to think the poorest pensioners in the UK aren't actually that poor

[twistedsista]

The minimum amount a pensioner will get at the moment if they have made no provisions is 7714.2 pa tax free + free bus / train (depending on areas) + winter fuel allowances + warm home discount + free perscriptins + consesionry prices for many things etc and most bought homes when they were reasonable so they have minimal housing costs.

Compare this to a single person on nmw who could be paying 25 a week on bus travel, 130 a week on rent with no hope of buying. they have to pay tax and if they are under 45 they will never get the benefits that they are paying for pensionrs to have at the moment.

I'm not being ageist, just looking at the sums

I'm getting sick to the back teeth of threads like this on MN. What the actual fuck are you basing your opinion on, OP, that you can categorically state that the poorest pensioners are in fact not poor at all? I've worked in elderly care for over 20 years, and I've had sleepless nights about the old people I know being unable to feed themselves or fund adequate care to properly meet their needs - not what SS say they need. Perhaps you are confusing the baby boomer generation, now entering their pensionable years, with those in their nineties - plenty of whom are struggling to survive.

I've got a cousin with disabilities who's got thousands in the bank. I wouldn't think to come on MN and start a thread suggesting that people with disabilities are rolling in it .

I think mn should set a new rule that goady threads like this are cut out. A decent explanation with some links to resources would be ok, but sitting on the fence calling for a fight isn't right really.

I think there is a MASSIVE conspiracy of silence on this whole issue. I acknowledge that SOME pensioners are very poor, and increasingly as the years go by SOME pensioners will, notwithstanding their financial and material wealth become increasingly isolated and lonely for various reasons.
However in general I think it is true that as a cohort they are extremely comfortable and well off compared with previous "pensioner" co-horts and I think that there is a massive wall of silence and defensiveness if anyone in society tries to discuss it.
Anyone on this thread who says "YABU, my grandma is poor" or "I worked hard and paid my taxes all my life, I deserve it" - is citing an individual circumstances which does not disprove the general fact that the over 55 /over 60s in society are extremely wealthy in a way which has a massive impact on younger generations for decades to come very well put, I'm being vilified just for doing the maths and questioning it.

This idea that most pensioners are poor, cold and unable to feed themselves was true about times gone by.

It isn't a goady thread, it is a thread asking about the transfer of money from the younger generation (who are working to pay for this generation's pension and other benefits) to the older and the cultural, economic and social consequences of this. In a finite budget the decision to give winter fuel allowance to pensioners regardless of their income or free bus passes means that other things aren't funded, such as Sure Start or a Library.

The title is clumsy I agree.

But twistedsista you didn't say the cohort in general, or the larger number of pensioners.

You specified "the poorest pensioners".

You're claiming that NO pensioners are poor, cold and unable to feed themselves. Which is just as unrealistic and unhelpful as generalisations that all pensioners are poor.

Also, more pertinently - pensioners vote. It's in the interest of all political parties to keep them happy.

Plus there's a certain amount of PR involved here too.

Conduct a poll and ask if people would rather the government looked after:

1. single mothers
2. OAPS

and I am pretty sure I could predict the outcome.

ComposHat Today's pensioners were yesterday's contributories.

There is a squeezed middle in existence for pensioners as well. Owning your own home is great, but maintaining it is expensive. Don't forget we're talking about a chunk of a generation whose pensions were horribly mismanaged/missold at various points through the 80's/90's. Their houses might be great at the beginning of retirement, but as the years tick by, finances dwindle and health takes it's toll, lots of problems start cropping up. It really isn't unusual to see the scenario highlighted in this thread of someone living in two rooms and the house falling down around them. Of course there are options to remedy those situations but a mixture of emotions, navigating various institutions and fatigue don't make it an easy option for everyone.

And I think it's important to remember why the pension age is being raised, 60-90's is a huge age range. Looking at the current pensioners isn't really an indication of how their living standards will be in twenty years time. I suspect that standards will decline quite rapidly when costly health issues kick in for the current lot in their 50's/60's. People's standards of health are way above anything we've seen before to have a true handle on what the situation will be like in ten years time.

I don't think resentment helps anyone, sympathetic restructure of our welfare system is what's needed and I don't think decisions borne from envy are going to work for anyone longer term. Cutting off noses to spite faces springs to mind.

The problem is this - there IS a conspiracy of silence. Posts like the ones from 6cats3gingerkittens, JockTamsonsBairns, unrealhousewife are so instant - like the squashing of a fly as soon as any discussion in any forum is ever initiated, whether clumsy in it's phrasing or not.
Just watch a few episodes of "Question Time" when intergenerational inequality is raised and INSTANTLY there are the baby boomers, heckling, whistling, screaming down the person who raised the question. The daily mail is literally FULL of baby boomers screaming on a daily basis about lazy entitled money wasting "young folk" who have failed to get on the housing ladder because they bought an IPad (which they need for work but lets ignore that).
Then as soon as they have beaten down those who raised the question in the first place their parting shot is always "but you young folk cannot be arsed to vote can you? so its all your own fault".

