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.

Most of their friends are in the same boat.

"most people of retirement age worked in places like the mills or done manual jobs, they went to war and those that didn't lived through it. they didn't have all the mod cons that todays generation had to make life easy."

Peggy I think that's going back a further generation. I'm 40 and you're talking about my grandparents there - mills, war etc. My parents - mid/late-70s - were born during or just before the war and have had much more of the post-war boom lifestyle that others are talking about. Not that they haven't had it hard in some ways, but there's no doubt that their generation have peaked in terms of retirement, pensions and 'free' services (higher education for instance). The people you're talking about would be 90s+ now and I don't think anyone's begrudging them anything. And I don't even think it's about begrudging - I certainly don't begrudge by parents their comforts, nor their hard work getting them - but there's no doubt that they are comparatively well off and have been lucky, with a good fortune due to forces beyond their control that relate more to history than hard work (every generation does that, it's not a competition).

Well I'm sure the OP will be back at some point. I expect she thinks this is going swimmingly.

went to war

If you were 18 the day WWII ended you would now be 91.

worked in the mills

Here is a timeline of the cotton industry for the C20th. Mills were not a massive employer in our lifetime, nor that of my parents. By 1958 we were importing more cotton than we made.

1912 - The industry reaches its peak, producing 8 billion yards of cloth

1914 - World War One - cotton can no longer be exported to the foreign markets. Those countries set up their own factories.

1933 - Japan introduces 24 hour cotton production and becomes the world's largest cotton manufacturer

1950s - Huge influx of workers from the Indian subcontinent allowing extra shifts

1958 - Britain becomes a net importer of cotton cloth

1959 - The Cotton Industry Act is passed to help modernise and amalgamate the industry

1960s/70s - Mills are closed across Lancashire at a rate of almost one a week

1980s the textile industry of the North West is over

Lived through the boom times? Also lived through the 12% mortgage interest rate!

It is what it is. As a previous poster said earlier would you just take it from them?

However, I do so hate the, they worked hard all their lives argument. My df retired at 50 but we were on income support for many years and my DM worked for about one year of her life then was a 'SAHM' for the rest of it. Although I think mainly the stay at home bit is what actually applied. However, I know other people's parents that worked hard and are often still working or only just retired.

It's not one hive mind of baby boomers. Some worked hard, some didn't. Some are selfish, some aren't. Just like today and just like it's always been.

The issues are because of government failings. Not the people who do or don't benefit from it.

Lived through the boom times? Also lived through the 12% mortgage interest rate!

Also lived through 20% payrises.

Peggy. Please can you tell us which war the pensioners fought in. Most of them would have been young in the 60s which was according to my mum was the best most carefree time to be young

I would be more worried if pensioners where not wealthier than your average family. What's the point of working if you can't save for old age. If you can't have enough money to retire comfortably.
I hate it when people expect retirees to be poor when their expenditure would be less because of mortgages being paid off, living in a smaller rented flat after down sizing and so many other factors that come with old age.

12% - higher than that when I first bought (and it it was higher again in the 1970s)

But that's not really the point, is it? There is a slice of the population, around 80% of whom are going to be better off than previous pensioners and probably better off than subsequent pensioners. And it's coinciding with the post-War baby boomers, who have done pretty well materially.

DrivingMeBonkers My concern - as you must know - is the suggestion that empty-nesters are under some sort of duty to downsize into a flat or maisonette which as PortiaCastis says is just supposed to be there for them. They are not. It's up to them.

If you want to encourage it, how about a Downsizer's Bond which older people could buy when they downsize? it would be encashable only on death, without interest but revalorised in accordance with the index of house prices. The increase would be free of CGT (as in the case of the sale of the home after death) but would count for Inheritance Tax (ditto) - but it would not count as an asset if you end up needing residential care - so the homeowner downsizes, a bigger house is released onto the market, but the inheritance is protected.

I don't buy the "worked harder" either, they did work hard. Of course they did. But no harder than your average 20/30 something does now, if anything your average 20/30 something "hang on I've just got to reply to this email" probably does more hours.

I dont begrudge them being better off, its mostly luck of that generation. E.g council houses, being able to buy a family home on one average wage, good final salary pensions. But i do begrudge the attitude that we could be as well off if it wasn't for holidays, mobile phones, costa and iPads. We can't, there aren't council homes for most people, there aren't final salary pensions, there aren't family homes round the corner from your parents for one average salaries now.

100% agree on the generation now aged 55-70.

DH and I parents divorced so have 4 sets of in laws

Half went to uni for free, amazing pensions, own houses worth £800k plus mortgages paid off, b2let homes

Other half didn't, still have final salary pensions (nurse teachers train driver), also huge equity

Basically although DH and I earn a decent amount we will never be able to retire at 55-60 like these 8 did and have.

All 4 sets on cruises x3 per year, New York etc. All have new cars. All enjoy theatre in London x4 P-a, etc

Neither of us have inherited a dime from deceased great grandparents (in laws and parent sets said they need it for heir old age can't see why).

