to not be surprised that 1/3 of young people are in poverty and they are the poorest people in society

[fruitloop13]

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/the-young-arethe-new-poor-sharp-increase-in-the-number-of-under25s-living-in-poverty-while-over65s-are-better-off-than-ever-9878722.html

Can't say I'm surprised at all. This isn't going to end well.

Just isn't right that they have the lowest income but are likely to have high outgoings.

I'd like to see a rebalance of the tax system to be much fairer (Ni), only give pensioner benefits to the poor pensioners with pension credit, change state pension age to life expectancy -5 years and stop the interference in the housing market so that it crashes to free market values. Anyone else agree?

Darkesteyes You are right but it's not the worst idea on this thread. That was making retirement age actuarial life expectation minus five. Ugh!

It was intended as an example of a horrible idea btw.

It's too late to back peddle now, hun

Andrewfogg- I don't want you to downsize at all. I want your putative house in retirement not to be £1million pounds by removing the pressure on the housing market. It's the heat in the housing market I'm objecting to, not the fact that a retired couple might live in a 5 bed house (which is in fact the situation DH and I will find ourselves in in retirement). I will gladly trade all the gains on our house if it means that our children can buy a first dwelling that is not 12x their starting salary. Basically the heat needs to go from the market.

Sorry, want your house not to be worth £1million.

I should say this scenario is happening to a number of my MIL's friends in the SE- they bought a house 30 or 40 years ago that is now worth a stupid amount of money and are facing a mass of inheritance tax planning, just because they've stayed living in the SE for that time.

pretty much all comes down to housing costs doesn't it really

Gary, imo, yes. It seems easier in countries where housing is still relatively cheap, whether to rent or to buy, for younger people to gain a foothold when they have a job. Here, they could be earning a decent enough wage and still not be able to afford anywhere to live.

I know families on 20k plus who are on HB as they cant afford the silly rents

I am "lucky" as I am in a council house however there was a murder on my street recently and the estate is an absolute shit hole. but the alternative is paying silly money for a private rent in a better area we could be kicked out of at a whim. cos although between us we earn over 30k and DH is in a professional job (management) we would still struggle to get a mortgage as cant save a deposit even paying a lower rent. and if we did get one the mortgage would be twice our rent and unaffordable to us

its a joke

an absolute joke

and fuck knows what will happen when we are old, I just hope and pray there IS still help for elderly as I suggested in a post at the start of the thread

cos we cant afford a pension or anything

Thanks duchesse that clarifies it!

I agree that young people are getting a shit time of it athe moment. I'm dreading my DD going in to the jobs market in a few years.
However, you can't blame pensioners for that. Most of them will have worked hard throughout their lives and deserve to live their retirement out in relative comfort.
However, I do think winter fuel benefit should be means tested. There are many older people flitting off to their second home in Spain as soon as the colder months hit here, so they really should not be entitled to fuel allowance.

Celiclass2
I agree with you in part. Of course current pensioners who have worked hard should be able to live out their retirement in relative comfort. But young people today also deserve to have an opportunity to have a career and a relatively stable job (not zero hour, minimum wages). One where they can meet their household financial commitments whilst saving for a pension of their own.
It is obviously not the current boomers fault that they have enjoyed benefits that others can only dream of and many have been able to retire in their mid fifties with perhaps 25-30 years comfortable retirement in front of them whilst todays youngsters may not even be able to retire until they are in their mid to late seventies.
I like the analogy of the pp of us all scrabbling under the table of the very well off for the scraps.
I cannot, however, understand why some boomers feel they have 'deserved' something that those who are currently paying for the 'something' are unlikely to ever receive - mil I'm looking at you.

Even though youngsters and non boomers have to pay more, work longer with worse employment terms and can only imagine a comfortable retirement. And I'm the generation just after the boomers who feels hard done by because I have to work an extra seven years. Christ knows what will be left for my children.

Charleyy
Please stop spamming the boards.

You either need to pay Mnet to post the survey, or find another way. This is terrible forum etiquette.

Why can't the majority live with their parents until they are better off?

I used to live in Italy, where that happens. It's horrible- resentment and frustration all round. Do we really want to see married couples in their 20s having to shag in their cars in laybys with a newspaper spread on the windscreen for privacy in this country?

The situation for many children and young people currently in the UK is dire. Recent media coverage includes.

'In deprived parts of the UK sexual violence is as bad as in war zones.' Because as people are pushed further into extreme poverty sexual predators move in.

'40% increase in youngsters self harming because of poverty since Coalition came to power.'

'Many children in London are so hungry they are turning to prostitution to eat.'

Also more vulnerable Care Leavers are turning up at homeless hostels because of welfare cuts. Children in care and Care Leavers are at increased risk of self harm and mental illness because of adverse background and on-going stress in a system that does not Care.

For me the most distressing article I have read was by Dr Maggie Atkinson, Children's Commissioner for the UK that the public are less outraged by the neglect of children than elderly people because children in care are portrayed as bad. Of course any intelligent person knows this is not the case.

The media and irresponsible publishers should not portray vulnerable children according to their prejudice. Children should not be a money making racket.

The elephant in the room is how much old people cost the National Health Service, the NHS is becoming an ever growing blackhole for public money and with the demographic structure of the country it is only going to get worse.

There is also the current problem of many women over the age of 70 who get full state pension who have barely worked so the they earned argument doesn't even apply.

So we should take the pensions away of women who didn't work at a time when a woman was expected to leave her job when she married?

And don't forget to parcel out that end of years health care, one operation and 6 months of after care per user!

Pipbin, I am not sure that many reading your post would ever have known about the law/social mores that required married women to stop working. The wide scope of benefits previous generations of women worked/lobbied hard for are now so taken for granted as to be considered natural.

Oh, and for a forum that prides itself on its feminist bent, I am continually dismayed by the number of women who cry out for women to be further belittled, disenfranchised, demonised.

Nomama There are plenty of us still living - men and women - who remember when it was unusual for a woman to go on working after marriage.

The legal requirement in the public service and many private companies for a woman to resign on marriage was suspended in 1939 (for reasons that had nothing to do with women's rights and everything to do with needing women to work!) and never brought back, but the social pressures revived - you can see why men who had been through the war expected their jobs back.

Even in the late Fifties, you need to believe it, women who did were often resented by other women who regarded them as rivals for promotion to their husbands - who needed the money because they were breadwinners while women were only working for pin-money. The women who were discouraged from going on working and are still alive are of course now pensioners.

So when you say The wide scope of benefits previous generations of women worked/lobbied hard for are now so taken for granted as to be considered natural you are right, but some of those adversely affected by earlier attitudes are still very much with us.

Raising a family is a job so women, even though not in the labour market, contribute a hell of a lot.

I think there needs to be a restriction on the Winter Fuel allowance and the bus pass. Not everyone needs it and giving it just because they have paid National Insurance contributions is silly. The under 25s are still expected to live with Mum and Dad, and have naff all prospect of getting on the housing ladder. The ESA was scrapped and for a great deal of teenagers at college, this was all they received to help them pay for books and travel. By showing this age group that no one cares, what sort of problems will this bring?