Sincerely I don't think there is any incentive on young folk to vote and these type of daily "interactions" between the generations will ultimately result in one thing and one thing alone:

A large percentage of the older co horts will be increasingly resented and lumped together. Yes there will be exceptions for those who privately are supporting the younger generations behind closed doors, but for all those who shout down any sensible discussion about intergenerational fairness, I cannot see how there will not be long term implications for that generation as a whole. Yes they are undoubtedly extremely powerful at the moment due to their financial wealth, but if younger people increasingly resent them as a co hort, is it not just going to manifest itself in negative ways at the years go by? - for example the bright, wealthy and enterprising youth investing in extremely expensive "new age" old age pensioners homes whereby they leverage the wealth out of the very wealthy baby boomers, the sons and daughters of others who increasingly reject the old "duty to visit the parents" and leave their aging parents alone and lonely in their final days etc. It is a bit short sighted of baby boomers to think "I have money, that will cushion me". Health is your wealth at the end of the day, not necessarily £££££

I don't think your question is entirely unreasonable. it is something that needs to be discussed. There is a whole section of baby boomers pensioners that really ' never had it so good' They reaped the benefit of lower cost of buying a house - taking inflation into account, Grant funded university education. Free dental, free prescriptions and a huge amount of them had low or non contributory final salary pension schemes. All of those very helpful bonuses have now been closed to average working families. This has created an enormous amount of very wealthy pensioners who instead of living an expected three score and ten years (roughly ten years on very healthy pension) now live twenty plus and believe it to be their right to maintain the same life style as when they were working. It simply cannot be right for someone living in a large 4 bed house with a couple of hundred grand in the bank ., a couple of cruises a year and a holiday home in France to receive a winter housing allowance and a bus pass !! (and yes I am describing a couple I know very well !) they always make a fuss when it arrives every year telling me they don't really need it but will put it towards next cruise so don't eat into savings so much I accept we all have to tighten belts but why are pensioners exempt ?? why is it taboo to means test this... it could be easily linked to the savings element for pension credit to save on admin because this benefit has extraordinarily high cut off for savings. - 65k plus for disabled pensioners. Thus keeping it for the middle incomes but saving it from people who really don't need it.. Surely the reason pensioners are sacrosanct cannot be that they are the government's voter base - can it ?

Few things. People on nmw would probably get some help with rent.
Pensioners who rent will probably get all their rent paid.
My mum paid no rent and but also received some pension credit and extra help due to disability but she was able to help my sister pay her bills as she was frugal.
Plus many pensioners have benefited from retiring at 60 or 65. Now we have to wait still 68.
I feel sorry for single people on jsa who are over 60 but still have to live on 71 because of pension age rise.
I kind of agree with you op though.

This is such a generalised discussion, but fundamentally people forget that a pension is not a benefit. It's money that always belonged to you. That fact can't be changed by cutting and means testing, that would be stealing money from someone who has worked for it.

It might all be unfair but that's largely the reason that it is.

I think those newly of pensioner age (eg my parents) are pretty well off as a group. They tend to be fit enough to work if they want to, or volunteer, or do clubs, or whatever. They paid off their mortgages despite years of >10% interest rates, and have comfortable final salary pensions.

But when you look at those 80+ who need three jumpers and a bar heater even at this time of year, just to stay alive, well that's a different matter.

And Age UK tells us a large proportion can go days without hearing a human voice that isn't cout of the tv. Ho

When the state pension was invented, life expectancy was about two years older than the pension age. The gap is now more like twenty years. That's a problem.

You're unaware of National Insurance pension contributions for SAHP and the disabled, then, unrealhousewife?

And come to that, payments into private pensions don't have to be earned either. IIUC, if I had unearned income from, say, inherited property, I could pay that into a pension scheme and get 40% tax relief on it.

What a badminded OP. Very badminded, considering that nobody gets younger as they age. Pensioners, by definition have mostly worked all their lives. The onus on generation Y is to see that times will never be so simple again (generation X, my generation best wrap our noggins around this, too) and cut their cloths accordingly. This means having a vision of what one wants to do with one's life. How many children you want. Will you be able to afford a child if a partner turns out to be feckless and worthless (male or female)? Do you think that learning Spanish (latin America is on the up and up) or a Chinese dialect would be useful? How do you interact with technology? Do you save (I was brought up not to wait for big money to arrive before I consider saving.i.e a pound a week is better than nothing). Do you feel entitled to a social life, despite financial constraints? If so, why? Have you any "hustling" ability ( meaning can you do two jobs? There are loads of cleaning jobs for a few hours a week out there, to top up "proper" work).

Not every pensioner is some bastion of middle England lifestyle. And if they were, while you are watching their business, (as with anybody who grudges anybody in life, not knowing how they got their things), your life will spoil, so who gives a fuck? They aint you and you aint them.

Mind your own business and see how incrementally your own life improves. There are pensioners better off than you. But there are a hell of a lot of people who through low attainment, bad choices, being born into non progressive families, who have it far worse than you. Be grateful that you are not one of them. Use the nouse (and gall) that inspired you to start this erroneous thread to better use; grab a vision of yourself ten years down the line and start playing the long con. Those "sweet" years before this lot were voted in? They aint coming back. Get used to it.

You pay your stamp for welfare generally, not a special JSA contribution, but pensions are ring fenced. If you share a household with someone who earns well you don't need the allowance.

Pensioners are better off than they have ever been that's true, but that doesn't mean they are all rich!
Govts know that pensioners are the section of the populace who vote and they come up with their policies accordingly.
It's very interesting, actually.
Should my generation (I am 41) live to become oaps I wonder what we will think of the current policies? (Taking away benefit from the young, the disabled and the poor)

The answer is in getting people into retirement communities much earlier on, their property is freed up and their care needs are more easily met. Plus they get to choose where and how to live instead of going where social services put them. This happens a lot in Germany I know.

Yes andrew but their contributions don't even come close to covering what they receive if they enjoy normal life expectancy and earned anything less than a stratospheric income.

most bought homes when they were reasonable so they have minimal housing costs.
got any figures on this?