to agree It is pensioners, rather than the rich, who are growing richer.

[marryj]

From someone at institute of fiscal studies -www.ifs.org.uk/publications/7276

www.ft.com/cms/s/0/53a4b2fa-0b69-11e4-9e55-00144feabdc0.html#axzz3LFCf5Gay

From what I see, each year there is a widening generation inequality. Many studies have shown since the coalition came in the young are far worse of but pensioners have never been richer.

The generation with the highest income is now pensioners, despite them having significantly less outgoings as no young children to raise and for most they have paid off their mortgage. Things are very bleak in the job market with graduates with 30k+ of debt taking nmw jobs and only 20% are likely to get out of nmw after 10 years.

Toby thats what i suspect too.

Carer's allowance stops at pension age? Why? in what world does that make any sense at all?

I mean to say, it's not like work - you can't retire from caring when you hit retirement age!

YANBU. My parents both get more money than me per annum from their generous pensions, winter fuel etc than I do working full time!

So 85 people own as much wealth as half the world but you want to talk about pensioners. Really?

The top 1% have 48% of the global wealth.

Even reported by the BBC

Why not have a go at over paid footballers, pop stars, BBC executives etc etc etc. I have worked nearly all my life - except when I had my children. In those days I had to leave work 11 or so weeks before baby due and job was not kept open. No maternity leave etc. A maternity allowance was paid for 18 weeks. The right to return to previous job did not happen until 1975. No family allowance for the first child until 1977. Plus having cared for my sick mum with no carer's allowance as I had reached pensionable age I think I deserve my pension, and my house, which we scrimped and saved for. I bet if I went on about people on benefits who are milking the system you would be down on me like a ton of hot bricks.

I agree that arguments like this are divisive, and on the whole I'm happy that pensioners are better off these days. However there are a couple of things that get on my nerves, namely

1. When benefits such as the winter fuel allowance are discussed there tends to be some bleating from well-off pensioners that they don't need it and it shouldn't be a universal benefit - if you don't need it, donate it to Age UK or something, instead of encouraging the govt to make it means tested or take it away;

1. Where I work we don't do a concession rate for over 60s. We do for students, unemployed people and disabled people and carers. I've been frankly amazed at the anger and sense of entitlement shown by a large proportion of older people who visit. They don't care how we are funded, they just think they should get a concession because they are older. Sometimes they are really rude. We receive no public funding and the customer-facing staff earn just above minimum wage. Most of my colleagues are young graduates with two jobs. I think a lot of older people have little concept of what things are like for younger people these days.

Yes all older people are rich and all younger people are poor!

Yawn!

Um whoever said it student loans are repayable from 15 or 16k. Bloody wish it was 25.

I think Toby is right. It's been reported in the press that IDS plans to cut pensioners TV licences, bus passes and winter fuel allowance.

Do you have link for this. sooty?

So the nest is empty and the parents don't downsize. Instead one child's room becomes a TV room and another a study; probably both with a folding bed so that DCs and GCs can visit.

That is not under-occupation - it is using the space differently. And it is part of what home-ownership is about.

I have a pension on top of OAP. I paid a large chunk of my salary for it and was heavily taxed and paid NI contributions. NI is National Insurance - covers unemployment, health and old age in a wobbly sort of way. When we were paying a mortgage the interest went up to 16%.
We could not afford foreign holidays with 3 children. No home phone till we paid a large sum for it to be installed.
I am happy we are comfortably self sufficient now but we worked hard for what we now have.
I hope the housing crisis is solved but the country needs to build to replace what was sold off.
Looking at what others have is not the way to get it.

echt I'm on my phone so I can't access it but I read it on the Daily Mirror site yesterday morning.

And so what if pensioners are well off? When my mum was young she was seriously hard up. To the point of having to cut worn out sheets up the middle and stitch the outsiders together. She bought old hand knitted jumpers from jumble sales, unpicked and washed the wool, then reknitted it into jumpers for me and my sister.
It's that frugality combined with resourcefulness and sheer hard work which have allowed her the pension she now gets. Quite frankly she deserves it.

Careers allowance does stop but I think there's is something else instead.

The thing is, I do believe it is true, especially when you compare them with the current generation. I simply know so many unfeasably rich pensioners, based on their former employment.

ethelb My FIL walked into a job at 17 that he kept until he retired in his 50s mortgage free and with a final salary pension. Yes he worked hard but even he realises that the same amount of work would simply not pay off in the same way now.

