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.

If you read the article these pensioners are still working

So they are still paying taxes, still contributing to society and not claiming benefits (they can't claim the state pension if they still work) and are not a drain on the NHS

Great misrepresentation of a hard working generation who are often providing free child care (like my mum) and allowing working parents to work!

I worked till last year with a woman in her late 60s who was claiming her private pension, working and had no mortgage. Of course she had more money. For a start her small private pension meant that she had more income than me.

I am 59 years old - so a 'baby boomer', and apparently on the brink of living the life of riley off the backs of the younger generation.

Some people of my age group are doubtless living the life of riley, on great company pensions, and having retired at 55 or 60.

However, I work in a not-for-profit sector and have never had a company pension until it became law for the employer to pay into one - 1%, haha.
I had my working life extended twice in the second half of my working life.

I lived through the years of sky-high unemployment. Sky high interest rate on a home that was not as high in cash value as no, but still represented 3.5 times my income. It's all relative.

The value of my private pension has been falling in real terms, as far as I can see, my state pension has now been trashed in the amalgamation into one, despite my having worked with no more than a 3m maternity leave, since I left Uni. (have been contracted out).

I am watching the care services collapse as my parents , mid eighties, start to fail. They were children and teens in the war, worked hard, self employed so no fat pension, (paid the man form the Pru every Friday evening on the doorstep), and did buy their own house. I cannot see me and my baby boomer siblings inheriting this as it looks as if they will need a care home, and the house will go to pay for it. We cannot afford to drop work and look after them as we are all desperately trying to keep our NI payments up and our savings pots and meagre pension pots building.

We have bought our own modest home, a semi, and I imagine that on retirement we will downsize, live of the surplus for a while, and then in ancient old age, the house will pay for our care...

Oh, yes, and god help me if I get made redundant or lose my job before I am 67. Not a great job market for 60 year old women.

I do think the generation starting out now have it very, very tough. I am doing my best to conserve what I have to help DC.

But Bobbity: talk of all baby-boomers being in clover is a wild generalisation.

The powers that be shd bring in 'ageism laws. Companies need to look at this too if everyone has to ' work till they drop ' . It needs to be fairer.
Roberta, more are in your position than the headlines say i bet.

Agreed that there's no point bashing people for being in the right place at the right time. But I dislike the implication that they worked harder than we did. Very few mothers worked outside the home in my neighbourhood as housing was cheap enough for a manual worker to buy a nice semi-d. To me, not having to work would be a massive luxury. My mother's life has been a blip - far cushier than her own mother's (nana did shiftwork as well as raising a family without modcons) and her daughters who will have to work their entire lives and no decent pension at the end of it. Ditto all their friends and contemporaries...I admit I'm jealous as it looks like a right old doss once the kids are grown.

When we were a "hard working family" there were no working tax credits , no housing benefit, or subsided nursery places.
The same here but they weren't necessary back then. One wage was enough so no nursery care needed, housing was affordable. If companies paid a living wage tax credits wouldn't be needed.

FA1062 DW and I have a car and we both have a Freedom Pass.

Sometimes we take the bus because we are going somewhere where parking will be a bugger. Sometimes we are going out socially and I will want a drink - DW does not drink but she cannot drive at the moment. Sometimes I just want to let SOB drive.

And above all I am not yet ready to retire and like most people wo workmin Central London I would not dream of trying to park there.

Does that answer your question?

Shins. If these sahm didn't work then they won't have private pensions, they're not currently working and although they may be mortgage free, they won't be in this well off pensioner bracket.

All my friends mothers worked at some point as did my mum.

Yes it does.

Viques- full employment in the 80's? Are you kidding?

They share their husbands' pensions. I wouldn't call them wealthy but they are very comfortable. It's the time I envy really, not the money or material things. And I said envy, not begrudge.

The80s - yes, I agree re ageism.

I can run 5k. I can walk up Snowden or Skiddaw, and do so regularly. I read contemporary fiction and write letters protesting free speech against art works that are censored, etc. I was a key campaigner as a student against women being treated as add-ons in benefit claims that could only ever be made on behalf of women by men. I fought the original Clause 28, I go dancing and to gigs, I shop in Jigsaw and Hennes and Cos. And yet on MN I regularly see women my age described as 'the older generation' who are deeply racist and homophobic, and totter around forgetting everything and not safe to look after a toddler. Let alone hold down a job.

The 80s the Equality Act prohibits discrimination on grounds of age and employment contracts no longer have a set retirement age as people can work to any age they choose if they are fit enough to do the job (yet another EU law change from which people including Brexiters have hugely benefited from but don't seem to appreciate).

