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.

I like your downsizing bond idea andrew

I dont begrudge people reaping the benefits of working hard... but i do resent the fact that a lot of people who are all sorted now benefited from low house prices (house I grew up in is worth 4 times what my parents paid), free uni, non fragmented helathcare system, decent affordable social housing, job for life etc.
And when the ladder got pulled up behind them they bitch and moan about our working families generation saying that we'rr lazy and entitled when we'rr stuck paying rent that is higher than a mortage, less job security, high student debt etc.

They've got a better state pension than we will get. I'm paying more and more each month towards a work one and I'll bot be able to retire until 70 if it keeps going this way.
Regardless of income they have free tv licence and free bus travel etc. (I think tbey should be means tested)

So yeah, it annoys me. More should be done for less well off people if all ages and those who got lucky and pulled the ladder up behind them should stop complaining about 20s-30s when we didnt cause this mess.

Kids are spoilt these days, want it all for zero effort

Stupid propaganda, and untrue.

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

Yes people forget this.

My parents are retired and ok wealth wise.

When they got married they were using orange boxes as seats until they could afford a sofa. They had no fridge etc.

Things are different now to then. I think comparing the eras is like comparing chalk and cheese.

I wouldn't mind 12% mortgage interest rates if houses were only 2 times one average salary. Homes now are unaffordable based on a dual income and require huge deposits.

Agreed I am over 50 and my colleagues in their 20s are excellent workers.

Some resentment here about parents with money. It all depends on your attitude to money. I have always thought my money belongs to my family, that means DC as well as me.
We are guilty of being retired with good pensions. We saved hard but now get virtually no interest on those savings which are just eroding.
We have inherited nothing as our parents were poor.
We had huge mortgage when interest rates were 15% but have paid it off. I anticipate most of our savings going to our DC to help them out in the next few years as they need cars / homes.

free uni

Many people my parents age didn't go to uni!

My DF could have done but his DP could never have afforded it.

Most have probably grafted for 50 years without tax credits and housing benefit handed to them on a plate!
Tax credits and housing benefits weren't of a necessity then, the cost of living wasnt out of proportion to the average wage. I'm of pensionable age myself but i don't think anyone should consider tax credits and housing benefits as "being handed on a plate". Wages should be higher and shouldn't have to be subsidised by the government.

If wealthy pensioners paid more tax and had stuff means tested then there would be more for others. Including poor pensioners.

I thought the current generation of pensioners would be mainly one- income familes as most women were SAHMs in this generation? I don't buy the they worked hard argument either. I think all generations work hard.

piglet this is exactly the point though. There still seems to be this idea that young people just need to use orange boxes as furniture and all will be well. Many have no chance of buying a house at all let alone worrying about furniture. This was not the case in past.

12% interest rates were much easier at the salary ratios at the time.

I am sat at a table with all.pensioners at the moment. Without sounding like I am making up examples they are talking holidays and travelling. Maldives, Dohar, South Africa, Arctic, Mallorca, New Zealand and safaris have been mentioned for this year alone. 4 of those for one person. They're lovely people who give their time to our charity freely, but it is a whole other world.

Pensioners pay tax at exactly the same rate as everyone else.

It would probably cost more to introduce means testing than it would yield.

It's certainly true from those I know. And as for the "they worked hard all their lives" perhaps some did. The ones I know had one parent working in pretty much 9-5 jobs. Nothing like the flat out, all hours working lives me and my friends and our partners have.

Our family have NEVER had a holiday, a weeks camping is out of our reach. Our very necessary car is 15 years old. We don't have an iPad, or even a laptop. We both work, full time, dh does shifts. We see one another for 2 hours max a day. We are both degree educated (student loans still not repaid). We didn't have as many children as we'd have liked because we couldn't afford them.

My mother, a single parent, who never worked more than a couple of hours a week owns her house, now worth c.£300k outright and retired at 55.

