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.

Weasel, except more and more people will have to work until they are older. I think this will have a negative impact on young people looking for work.

I would expect most pensioners to be better off tbh- no mortgage, dependants mostly left home, less outgoings.
More savings/investments when interest rates were good and time to save.

If people get all the way to retirement and have nothing to show for a whole working life that's really bad luck/bad planning, whatever.

It is awful about university fees, but then the expansion of education is to blame for that. When only 5-10% of people went to university, paying fees was affordable. Not now.

I think it is only really the post-war generation who have had the exceptional luck. My parents didn't go to university and after the war couldn't find a house and even had difficulty in renting. Those born in the 1940s, however, were able to buy housing easily. The free university thing does not universally apply because, of course, far fewer went then. In the late 60s/70s young couples could buy a family house (small) on one salary. Ha ha to that now.

Agreed, it does brasty, it already is. What's worse, over the next decade or two there will simply not be enough jobs for everyone. Society breaks down or adapts...during this time the life chances for the latest (yet to be born) youngest generation diminish still further. We are already reaching the time of the pointlessness of a university education as there are fewer guarantees of meaningful work afterwards. During all this time some pensioners will continue to receive their work pensions. There will be loads of poor pensioners too. It does not look good.

I think this is a crock of shit from the pensioners I know.

Yes I got free university, I am early 50s. But none of my friends went to University, only a handful of people from my standard state school did. Because most ordinary people did not go to university.

The real difference is that jobs you could once get with good A Levels, now ask for Degrees.

PHDs have become the new degrees. They occupy the place Degrees once held.

My grandad stopped working (as a carpenter) when he turned 73. He couldn't carry on because he had cataracts, a catheter bag and heart problems. My nan stopped working (as a cleaner) when she was 70 because she had a heart attack.

They own their own home and are poor. Like they have been their whole lives. They downsized and moved miles away to release money to live on.

My other grandparents live in a council house. My nan has never worked outside of the home. Her husband retired at 55. They now live on a combination of state pension, housing benefit and pension credit.

Neither set of grandparents helped their children with childcare.

None of our parents can help us with childcare. They are too busy working full time and caring for elderly relatives in their 'free' time.

We are lucky enough to live in a council home where the rent is only £700 a month. We can't afford to buy, despite DH being on a good wage. We have been saving for the last 15 years but it's not enough.

I don't know anyone our age who has got a mortgage without substantial help from their parents. (My step sister was given £30,000 towards a 25% share in a shared ownership one bed flat) She is also set to receive a massive inheritance. We won't have anything from our parents.

It's our friends and family who live in private rental who are completely screwed. They can't save and will be stuck forever.

Housing costs are the real problem.

I don't accept the 'worked hard for it' argument either. Lots of people work very hard, and still don't have the ability to save / invest as the current generation of 70-ish pensioners did.

Here's an example. My parents were able to buy (mortgage free) a flat in a good part of a good city, that the rented out to students. They bought it in around 1996 for around £75K. They kept it for about 15 years, so had income from it all that time. Then they sold it for £325,000. There is no way that I could repeat that incredible jump in the value of a property. That's the kind of advantage that generation has had, and which mine will not.

My FIL was a postie all his life. He worked for the PO for 40 years, and retired on a really good pension. I cannot imagine that any 16 year-old joining the PO today, and basically not progressing above 'senior postie' level, would be able to do the same - if they even have a job for 40 years.

It's not the same playing field.

I think this is why there is all the argy-bargy about council houses now on MN. When I was young people were sniffy about council estates, particularly if they had grown up on one and had managed to move on up. Now people see a council house tenancy as the golden ticket. A secure home for life, no matter what happens work wise.

Dh and I were watching "The Moorside" (Shannon Matthews thing) and remarking that (apart from some of the residents!) those houses were very nice - semi-rural, well-constructed, with gardens. I suppose all the best ones would have been purchased now, though. Hmmph.

My parents are both baby boomers and have very generous pensions. They earn more than me and DP do working full time, as well as benefitting from a range of pensioner discounts and freebies.

They are just lucky, their generation is. It's not their fault, or ours.

Yes, lostinfrance - fil's job as a telephone engineer supported three dcs and a non-working wife and he bought a 3-bed house when he was 24. Can you imagine being able to do that now?!

Its certainly true where I live. To the extent that the demographic has changed beyond reconition - younger people (under 40) cant afford to live here anymore.

My mum only worked until she was 25 and then she was a sahm. My dad retired at 50 with a gold plated pension. Shes a widow now but has never wanted for anything and scoffs in a typical tory way about immigrants/single mums/working class.

In comparison my life has been much more difficult financially and practically even though I worked far far harder with none of the rewards open to her.

I dont have a great deal of sympathy.

I don't know anyone our age who has got a mortgage without substantial help from their parents
They can't win really can they these pensioners? Resented for having the money and resented for giving it to their DC to help buy a house

Location is a big factor. I didn't go to uni and therefore stayed in my home town, most people who do that will have GPs nearby. Housing was cheap compared with SE.
We still had no help from GPs either childcare or financial, in fact we helped them financially, just as we will help all of our DC to buy homes.
Once we have finished paying for them to go to uni that is.

Most of todays pensioners had to work long hard hours in manual labour, had many years of rations, only a tiny amount went to uni.