Employers cant see beyond age. Its been said before. If the government cant tackle this , but want us all working longer , then it should be looked into.

I know, but once they see the person in front of them they discriminate.
Despite the law. Easy done with 200 applicants and 1 job.

"Conscription ended in 1960, before the baby boomers even came along".

Wrong!

The baby boomers were the post-war baby boom. The war ended in 1945.
You don't just hit 50 and become a baby boomer. They were a distinct generation.

The sandwich generation between the real boomers and Generation X are not baby boomers (whatever the US says).

You don't "claim" a private pension, brasty. It's her own money. And she was paying tax on it. Again.

Look at what's happened with zero hours contracts.

This has to be one of the sleaziest moves by the Tory government I have ever seen. It makes their unemployment figures look good, at the cost of providing no real jobs at all, and making people subject to them slaves who will tolerate terrible conditions and treatment out of fear of no work at all. I cannot believe people tolerate it. (I am not in the UK)

it really upsets me to see this Intergenerational outfit trying to demonise people who have worked hard for years

It really upsets me to see the older generation insist that 'young people these days don't know what hard work is', which has been said on this thread in several different ways. If hard work were all it took, every woman in India and Africa would be a millionaire, for a start, and I see people working desperately hard, even with the utter immorality of zero-hours contracts, trying to manage. The relationship between average earnings and the price of a house is already vastly different. The concept of being able to afford anything on a single wage is laughable, and who are these people whose parents look after their child/ren? I definitely wasn't one, and I don't know anyone who did.

In the dark underbelly of twitter there are a lot of very right wing 60-80 year olds that positively rejoice in the discussion of younger 'snowflake' generations suffering financially, they vote to ensure it and take joy in disabled, unemployed and working families benefits being cut. Reading their vicious ramblings has given me a very different view of OAPs to that which I previously held.

My Dad is one of these and the amount of "likes" he gets on FB for these views indicates there's a fair few that agree with him.

I just think this is ‘averages’ which are a load of rubbish, imo. There’s some pensioners who are really struggling and others who are more affluent. The ‘average’ wage is 25k. I’ll probably never earn that in my lifetime. Also, £20 seems a bit petty to quibble over to me.

I’m of the opinion that pensioners should stay in their homes, and not be forced out. Why should they leave their home, where they’ve raised their family, where perhaps they’ve been born, in the street where they know their neighbours, just for the younger generations convienience.

Some people (my dad, 65) would love to work. He’s worked all his life and only now, after 4 years of unemployment, is adjusting. But despite all the laws and regulations in the world, no employer is going to employ a 65 year old over a 20 year old. So it’s not like there’s work available for the majority of pensioners anyway.

I think every generation reckons the one before had it easier, and the one after them had it easier. Basically we all feel hard done by. I don’t think things have changed that much to then and now – yes some had it easier then, some have it easy now. Some struggled then, some struggle now. We have policies etc now that they didn’t have then, no doubt. Swings and roundabouts I think.

user I know it is her own money. Good luck to her

Some things were easier in the past. Basically the wide availability of council housing helped keep house prices low. And some women stayed at home and looked after their kids.

But women had few rights. No rights to your own cheque book, to getting a business loan in your own name, paid childcare was hard to get, lots of kids were latchkey kids, women were paid much much less than men, and god help you if you were gay, black, or disabled.

So yes some pensioners have lived through very good times and are enjoying their retirement. I know plenty of others who had very hard lives. Like the woman I know who spent years in a psychiatric hospital because she was a lesbian. Or the severely disabled woman I knew who spent her young adult years living in an old peoples home with lots of people suffering from illnesses like dementia.

I worked with disabled teenagers when I was young, most very severely disabled and have heard major horror stories about how authorities treated the disabled then. Like severely disabled kids brought up in wards, and given very little attention and love.

For every young person now who would have had a better life if born in the 40s, there is someone else who would have had a much worse life.

So they are still paying taxes, still contributing to society and not claiming benefits (they can't claim the state pension if they still work)

You can work and claim the state pension, but it is taxed just like the rest of your income.

brasty she would also have paid more tax then you, if you were getting the same pay you would only pay tax and NI in your wages

She would be paying tax on her salary, plus her state pension, plus her private pension, even with her 'added bonus' of no NI she would most likely still be paying in more than you.

If you were on a low wage you could also claim in work benefits like WTC which she wouldn't get

Olympiathequeen of course you can get the state pension if you still work, you can defer your pension (as long as you are not claiming income based benefits) but you can still get your pension as soon as you reach pension age.

Oldsu, I am arguing against the OP. You seem to have misunderstood me

Brasty your 00.23 post is heartbreaking.