You could be describing my FIL. He has been on that final salary pension for two and a half decades now. Admittedly though he faffed around for a while getting thrown out of colleges before settling into an easy job for life at 24 or 25. Pretty sure he didn't have any quarterly reviews at work either!

MIL did work hard but in a field for which a degree is an absolute essential now - and she doesn't have one as she also dropped out. She also has a generous final salary pension scheme.

Together they have a £400,000 home, an investment buy to let flat and 2 foreign holiday homes as well as three luxury cars and a yacht, all bought for cash, not finance. They are actually completely idiotic with many of their financial decisions, in a way that I or the younger generation simply couldn't afford to be - for instance, they have two large holiday homes next to each other in a country they don't particularly like, are fed up visiting and cannot be bothered to improve enough to rent out, so they simply sit empty and enable them to moan about the taxes that it costs them. They keep buying and selling yachts at a big loss, because they don't like something about them.

Their friends are all similar. They are all ex teachers, council workers, IT tech guys, kindgergarten assistants, yet they all have massive half million pound homes, holiday homes, eat out at the best restaurants and have exotic holidays several times a year (I don't mean Spain or Greece, I mean the Caribbean and the Far East, etc).. They had the luck to live in an area which has seen massive house price rises with a ready supply of well paid jobs for the relatively unskilled.

They are massively critical when DH or my car breaks down or something - they cannot understand why we just don't buy a new one less likely to break down every couple of years. They like to remind us, unprompted, that don't tend to leave us anything as they worked for what they have - we have tried to tell them that we are so used to not having that much even when we have worked for it it isn't even something that crosses our radar, partly because we pay tax to ensure pensioners have pensions, but it falls on deaf ears.

Judging by their friends, they are fairly typical. To be frank, if you were of their generation, and you didn't take advantage of the right to buy for council houses or the relatively easy supply of jobs, and free uni tuition and maintenance grants, unless you have a very good excuse, you have to take some responsibility surely for total lack of planning for your future?

Data suggests that pensioners are more wealthy on average, they certainly are the group with a higher disposable income, however there will be some less well off pensioners who are struggling to make ends meet.

of course. and state pension, winter fuel allowance, bus passes etc should be directed at them not everyone.

State pension, WFA, bus-passes are paid for by taxes and NI which everyone pays. Why the hell should they be means-tested? You don't means-test a private pension.

I mentioned on another thread one of my headmasters who came from a very wealthy background, and whose standard of living was probably not much affected by his salary or his pension. Does anyone say he should not have had his pension because he did not need it?

In the job I do I visit the homes of the wealthy. I am always filled with wonder at how people in their late 20's and early 30's can afford such huge houses. It is such rubbish to put people into categories. There are rich and poor in all age groups. Having a go at pensioners is just nasty.

State pension, WFA, bus-passes are paid for by taxes and NI which everyone pays. Why the hell should they be means-tested? You don't means-test a private pension.

it's free money from the govt. Why shouldn't they be means tested? The rest of us are told to pay for these things. Why should we pay?

private pensions shouldn't be means tested because they are private. Those people sought out and paid for them into their own private pot.

I can see the argument that state pensions should be universal, sort of. Keep in mind, however, all this was started when the number of pensioners vs workers was tiny. that's what made it viable. so, don't kid yourself. This argument that because it comes from NI it should be universal is rubbish. We all know my generation won't get any of that because the demographics won't be able to support it.

They like to remind us, unprompted, that don't tend to leave us anything as they worked for what they have - we have tried to tell them that we are so used to not having that much even when we have worked for it it isn't even something that crosses our radar, partly because we pay tax to ensure pensioners have pensions, but it falls on deaf ears.

Gosh they sound awful. The irony being that they didn't work for their pensions as with most boomers and final salary people they are taking more out than they paid in. So many people thing of themselves as earning the increase in their house price by being a savvy investor when in fact its just rigged policies to inflate the house prices as the whole economy is dependant on them. You are funding them, and they sound very ungrateful and selfish.

When I lost my job despite paying Ni and tax I wasn't entitled to anything as I stupidly saved money for rainy days. Don't see why pensioners shouldn't be treated equally.

I strongly disapprove of the way house prices were allowed/encouraged to soar, but when you say 'rigged policies to inflate the house prices' it wasn't them that rigged them. They were just there when it happened.

Of course most of you would insist on selling your house at the old lower price on moral grounds right? :)

On the same basis if you feel it's wrong for taxpayers to pay for current pensions then feel free not to accept any money when it's your turn.