Sometimes we are extremely resentlful. Never been given a penny by any of them. Yet expected to listen to constant cruise luxury restaurant theatre experiences.

Doesn't bother me.
Why turn one group against another?
My mum and dad both worked 2 jobs when we were growing up.
Kids are spoilt these days, want it all for zero effort

I'm also a bit uncomfortable about the "They worked hard for it" and "they paid for their pensions".

There are a significant element of pensioners who will have benefitted from council house sales, and a wider group who have benefitted enormously from the rise in house prices. That's luck, not hard work. Many will have worked in organisations with generous occupational pensions - that's more likely to be luck than wisdom.

In reality, the current working population are paying for the state pension collected today. Younger working people are unlikely to get anything like a state pension they can live on (or a free at point of use NHS in future).

There is also a significant section of pensioners who don't have assets, live on benefits and just scrape by.

Neither of us have inherited a dime from deceased great grandparents (in laws and parent sets said they need it for heir old age can't see why).

Because it was left to them, not to you?

Yet expected to listen to constant cruise luxury restaurant theatre experiences.

People can be rich and boring or poor and boring, can't they?

My parents are better off than we are, they regularly go on holidays, buy new cars, etc. Although their mortgage is paid off now so that probably helps. But during their working lives they struggled, couldn't afford a car until me and my brother left home, very cheap uk holidays, didn't go out for meals, etc.

So I think although they're better off now they're pensioners, we're better off during our working life than they were. We don't have a high income but we can afford to run a car, we can have evenings out, buy occasional treats, etc.

So I suppose it balances itself out. They often joke about going 'ski'ing (Spending Kids Inheritance).

Lilly

National Service did not end until the mid-60s, and for some included theatres of war (notably Malaya) and there have been very few (if any) years since military service became voluntary when people have not died in war zones when serving in the British Army. So yes, plenty of wars to choose from, sadly.

My mother is wealthy and I'm very happy for her. She worked hard with bringing up children and being overlooked for promotion because of it. She was eventually rewarded with a decent promotion that bolstered her pension considerably.

I don't deny her one bit her luxuries but she herself is alarmed at how young people nowadays can cope (she is in her nineties). She always gives generously to her family with the philosophy that you can't take it with you.

i think peggy had a 'monday morning ' moment so we should let that one go, todays pensioners would have probably worked hard, raised families and had their hardships so why shouldn't they be reaping the benefits now ?
i feel for my dc that they might not own their own homes but no one is entitled to that outcome, our mortgage is finished so dh and i are better off but it still isn't easy, it will be harder for the younger generation but then there have always been difficulties.

Dont begrudge them as someone said its not their fault they lucked in

My husbands retirement will be a lot "poorer" than our parents retirement

But its not down to working harder...or paying in....or no HP (hahahaha) or living /fighting through the war

My inlaws are 72 this year, they didnt live through the war and there are not many people left alive who fought in it

Haha, the pensioners referred to in this are in occupational pensions, own their own homes, and 'may still be earning '.

Don't we expect to be living on a tight budget when we have children to support, are starting out on s mortgage or paying rent for a family sized house, and at the earlier stages of our working lives, pre promotions and pay rises?

People have planned, worked, saved, invested.

My parents, 84, are just about OK, not wealthy, not poor. But as young parents they didn't expect or enjoy half the trappings that families now see as standard necessities. They put hard graft into stuff that we would now pay for.

Their childhood was scarred by war, loss of family members, my Dad was one of the last to give up a year doing National Service (some gap year! ), they worked bloody hard for a better future having lived through rationing and war.

There must be huge numbers of pensioners who lived through the same things who scrape a breadline living: thank goodness, otherwise things would be so unfair, right?

Well said Boppity

There are also the other factors or free medical, and dental prescriptions. Reduced/free travel on public transport, concessions. It's a complete myth the poor old souls are existing on a state pension alone. The access and entitlement to welfare sate does not evaporate the day you access a state pension.

www.ageuk.org.uk/money-matters/claiming-benefits/benefits-calculator/

mpsw Right. The only year since sometime before the First World War when no British serviceman has died in action is 1968. And yes, some of them died in dirty little colonial wars, but they were still human beings who died.

My parents. My Dad had a job that took him around the world to amazing places and believe me that's where he preferred to be, generous pension but not a professional job. My mum stopped work in her forties. Dad was earning more than enough. I was old enough that I did all childcare for my sibling when she did work, so they never paid a bean in childcare. They bought my grandmothers council house for pennies and live there now. They go on four holidays a year, get their bus passes, free prescriptions blah blah blah. Yet still they vote Brexit on behalf of the rest of us, moan about the workshy poor and younger generation and I have had to remove my Dad from FB because of the constant memes to that effect.

ALL their friends are in the same position. I don't begrudge it but I wish they'd STFU about how lazy today's youngsters are and just one time acknowledge how good they've had it.