to resent well off 60+ people that get free unlimited bus travel

[SuzzieScotland]

I can't afford a car, so I walk, cycle or bus everywhere.

The bus costs almost a pound a mile so it is seen as a treat for me.

A yearly ticket is 1000 or if your a student you can buy a £12 bus I'd card every year and get a yearly ticket that costs 750. This seams far too expensive.

Yet I see many pensioners who run two cars using the bus to get into town or to the airport totally free despite being well off. I think their would be uproar if a 20 pound admin fee a year was applied to these bus passes. In London a year ticket is 3k but anyone over 60 gets unlimited tube and bus despite 100000s of them still in full time work.

Just seams like the young and poor are getting a very raw deal to win grey votes.

[traininthedistance]

If you have a 20's couple vs a retired couple on the same income it is not the same. They both buy the same priced food, use the same priced gas and electric.

Except most pensioners no longer have housing costs - most own their houses outright (oh yes they do - land reg stats show the vast majority of mortgage-free property in the UK, which is to say a lot, as a lot of the UK housing stock is not mortgaged, is held by the over-60s). Or if on a low income, eg. state pension only, they will receive housing benefit. There are only a few pensioners who privately rent. So if most pensioners don't pay housing costs, then yes they will be in a very different, indeed a much more affluent, position compared to a 20-something couple on the same income who need to pay housing costs (which can be well over 50% of income for young people in the current market).

20-somethings today actually have much less ability to increase their earnings over their careers than the current generation of retirees did, because median income in the UK started stagnating in real terms in 2001 and has been falling since 2008 (and won't return to 2008 levels for a long time). Globalisation will hold down wage increases. Inflation is running much higher than pay increases, whereas during the 70s and 80s wage push inflation was higher than general cost inflation (which also helped reduce mortgage debt). Current 20-somethings, if they went up university, also have the income drag of studebt loan repayments paid back through PAYE at high rates of interest (the new fee structure will be repaid at RPI+3%, whereas do you think anyone will be getting pay rises calculated at RPI, never mind RPI+3%?)

For more on bus concession funding, see:

www.parliament.uk/Templates/BriefingPapers/Pages/BPPdfDownload.aspx?bp-id=sn01499

[SweetEspresso]

I am very surprised to see people begrudging the fact that their parents have and use a bus pass when they believe they ought to be paying instead.

As to all this talk of the generations now are much harder up than older ones, I grew up in the '70's and the average person then had so much less than now, some even still had outside loos, let alone far less appliances etc. My parents did buy a house but were married for a very long time till they could afford it and we had no money for luxuries including holidays, takeaways or a colour TV. People now have so much more but still complain they don't have enough money for this or that. Wish I could have had what kids do now when I was young. I'm not begrudging them just annoyed at the complaints.

[traininthedistance]

Sweetespresso you are not separating out normal technological development from wider economic trends. Technology and commodities like clothes etc. have become much cheaper relative to incomes because most manufacturing and production has been outsourced to Asia to take advantage of their very low labour costs. So many consumer durables cost much less relative to the median average income than in the 1970s. Social expectations and educational and employment requirements have changed too - I am required to own a computer and a smartphone (paid for myself) by my employer, so that I can be contacted 24/7 and respond to email at pretty much all hours. I also wouldn't be able to do my job at all if I didn't have a computer, Internet connection and printer at home. I would not get very far in today's job market without them.

However, many things, and some necessities, are much more expensive than in the 1970s - housing, childcare and education, access to legal advice, for some examples. Is it much comfort to be able to afford a smartphone if you have no hope of buying a house or of having a family because the costs are simply too high?

Office of National Statistics data shows that pensioners, closely followed by baby boomers, were the groups who had far and away the biggest increase in income and wealth during the long boom of 1995-2009. Whereas the inflation-adjusted income of those in their 20s actually fell compared to previous generations.

What you think you are seeing is a mirage: cheap Asian imports of "stuff" mean it looks like people have more. In reality they are much worse off than their parents and grandparents, in terms of the big stuff that everyone needs - a food over the head, a secure job, being able to save, plan and afford to have a family.

[traininthedistance]

I am very surprised to see people begrudging the fact that their parents have and use a bus pass when they believe they ought to be paying instead.

