Pensioners now better of than working families - is this right?

[TeaCake5]

www.theguardian.com/money/2017/feb/13/pensioners-now-20-a-week-better-off-than-working-households

What do you think? I think that this is going to cause more resentment in the medium term.

All of the pensioners today would not have received tax credits, and the generous welfare handouts seen over the last few years. So I guess you could say it balances itself out. I'm sure a lot of today's pensioners would rather have had the help there to raise their children 40 years ago than have a few extra ponds in the bank now.

For many women of my mother's and her mother's generation, they were expected to cease working on marriage or when they had their children. My grandmother's employer would not employ married women do the day before she married was the last day she was in paid employment. By the time she had completed her family, my grandfather was home from the war and considered it his responsibility to provide for his family. My mother had to stop work when she left to have me. There was no entitlement for her to have her job held open. It may have been different for professional people, but certainly for my family, maternity leave was not an expectation. My mum returned to work, part time, once my sister and I were able to go to and from school by ourselves and could be trusted to let ourselves in after school - latchkey kids if you like. Childminders were not really around then - if you were lucky you'd have a nearby friend or relative who'd help out. I believe Cadbury was a big employer who had a marriage bar.
I think it's appalling the way some posters are vilifying older people for ' relying on others financially ', when all they were doing was what was the social norm at that time. And as others have pointed out, there weren't the benefits that are available today.

All of the pensioners today would not have received tax credits, and the generous welfare handouts seen over the last few years

True, but then their pay was relatively higher. Tax credits etc are merely a back-door way for the state to subsides low-paying employers.

I thnk we need to be careful. After world war 2 men came home from fighting,. there was still rationing and a period of national service and austerity and many homes had been bombed so not an easy time but after that we founded the NHS and conditions started getting better. It was almost like we felt we must reward these returning heroes with a fairer more socialist system and we did so for that brief period things got a bit easier (although not for all - countless women who wante d to keep free nurseries and jobs were shunted back into the home to live with husbands who were virtual strangers and had to turn to gin or worse to keep going).

Go back a bit further and things were not as easy. I was looking up the house my mother was born in (she was born at home) in 1929 yesterday. Her parents rented it. When she was 9 months old and her parents had not even been married for one year her father fell to his death in a work accident - he worked at the shipyards as a plater leaving his widow and the baby to fend for themselves. She obviously had to work and benefits were few in the 1930s. She never of course owned a house and most people did not then.

i agree with Ifalied that tax credits just allow the state to subsiside low wages. In fact the state found that on average people were getting £2k tax credits and paying £1k tax - a pointless money go round so they have increased the single person tax allowance to over £11k which makes sense although you still pay NI from about 7300 a year. However the downside is that lots of people cease to be tax payers so are kind of out of the system, earn but don't pay tax. Mind you the UK only brought income tax temporarily to fund a war and then never abolished it so perhaps it's time for it to go. the Financial Times often runs this argument -that if we move to more automation and need many fewer workers it would be fairer not to tax income but instead assets/capital.

howabout yes, it's a guarantee at the moment and kind of compensated for the absent bank interest rates on savings. My point was really that the guarantee won't survive a reversal of rates i.e. It won't ever become a top-up once rates breach it.

really Ifailed * if wages were so high when pensioners were younger how come my dad had to work 3 jobs in the 50s/60s to feed and clothe us.

I have done a comparison on the tax credit site, I used NLW and 30 hours partner at home 2 kids no child care to see what he would have got if tax credits had been around

The 90 (yes that's right 90) hours a week my dad worked would not have entitled him to TCs he would have earned 15k a year more before tax and NI then someone on TCs who works 30 hours a week but that's not a lot is it for working 60 hours a week extra

If he had lost one of his jobs and only worked 60 hours he would have got CTC but still would only be earning just over 3k before tax and NI more then someone who works 1/2 the hours he did.

That is the real issue with tax credits though. There is no incentive to work beyond the minimum requirement because taking account of clawback, NI, income tax etc the marginal rate of tax is 75% ish. Add in HB or student loan or cross over to UC and the marginal rate is closer to 100%. For a single parent the minimum hours are 16 and so at NMW levels everyone is effectively working for the same rate of pay as 16 x NMW with varying degrees of State subsidy depending on their family circumstances.

howabout the low paid jobs have always been there I remember seeing 50p an hour jobs and £50 a week jobs (full time ones) in the JC in the mid to late 90s.

The trouble with ppl doing extra hours while on tax credits is that those extra hours are intermittent and inconsistent and the system at best cant keep up with and at worst cant deal with the whims of employers who have poor organisational skills.

Oldsu
I don't doubt what your father did, however for many ordinary people in the 60s and 70s 1 full-time wage was generally enough to keep a family, without resort to benefits; so presumably wages were sufficient on their own. Move on 50 years, and often both parents are in work and also need top-up benefits.

I had no issue with it until the ladies next door implied that we weren't working hard enough for our money. Both hubby and I have worked full time (I'm on maternity leave at the moment but will have to go back). They both were stay at home moms and didn't have to pay child care costs, but I'm the lazy one.

I'm sure a lot of today's pensioners would rather have had the help there to raise their children 40 years ago than have a few extra ponds in the bank now.

I'm sure that the people who struggled financially when younger are often the same ones who are poor in old age, as many pensioners are.

happy, those neighbours are being really rude and unfair on you. I always worked full time and didn't even have maternity leave but I still know even today withl ong maternity leaves which people seem able to afford even though many only get 6 weeks at 90% pay still means a tough time working with a baby once the husband and wife are both back at work.

I do agree with the point that actually many of us need and want help when we have young children. Most grandparents know that and it's why many of them either do child care or else try to provide some financial support (I just gave all my savings and pension other than state pension to the children (and the government in tax)) as it's 20 somethings oir those with young children who tend to need money most. IN a sense they are benefiting from my political decision always to work full time without maternity leaves for 30 years. Plenty of women didn't and still don't and perhaps won't be able to help their children in the same way financially but might well on the other hand have the time to help with childcare of grandchildren.

I think the generations tend to help each other out and that's really nice. i don't like generational comparisons. I looked up where my grandmother was living when she married and it seems to be some kind of workhouse place actually although may be it also had some rented accommodation on the side of it where she was and her father was already dead by the time she married (he dug coal for a living) - hard lives. Her mother (m y great grandmother) is down as making with an X on a certificate I have from about 1913, presumably because she could not write.