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AIBU?

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Original poster

to think giving bus passes and winter fuel payment to JSA cliaments by taking it away from wealthy pensioners is not "punishing pensioners"

183 replies

dhdjdbrjrkbr · 03/02/2015 17:37

I live in a very marginal constituency, lib dem won by narrow margin.

Anyway I wrote a long letter to all the parties I'm thinking of voting for.

Mostly they ignored the points I raised and pointed to useless policys like help to buy (that just exasperates the problem).

However the Tory guy said re bus passes and winter fuel payments he called it "punishing pensioners" to not give them universally.

The rest of the letter was bland crap, but this point really annoyed me. When I was on JSA luckily I had support from my family to get through, but I really needed them and it was very grating when I was often spending more than I got on JSA On buses to hear pensioners talking about their cruises or extensions.

OP posts:
drudgetrudy · 03/02/2015 22:34

OP no wonder MPs are scared of you loons
are you referring to pensioners.
If so I do take offense and consider this to be an ageist generalisation.
Some pensioners do support means testing.
Please be aware that there are well off and poorer people across the generations.
I accept that overall younger people are having it harder at present.
Dislike your tone though.

1944girl · 03/02/2015 22:38

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

keepitsimple0 · 03/02/2015 23:10

How we can change that God only knows!

why should we change it? Those two people you mention are running their homes as they choose. They should do what they want as long as they don't want me to pay for it.

We both worked all our lives and paid taxes and are still taxed as we have private pensions.

you do know that most people much younger than you won't have any of that?

Hillingdon · 03/02/2015 23:29

Keep it - are you saying there will be NO pensions? I think my parents generation have one thing the younger generation aspire to - their own house.

I doubt my DS will be able to afford anything unless we help him. I brought my first property at 23 with a boyfriend (and it was in London!)

Floisme · 03/02/2015 23:32

I've no objection to winter fuel allowances being means tested. I am however a little tired of this constant insinuation that a pension is some kind of golden ticket.

When I read my pension forecast - and my husband's - I break out in a cold sweat. When we retire there will be a small lump sum which we're determined will be for our son because he's young and god knows he'll need it. As for our income - it'll drop like a stone. We'll do well to manage one holiday a year never mind 5 and any cruises will be down the Leeds-Liverpool canal.

That - whatever you may be hearing on the bus - is he reality of retiring. And I'm one of the lucky ones.

SoonToBeSix · 03/02/2015 23:34

I am disabled and need the heating on an awful lot. I get zero wfa , however healthy pensioners who have a higher income and some even spend the winter months in Spain receive wfa. How is that fair?

Hillingdon · 03/02/2015 23:38

I think at the next election people will vote for the party that they think will do something for them and stuff the rest of the country. Some of the answers here are literally me, me,me. What about me!

keepitsimple0 · 03/02/2015 23:42

How is that fair?

it's not.

Casperthefriendlyspook · 03/02/2015 23:45

I know means testing is expensive, but there are people of all ages who worry about heating their homes in the winter.

Here's an example - A few years ago, I was made redundant through ill health. I didn't work for 17 months. My savings ran out after 10 months. I was single, childless, no kids at the time. I had been in a well paid job though, so had a mortgage and a certain standard of living (which I cut back on, obviously). I received ESA of about £240 a fortnight. My mortgage was £420 a month. Didn't qualify for any housing benefit. I hardly heated my house all winter as I couldn't even cover my mortgage.

My parents got WFA (which they ended up giving to me to live on). They didn't need it. Had holidays, ran two cars, etc. There must be thousands of other people like me out there. Thankfully I came through it, but why should other people suffer just because they're not old enough to get WFA?

Sorry- that's long! Blush

Preciousbane · 04/02/2015 00:02

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

HopeClearwater · 04/02/2015 00:04

1944girl said We both worked all our lives and paid taxes and are still taxed as we have private pensions.

The trouble is that people 20, 30 or 40 years younger than you will also be able to say this, both now and when they retire, but they will be much more likely to be less well-off than you. Where are the final-salary pension schemes now? How much greater a proportion of their earnings will they have had to pay in property costs? Much more than your generation did.

It is not pensioner-bashing to make these observations.