They deserve every single penny they earn and more. If young people these days got on their bikes and worked they also can make something of their life. Just sitting back and resenting other peoples hard work is ridiculous.

jdoe are you Norman tebbit? Fuck off with your young are just lazy crap. Get out of your (probably wealthy) bubble.

Reading what some people are spending on kids on half term makes me gasp. Should I rest them because that would have been unheard of when I was young?

Colour me cynical but I see this declaration as a ploy to gain public support when the government forces encourages the elderly to downsize their homes and more.

I agree. This is the kind of articles we saw about disabled people, before they cut DLA.

I think there is particular envy of the living standards of "ordinary" pensioners, compared with their younger like. Of course you have the very wealthy, who probably were always wealthy, and came from wealthy families. But there is a whole swathe of pensioners who had blue-collar/low-level white collar jobs who have ended up with pensions far exceeding anything that their counterparts today could dream of, with properties that it would now take an investment banker to buy. That's in the south-east, anyway.

If I look at the properties on Rightmove in my old home town (now totally out of reach for me) house prices are astronomical. There is absolutely no way on earth that ceteris paribus my parents or the parents of my friends would be able to buy a house there now.

In fact I've just had a quick look on Rightmove and seen a friend from primary school's house for sale (all the parents sadly shuffling off now) at £895K - and this is a 1960s house, not anything great. Friend's df was a music teacher.

If the next generation (or generation +1) are inheriting this accumulated wealth, then on the one hand that's good, because younger people can then buy property. Otoh it's bad because there will be huge differences in wealth based not on any personal merit but on how rich one's parents were. And of course you have to throw into the mix that some people's parents live for many years requiring expensive care which wipes out any inheritance.

Yes I am in my early 50s and already see a big difference in living standard between those inherit, and those who don't.

my father is 76 and still works part time! They didn't have much when we were children so I'm pleased if they can keep their original home (why should they downsize if they don't want to!), have holidays and a nice car.

I don't resent the income that my grandparents/PIL etc have as pensioners. I do resent the idea that it's just because my generation (born early 80s) aren't working hard enough.

Pensioners I know well:

Paternal grandparents: born 1937 and 1940. Gpa was a dentist. They had 5 kids. Granny didn't work until she was in her 40s/50s and kids had mainly left home, and then she managed their dental practice. Gpa retired at 60. Live in a 6 bed house in a naice area. Paid for 1 elderly relative's nursing home fees, but their other parents lived long and healthy lives and died suddenly, without requiring care. They're pretty well-off.

Maternal grandparents: born 1937 & 1942. Dentist again. 2 kids. Gma didn't work until she was in her 40s, when she qualified as a teacher. Downsized and moved across country back to their roots to a 3 bed bungalow (not a nice area!). Gdad retired at 55. No elderly parents requiring care. I wouldn't say they're particularly well-off, but they are comfortable/average.

Stepgrandparents: Born late 1940s. SGF: Accountant. 2 kids. Step-granny didn't work when her children were young, and when she did, it was part-time. They aren't paying care fees either. I would say they're pretty comfortable.

PIL: Born in the 50s. Aeronautical engineer and librarian. RAF. 2 kids. MIL stopped work when her kids were born and didn't go back until they were 8-10 and at boarding school (RAF scholarship). Paid 1 set of care fees until 10 years ago (pre-retirement, now no living parents). They have 3 pensions between them and are, quite frankly, loaded. They live quite modestly (apart from the holidays), but inherited a fair whack and have told us that even with care fees for 10+ years, there will still be an inheritance left.

The common theme with all these is that for previous generations, you could be perfectly comfortable on one wage. I know there were issues - my own parents matured during the Thatcher years and were as poor as church mice until the 90s when the housing market took off.

My generation is being divided sharply down the middle by people who have grandparents to provide childcare and those who don't. I pay about £10k a year in childcare (including childcare vouchers) for 2 children 3 days a week. Add that to house prices and you can see why we're in private renting. I'm not knocking pensioners - all the ones I know are lovely - but I would like to see salaries rise until it becomes possible to live and raise children on one wage again. Even if they ever do, we'll still be the lost generation in the middle.

I was born in the 60s and we have never been able to survive on one wage. We both have always worked. I agree wages should rise. But I think one of the major changes is that the middle class used to be much better off in the past than they are now. But the middle class used to be much much smaller, than now.

Thanks weasel . All this debate about which generation has it better distracts from the philip greens who are screwing over all working (or previously working) people of all ages whilst apparently not falling foul of the law and siphoning off vast wealth to tax havens.

In fact the housing and salary crisis (imo created by the 1%) affecting the younger generation affects all pensioners in the more expensive parts of the country even if they don't have kids unless they're super rich as it affects their ability to get firefighters, nurses, paramedics, carers etc to help them maintain their way of life. In many parts of the country now, a salary for any of these jobs will not be enough to secure even a one bed flat (rented) near to work. The NHS is kept going because - at least until recently - foreign staff could earn in pounds, live in poor conditions in house shares miles away from their work, and send money home where it was worth much more (with the aim of putting up with awful conditions for 10 years say but being able to move home with a huge amount of savings at the end of that). In my opinion, brexit will put paid to that (both through people not wanting to live here and devaluation of the pound). There is already a crisis in many areas recruiting to these essential jobs. Not sure where this will all end up but it will be somewhere not very good (waiting for the whole 'we can't possibly pay paramedics or 999 call handlers or nurses more, let's privatise' argument from mps).