Our mortgage on our too small, decrepit house in the wrong end of town won't be paid off until we're 65

I still get eye rolls should I dare mention my fatigue with the sheer drudgery of our lives

piglet this is exactly the point though. There still seems to be this idea that young people just need to use orange boxes as furniture and all will be well. Many have no chance of buying a house at all let alone worrying about furniture. This was not the case in past.

Many people didn't buy houses or furniture in the past either.

I really think this sneering at pensioners is distasteful.

My DP worked bloody hard nothing 'fell in their lap' like you are insinuating. They scrimped and saved for everything they have, including at times choosing between paying the mortgage and eating!

I'm 61 and my wife is 56 and we have taken early retirement.....we are comfortable and no more than that, certainly not rich. Both of us worked for companies and had the benefit of final salary schemes and were on good salaries. The state gave us both a free university education and we repaid the state by becoming higher tax bracket earners. The questions people don't ask, but should, is this. Where are the final salary schemes? They have gone, why is that? It appears to be a case of the very rich getting richer and those who help provide that wealth getting poorer. We have 4 x kids between us, one will earn more than either of us, his future is assured. My daughter teaches and won't earn half of what either of us did (but she loves teaching). The jury is out on the other 2 and their earnings prospects. None of our kids has a final salary scheme only the one out of the 4 is putting (£275 a month) into a pension pot. We have the prospect of the gig economy, automating jobs such as taxi drivers so God knows how a lot of people are going to be able to save anything.

I find it bizarre that more don't begrudge them, their wealth is from creaming today's youth who will pay for benefits that they wont receive.

I'm lucky as I bought my house in London in 2003 and have a very well paid job. I will retire early 50s but could today if I wanted to.

I was talking to ds1 about life being hard when you start off

I said evryone (most ) start off 'poor'

He laughed and said you have never been poor

I said not compared to real poverty, but we have all scraped the mould off bread, or nicked loo rolls from work (dh) or skipped meals and had 2nd hand furniture or didnt put the heating on or shared baths

For some people it gets better , it certainly did for us. Through dh hard work and shitloads of luck

The ones I know had one parent working in pretty much 9-5 jobs. Nothing like the flat out, all hours working lives me and my friends and our partners have.

Some may have, many did work flat out.

Just like some now only work 9-5 or part time.

Also this idea that many were SAHM. This may have been the case for some, however most of the female pensioners I know worked full time jobs.

weasal

I agree to a certain extent

Dh has a well paid job but his pension will be a lot less than both of our fathers

For what it's worth, my husband worked 7 - 6, six days a week for over 15 years; I worked two jobs, we had no car (couldn't raise a loan even for £200, the amount needed to buy an old banger).
We didn't have annual holidays, and had as much chance of buying our own home as hell freezing over.
Lenders would only lend two and a half times husband's salary which was nowhere near enough for even a run down, bathroomless flat; and my wages weren't even taken into account.
And, same as Piglet's parents, when we got married we had hand-me-down furniture from family.
Uncle Fred's bed, table and chairs from my mum's neighbour, second hand rugs for living room and bedroom.
Landlady used to let herself in whenever she was passing, and would leave me notes about not leaving the kitchen tidy before I went to work in the morning.....
The good old days.

Why shouldnt they reap the benefits of their hard working life. Most have probably grafted for 50 years without tax credits and housing benefit handed to them on a plate!
They were the generation that worked hard, saved hard and HP was an unknown.
If they wanted something they worked and saved for it , there was no HP or instant gratification like today

Absolutely this! Those pesky pensioners wouldn't have been seen in the nail bar on their IPhone 7 booking their second holiday abroad and scanning the Next Directory to refresh their décor.

Err Ineedsomewheretocry most pensioners wealth creation was started years before the "youth" were born. The youth of today should be able to create their own wealth but society is now so unequal many will not be able to do it. You need to look at society, it's values etc, not at the pensioners who amassed their pensions in a different era (in my opinion).