My parents are pretty well off (they are just retired so boomers not war-era pensioners who are a different generation). They own a nice house that's too big for them, take a lot of exotic holidays, run two cars, heat the house to tropical temperatures all year round. They bought their first flat aged 22 as students and have never had to rent. They got free university education and were able to afford for my mum to stay at home and not work. I'll never be able to afford any of those things, despite having four times as many qualifications as either of them. They really do not need a free bus pass using money that could be funding the disabled living allowance or keeping some libraries open instead.

[traininthedistance]

*a roof over the head, not a food! Bloody autocorrect, clearly it's time for bed...

[pamish]

I understand that means testing would make it more expensive to administer - it's cheaper and easier to have an automatic entitlement. You do have to claim the pass, it doesn't just arrive in the post. So all those super-wealthy pensioners who are soaking up your taxes, probably don't bother claiming it.

The bus pass does many things - it makes travel affordable for those on low incomes; it stops millions of people using their cars; and (as I realised the day I got mine) it's a health issue, it actually pushes you out of the house, which is good for both mental and physical health.

[Custardo]

where are pensioners supposed to keep warm if they are not on a bus :)

[expatinscotland]

How is it more expensive? You still have to go into the office to get the pass. So go in with your DLA or Pension Tax Credit letters.

[echt]

The government could spend the savings on measn testing the bus pass and use it to publicise all the benefits that the elderly are entitled to, but don't claim, about 5.5b pounds in 2013.

This could involve employing people to go door to assist elders in making these claims.

[Custardo]

employing people - pah, surely this could be a lucrative contract given to one of camerons chums and then the people actually doing the work could be on workfare, which means the tax payer can then also pay his chum for the privilege of taking on a workfare person

[echt]

You're right, custardo. :o

[Thymeout]

Written guarantee - you think assets should be taken into account as well as income?

I'm living in my asset. I can't use it to pay for transport. I've already downsized once. I don't think the value of the house an applicant lives in is taken into account for any other sort of benefit.

And bus passes only for those on pension credit? Pc tops up your OAP income to £150 p.w. max.

So we've moved now from no bus passes for the elderly rich to bus passes only for the elderly poor? Just to repeat, being old costs money. And as you get older, you can't walk far, cycle or drive, so you have to use public transport, if you're lucky enough still to be able to get out of the house.

It's grossly unfair to treat them the same as the able-bodied younger generations, with the health and strength to take on additional work if they need it.

Iseen - my solution to the housing problem would be rent-controls - which we had from post WW1 to John Major - and incentives for LA's to invest in massive social housing builds. No Right to Buy. Upping the affordability quotient in private developments at the planning level would help, too.

[Brittapieandchips]

I reckon that massively cheap bus travel for all would cause more people to use buses, which would increase the quality and quantity of buses and introduce more routes and reduce the cars on the roads making buses faster, and create more interaction between people thus improving society.

It would be a massive faff to start though, there would be a while where it cost loads until it started working.

[SuzzieScotland]

Really well said train. I wish some of the people with the "youngsters have never had it so good" people would read your posts.

Sure thanks to technology people can have a smartphone for 50 quid, but they can't afford their own home.


Pension credit at 150 PW is very generous compared with JSA at 70 a week minus tax.

[Sallyingforth]

Pension credit at 150 PW is very generous compared with JSA at 70 a week minus tax.
How much tax do you pay on £70 JSA ?

[Thymeout]

Can I point out that PC is a TOP UP to the state pension, which you only get when you've paid NI for a minimum of x number of years? It's not a £150 hand-out. The basic pension varies, depending on earnings related contributions which applied at some point or other, but not now, but is around £100 p.w.

The state pension is contributory, designed for people to live on till they die. JSA is meant to be a short-term safety net.

It's misleading to lump the cost of the state pension into the total benefits bill. Used not to happen and I think they've only started doing it to get voters' support for benefit cuts.

[SuzzieScotland]

JSA is taxed as normal income.

Jsa is also not a handout. Jsa contributions is only paid for people that paid Ni for the last two years prior and is a pitiful amount that is taxed and is not enough to pay public transport, eat nutritional food and pay utilities.

[candycoatedwaterdrops]

If you only receive JSA, it comes under the tax free amount.

[SuzzieScotland]

That's only if your a long term claimant, which is rare.

Most people claim it in between jobs so pay tax on it, although that will be less people now the tax free amount is raised.