HopeClearwater · 04/02/2015 00:05

Basically your resentful of a generation that may have benefited from certain policies that they didn't actually formulate or write

But they voted for those policies!

keepitsimple0 · 04/02/2015 00:09

Basically your resentful of a generation that may have benefited from certain policies that they didn't actually formulate or write.

what do you mean they didn't write them? They support them. Tories are supported by the elderly. And guess what? The tories never curtail the handouts to the elderly.

Oldsu · 04/02/2015 00:21

wont they keepit?

Senior Citizens claiming Pension Credit will soon be subject to the same draconian system of monitoring and case reviews as the disabled and jobseekers, when the ‘assessed income period’ system is abolished in April 2016.

The Conservative-led Coalition Government included this nasty little time-bomb in its Pension Act of last year; at the moment AIPs are granted for people aged 65-plus and last for five years, during which recipients do not have to tell the Department for Work and Pensions of any changes to their income or capital but, from April 2016, they will.

People aged over 75 when the AIP is set are normally allowed it for an indefinite period but, again, this will cease from April 2016. The government will periodically harass people in their twilight years, for the sake of a few farthings.

It is expected that the abolition of these periods will have a huge impact on those least able to defend themselves – people who receive a life cover payout following the death of a partner, or those trading down in house size, or people carrying out any of the adjustments that may be necessary on retirement.

Many will lose all entitlement to Pension Credit – but are currently unaware of the plan to cancel Assessed Income Periods.

HelenaDove · 04/02/2015 01:15

Oldsu that post about yr dad is heartbreaking. I hope he is ok now Thanks

My parents are both still working and are 79 this year and i do worry about their health especially my mum.

HelenaDove · 04/02/2015 01:19

Oldsu that post of yours at 00.21 should go up on billboards everywhere. IMO.

HelenaDove · 04/02/2015 01:21

Sounds like their way of sanctioning people who dont have to go to the Job Centre.

Oldsu · 04/02/2015 07:16

HelenaDove yes he is ok but what about the old people who don't have family to help them how many are struggling on because no one says hang on why aren't you getting this that and the other?

Oldsu · 04/02/2015 07:39

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/...t-told-10021877.html

anyone who thinks pensioners have it all and are ring fenced against cuts should read this, another case of a pensioner who didn't know where to go for help with tragic results

drudgetrudy · 04/02/2015 09:00

They voted for these policies--not all of them did. Do you think the mining communities loved Thatcher? Those miners are now pensioners if they are alive.

The old support the Tories--not all of them do.

What preciousbane said-setting one demographic against another like this whilst those at the top grow richer and richer just allows them to keep screwing us all over.

Some posts on this thread are unacceptably ageist.

MoanCollins · 04/02/2015 09:10

Preciousbane so basically your resentful of a generation who benefited policies they didn't actually formulate or write.

Yes. Because that generation's parents formulated policies which benefited their children too. But when it came to that generations turn to write the policies they gave their children two fingers, took away the benefits and left them with a mountain of debt.

PtolemysNeedle · 04/02/2015 09:32

OP

I'm talking about taking £100 off someone who wouldn't notice the difference

Its totally a myth. Would cost nothing to give wfa just to people on pension credits

These two things that you are saying contradict each other, so which is it you want? You are saying both that you only want to take WFA away from wealthy pensioners, as well as saying that you only want WFA to go to pensioners that qualify for pension credit.

You must be missing the fact that not qualifying for pension credit does not make someone wealthy. In the same way that someone who just misses out on qualifying for FSMs for their children does not make them wealthy.

There have been some valid points here made about why we should perhaps means test the WFA, I don't agree with them but some are good points. It doesn't matter though, because if you genuinely only want to take WFA and buss passes away from the wealthy, then there will have to be another round of means testing, and as the WFA isn't actually that much in the grand scheme of things, it wouldn't result in more money being available for anything else.

If you can't understand that, then you really do come across as if you just want to have a pop at pensioners because you have some weird personal resentment against them.

MythicalKings · 04/02/2015 11:42

But when it came to that generations turn to write the policies they gave their children two fingers, took away the benefits and left them with a mountain of debt

Bollocks. Both my DSs are doing fine, buying their own houses and paying into pension schemes.

keepitsimple0 · 04/02/2015 12:10

Some posts on this thread are unacceptably ageist.

of course not all of them due. But polls show they are more likely to support tories by a long way.

Is it ageist to quote polls?

keepitsimple0 · 04/02/2015 12:10

due -> do.

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