a pension, shouldn't the govt be giving some attention to the other groups I have mentioned and realising that if a pensioner cannot afford to heat or eat on 3x the amount a carer receives, then it's time to raise the amount other groups of people are receiving?

This isn't a race to the bottom btw, just an observation of mine that whilst it is sad that a lot of pensioners are at the mercy of the govt, they are actually the highest paid compared to almost every other group who are at the mercy of the govt.
I'm not suggesting that pensions are reduced, I am suggesting that other benefits should be looked at and possibly raised.

Personally, I do not come across many pensioners who are happy with how much they receive and they do want more, but how would we afford more when many other groups of people are already struggling?

And no, pensioners have not been hit by the cuts AFAIK, because they would surely make their voices heard loud and clear if they had to bear any cuts, a strategy that young people don't employ sadly.

I hear you, LittleMiss, quite right!

So now it's pensioner bingo. What fun.

Only if you reduce it to that!
It could be a proper discussion of how to cut costs fairly across the generations.

Golly, I wonder if someone could come up with detailed, foolproof plans to cut costs fairly so everyone would accept them and be happy. Oooo, look, a flying porker.

........that makes pensioners 2 and a half times better off than a carer, twice as well paid as a single person on JSA, and on almost double the amount an unemployed couple receives?

so how much should a pensioner receive?

Great post, littlemisssarcastic.

Also noted that someone has pointed out, in a different way, a point that I made earlier: this is not a case of "let's support old people, we are lucky to be young and working and our time will come to be supported". We are, overall, paying more in our lives to support older people who will pay less and have a better lifestyle overall, because the decisions that determine their lives were made in a time of wealth and the decisions determining ours at a time of less wealth (though don't forget we are still in global terms a rich country and no one in this country should be badly off). The decisions were made a long time ago but the bills are being paid now. By us. And if you are going to say "oh no they earnt the money to buy the houses etc" - money is relative. The money they have, those who own houses, is directly at the expense of young people who cannot afford to buy houses (for instance)

I do however note that most of the hugest advantages accrue to those who had a bit of money to play with in the first place: those who were able to buy property, those who were able to buy shares in privatised utilities, those who had management jobs and were able to save or speculate, those in 2-parent families who for the first time had 2 earning adults before it became a necessity, those who were able to benefit from free education. I do accept that all of these advantages were only open to some people. However, NONE of them are available to us now in the same incredibly lucrative way. NONE.

and to those who weren't in a position to get rich in these ways - so they now depend on a state pension - they are no different from anyone else who is (arguably) excluded from work and opportunity (or arguably can't be arsed to work hard enough to be well off), it is just that it was their "then" and it is others' "now". It is no different to say of a 70 year old now, "ah, he couldn't earn enough to buy a house or save" from to say of a 22 year old with a degree and no job"aaah, he can't get a job and get on his feet" - but we don't have all that sentimentality about that young chap do we. why do we think that the old working class are salt of the earth and the young indigent are feckless scum? (clue: I do not.)

A couple of other points:

some said about the young adults of now

"the policies of recent governments have infantalised them"

YY. I could not agree more. We all know this from our children. If you don't give them choice, agency, dignity, respect, they refuse to take responsibility. they see everything as "Their problem", they are alienated and lazy. A teenager who has been asked to choose paint and curtains and help decorate their room treats it completely differently from a teenager who gets lumped with someone else's decor and treated like a toddler. You reap what you sow.

Young people are dependents well into their 20s and instead of earning or being decently paid to study they are sucking a deceptively sweet and tooth-rotting teat of debt (if at university). It is a deracinating and demoralising way to start life.

And similarly:

"The overwhelming majority left school at 15. Even at the direct grant school I attended, many went on to non-degree level f.ed - not universities."

Yes, the overwhelming majority left school at 15, to get jobs, and earn money, and start their lives. No, they did not earn much but it was a start, none of this endless marking time. You were working towards one day having your own home and maybe family. You could make plans.

And non-degree level f ed. It's all called degrees now, but a huge proportion of them are expensive crap. All these degrees aren't equivalent to the degrees of old. I believe young people should all have the opportunity of studying whatever is suitable for them to whatever level is to their benefit, I am not against this in any way, but it is nonsense to pretend that all these "degrees" they are getting now are equivalent to those achieved by a tiny percentage of people in the middle of the 20th century. Flame me if you want, but it is true. Now those true academics have to distinguish themselves by doing MAsters or more and it costs a fecking fortune.

Agree with Georgette. While there will always be rich and poor in every generation the boomer generation did experience great advantages which I dare say they take for granted. Of course benefits to the elderly should be means tested--I feel they are not because the govt sells us an image of elderly frail pensioners which isn't always the case.

Consider this:

• something like 80% of the wealth in the UK is held by those over 55

• across all women in the uK it is women over 65 who are the best off and have the most wealth. See latest HMRC stats on wealth (sorry cant figure out how to send the link)

• many who get the benefits have never worked or 'contributed' -eg many middle class women who lived in one salary families. Yet we don't call them scroungers do we?

• councils are cutting services because an increasing portion of their funds are going towards paying out final salary pensions to the mediocre staff who got to retire at 55. So it's a bit of swings and roundabouts.

The generational rift that exists and is growing is due to this alongside the fact that my parents generation who got hired in mgmt roles straight out of university, who dealt with a completely different working envt (not having to work 80 hour weeks stuck to their iPhone at home) and who benefitted a lot, seem to retain their sense of entitlement and have a very skewed view of what the world is like now for others.

Mildred, i think i love you!

Youare

You are missing the point. The question should be "How much should a carer receive, if pensioners are said to be struggling to make ends meet on 2.5 times as much?"

There is too much wealth owned by the elderly in the UK and yet they are also taking the lions share of the annual state spend, and it's distorting everything.

Nearly two thirds of pensioners are in poverty or on the edge of poverty - Government definition of poverty. No these people are not having it easy.

If you want to argue to tax the rich more, including rich elderly people, I would agree with that.

And my dad started work at 15 years of age - full time. 15 year olds today are still regarded as children.

Don't play this stupid divide and rule game that the rich would like you to play. Look at who has the real power and who should be taxed more.

The government are making cuts everywhere, only the rich are safe.

Pensioners are not all wealthy, a lot of them are poor.

And Cameron isn't going to hurt his majority voters is he, as after all the pensioners are the ones that get of their butt to vote.

Any state's future is in it's working population and especially in it's children, yet that is where the money is being pulled out. We are over investing in our past.

The middle class in the past was very small. If your parents were part of the middle class when young adults, and they are now pensioners, they were very well off.

My mother, like most working class women, worked once the children were at school. These were poorly paid part time jobs. Because unless you were well off and could afford a nanny, there was no childcare.

Once I got a bit older, I was a latchkey kid. This was a well recognised phenomena.

Of course older people have more assets. If you come from a well off family, you don't tend to inherit until you are older. If you are from a well off family, you will probably start inheriting wealth aged 55 plus.

Some of the views on here are just vile.

Older people die every cold winter because they haven't enough money to put the heating on. But to hell with nearly two thirds of poor pensioners.

There's been much media discussion recently about the near disappearance of the middle-class as it's being squeezed out of existence.

"none of this endless marking time" - i find that interesting comment re. youth/young adulthood today. could you flesh out more what you mean youretoast?