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.

Candy - stastics do say 60-75 are the most well of group in society!

I can see (some) logic behind free bus passes for pensioners but don't understand the free tv licences so would scrap that. Why should everybody subsidise pensioners' tv licences regardless of their circumstances??

Good god - How entitled can you get? Instead of playing victim and moaning about what others have that you don't, try counting your blessings for five minutes.
We live in a country where the government, feed and house you if necessary, and also provide medical care, and all for the bargain price of paying tax. What I pay in tax would certainly not cover medical care I have recieved over the years, financial asistance if I become unemployed, education to the age of eighteen, housing benefit if I needed it etc etc.
Having to pay a bus fare is hardly a 'raw deal'

It wouldn't be expensive to means test if free passes we're given to those in receipt of pension credits.

Lay this is about the appropriate use of public finances. Its not hard to see that the young are getting a raw deal and people are being priced out of the bus.

If you fee tax is such a bargain you should contact hmrc and make some donation.

Is it national ageist week? Kick em out of council houses, take away their bus passes etc on this site.

Take their winter fuel payments as well before a thread starts on that

Just to clarify the age rules for free passes - in London it is over 60.

Oops, should have said '60 and over'

Theo what is wrong about helping people based on need rather than age?

Not all Theo just the wealthy.

Council housing and Universal Benefits need to be treated exactly the same for both sections of society.

If you 'resent well-off people who get free unlimited bus travel' then this thread is not 'about the appropriate use of public finances'. If it were then maybe you should have indicated that in the thread title.

Yes, I do feel tax in this country is a bargain. I have lived in other countries where education/housing/welfare/medical care is not provided by the government. Believe me, you would not want to swap places for a second.

"...where the government, feed and house you if necessary, and also provide medical care..."

what a crock

foodbanks are feeding the hungry, some kids who dont get a free school meal in the holidays dont eat a meal

housing - i suppose you could argue that my taxes pay for extortionate emergency accomodation ( not for single men mind, they aren't always eligable, they dont get housing) becuase the government wont releaset he cash to build social housing

ALL YE ALL YE, get the NHS whilst you can, it will be sold off soon

Having to pay the fares round here is definitely a "raw deal" for a low-income family, laymizz.

It's £5.80 return fare to the nearest big shopping centre (six miles away). You pay for children when they turn five and you're priced as an adult at 16.

Christ I bet the government LOVE all of this kind of stuff and its right, there is loads of this type of shit going on atm. i'm half expecting to see a forced end of life thread soon where the old must terminate when they've passed their usefulness.

People looking in each others bowls to see who has more than them and griping about the small, petty stuff.. while our leaders quaff away on champagne and god knows what else at the taxpayers expense.

There's something really wrong with this picture.. it's scary!

I'm more concerned about the disabled people who have time restrictions on their bus passes. I wanted to start a petition about it.

it will cost more to means test it.

Ah, that old favourite. Funny how that argument applies only to free bus passes and the winter fuel allowance, and not to the many other benefits based on income.

Actually it applies to Child Benefit as well. Hence the current unfair shambles trying to piggy-back off the threshold for higher rate income tax.

It's also why there's so much use of "passporting benefits". You're offering service X but don't want the cost of means-testing, disability-testing, whatever. So you award it to people who can rock up and show their letter awarding them Income Support, or Disability Living Allowance, or whatever.

It causes some bonkers anomalies. But it's because individual assessment plus policing transgressions is just too expensive.

But not for CB apparently.

I definitely know where op is coming from, felt that way myself a time or two when living below the poverty line.
It's all very well saying elderly people have worked hard and now deserve perks, fact is we nowadays work harder than ever and where are our perks?? Seems like that generation got it all: living wages, affordable houses, pensions, much better care in their earlier days on nhs. We work harder for much less and are paying far more. That isn't just anecdotal: most studies of living costs will bear that out and point out that 60's and 70's were an economic golden age for the ordinary working person. When we get to retirement age,there'll be no retirement since we'll haven't houses or pensions and still need to pay rent...

However, I would and do spend more of my time resenting specifically those who have changed all that and put us in the modern situation: the well off middle classes and rich who aren't satisfied with their already large share and are still taking it away from us. Particularly thegovernment of course, but they don't force the behaviour of every individual in the country. Again it can be proven that Income inequality is increasing: I've read wAge inequality is now down to nearly late 19 century levels (dorling, injustice, among others).

But, I am aware that every timeone of these rich (relatively) pensioners get on a bus instead of a car at least they're not poisoning our air.

It's also 'funny' how buses are more expensive than trains while train prices are known to be a national disgrace... Uk is so fucked up I'm only amazed it hasn't broken down fully yet (of course it did a little with credit crunch, which is partly what we're paying for now).

it costs more to administer and chase about everything - if the government are telling me that the millions they are pissing down the drain ...OH NO sorry on various friends of a friend contractors to get universal credit working is about the principle...the PRINCIPLE that those claiming benefits should be flogged according to IDs should go to work when the govt have stifled the economy so much there are no fucking jobs

then the principle of rich old fuckers getting things for free becuase they are more likley to vote tory is wrong

On a lighter note, my dad writes poetry in his spare time and not long ago he wrote a lovely poem about my wee sister saying she wishes she had Paul McCartney's bus pass because he really doesn't need it and she's skint

Stop moaning and do something about it.

Pensioners in London have a good deal because they voted in Ken Livingstone, way back, under the GLC.

Pensioners with final salary pensions got them through joining a union and fighting for them.

It's up to you now.

If they take them from the 60+ you can be sure as hell they will just be relegated to a thing of the past and won't re appear as help for younger or less well off people. This govt isn't about distribution its about cuts

Grey vote - hey if your young try actually freakng voting and maybe someone will care that you get free travel too....

Other than that, protect it. There ain't many other things to look forward to at that age.... ;) (mild leg pulling for the professionally offended) I will be. I'm 37.