to be annoyed that so many on mn seem to begrudge pensioners?

[Slartybartfast]

for mainly being too rich
so many of you seem to think that those who have retired at 65 and are likely enough to have a good pension have somehow cheated

My parents are typical baby boomers. They bought a 4-bed house in London in the 70s for peanuts and it has sky rocketed in price, my Dad has a good final salary pension etc etc.

They are lovely and I don’t begrudge them their good fortune at all but it does seem a little crazy to give them free bus passes etc so I agree with the means testing argument.

I think that inter-generational fairness is an important issue.

And my Dad’s pension is being paid for by us as taxpayers (as he worked in the public sector).

BarbaraofSevillle I'm not sure your party will have much success with a manifesto like that!
However, diverting the wasteful £billions in HS2 into a proper house-building programme of social housing, plus affordable 'first-time-buyer' units could be a start. Like it or not, we've seen what political pressure can achieve in recent years, just look at UKIP (as much as I detest them).

You have to apply for a bus pass. I don't know any of my contemporaries who even has one, let alone uses one.

The public sector argument is ridiculous. Anyone getting a public sector pension paid contributions by deduction from their salary and paid NI all their working lives. If you follow that logic everyone who works in the public sector should work for nothing.

I am a pensioner and live in a very expensive semi, because it’s London, but I am not cash rich. However I grew up in a ‘Call the Midwife’ post war London so don’t anyone tell me I’ve had it better than young people today. I will probably have to sell my home to fund
my own care and that’s fine

Do I think it's right that older people with 70k per year pension should get a state funded pension, bus pass and costs towards heating? Absolutely not, that's not begrudging anyone anything but in the current climate- it's sensible.

How many pensioners have a £70 grand a year pension? It must be a tiny percentage

Boomers just like to believe the world is exactly the same for the yoof today and any problems are their own fault nothing to do with the seismic shifts that are widely recognised. Of course, because all people in that age group think exactly alike.

Do I think it's right that older people with 70k per year pension should get a state funded pension, bus pass and costs towards heating?

Gosh, how many pensioners are there with a £70k pension?? That would put you in the top 5% of incomes for people in full employment. Given that a good pension isn't likely to be much more than half your final earnings, there will be very few pensioners with pensions of that amount.

I must admit I thought the logical way was to make the state pension means tested (after all, the hypothetical pensioner on £70k isn't going to be greatly inconvenienced by not having an extra £6k), and I was very surprised when they went completely the other way and increased the pension for younger people to £155. Most state pensioners only get £122.

No all pensioners are rich. many still rent their homes and are surviving on basic state pension and pension credit. A lot of older pensioners ( in their eighties) the women never worked and get hardly anything.

Bluelady yes, but the point I’m making is that the current generation of workers will also pay pension salary deductions and NI contributions throughout their working lives but will receive a far smaller pension.

"Do I think it's right that older people with 70k per year pension should get a state funded pension, bus pass and costs towards heating? "

But then on the other hand if you support means testing you might say why should under 60s with £70k salaries or higher get (largely) free healthcare, free education for their dc, free children's playgrounds, libraries, refuse collection? Once you go down the means testing route where should it stop?

My df on the other hand has told me recently he has too much spare income. He own his own 4 bedroom house, has a reasonable occupational pension and decent state pension. Gets winter fuel allowance yet hardly has his heating on and uses his bus pass a lot as he has just given up his car when he turned 80. He is giving cash gifts to my brother as my df says he has too much money so would rather him have it !
My in laws died a few years ago and had a London house worth almost half a million ( despite being a tiny 3 bed semi ) and savings in the bank worth 6 figures. They both claimed Attendance allowance ( were both completely entitled to it ) and that just built up in the bank for years as they only needed their state pension to live off and mil always felt hot and they barely had the heating on. They didn't go anywhere as they weren't well enough, they didn't pay for care as their family did it so the money ( benefits) intended for the extra costs of being disabled was never used for that purpose, it just accumulated.
I do benefits advice for a job . I see pensioners with huge amounts of savings and whilst they are perfectly entitled to claim Disability benefits as they are no means tested , I'm sure a lot of it is just not being used or being given to relatives which does make me question whether there should be a limit on claiming it. I'm sure I'll be shouted down for saying that.

I'm with you OP
Not read whole thread.
I am just in 50-70 age bracket
I started to save money the day I got my paper round age 14.
I didn't go to Uni, so had full time Job aged 18. Lived in awful room, but still saved.
DH similar position. Mother was a nurse Father a teacher ( so no spare cash)
DH & I purchased our first home when he was 33 I was 25 (ish)
We had saved enough for a deposit by not having a car, holidays or an expensive wedding. I had saved every penny for 11 years DH had done the same for close to 20 years.

We sold our home and made a bit of money, the house we are in now has due to economic climate increased in value.
DH has a reasonable pension. Although we both still work full time.
When we retire I am sure we will be knackered never having taken more than 2 weeks off in one go over a lifetime of work.
I look forward to a reasonably comfortable retirement, I have been planning it since I was a child.
I honestly think parents should tell their kids save what you can when you can from a really early age. Tell them they don't need an Xbox or Iphone or the expensive trainers, they will be glad of the money in the future. Saving from childhood is I think the only way to go.

Babyroobs, envy is a very unattractive quality. Listen to yourself.

Babyroobs your post does not come across as envious at all.

Amber - not sure if your reply is being sarcastic. I knew I would get flamed. I just can't understand why people with 100k in the bank get £80 a week to pay towards extra heating and taxis and someone to do their garden ?

Do wealthy people travel by bus?

I think the millenials vs boomers crap is encouraged by the media. Boomers are a convenient thing to blame rather than have people look into the political and structural realities, which are:

The postwar society was a blip- great strides forward in worker rights etc meant an increased quality of life for the general populace.
The rich elites do not like surrendering power and spend the next sixty years chipping away at said worker rights. Privatisation, corporate dominance, erosion of worker rights, influx of cheap labour blah blah. All of it is taking us back to a more feudal past where we knew our places and doffed our caps.
Millenials ace been caught in the latest trap which is huge student debt, massive house prices. This means that they are in debt from the get go. The labour market is flooded, Britain refuses to change from a low wage low skill economy into anything that might help like hardcore science or engineering or manufacturing. Further numbed by constant phoe and screen access to media.

Result: a trapped, helpless generation who are unable to think critically or get out of the debt cycle. With precarious employment they do not, cannot dare to be political. Corporate power entrenched.

It’s not your granny who sold you down the river, it’s the titans of industry and our ruling classes.

'Result: a trapped, helpless generation who are unable to think critically or get out of the debt cycle. With precarious employment they do not, cannot dare to be political. Corporate power entrenched.

It’s not your granny who sold you down the river, it’s the titans of industry and our ruling classes'
This⬆️

envy is a very unattractive quality. Listen to yourself
A crass attempt to shut down debate from Nina22

But surely young people will one day benefit from all of this wealth when they inherit? Yes, yes I know some people will have to sell their houses to pay for care. However the vast majority don't so won't people get money eventually?
I am in my late 50's and have recently inherited a considerable sum from my mum, This has been put in savings so that when my DC who are now in their early 20s wish to buy their own homes, they will have a deposit of approximately 50% of the cost of a starter home where I live.

Lots of my friends in their 50s and 60s are in the same position and all of them have helped children with deposits. So aren't we re- distributing in our own way?

But surely young people will one day benefit from all of this wealth when they inherit?

They will, with two caveats.

1. They will inherit later in life
2. What they inherit is likely in many cases to be eroded by care fees.

You can't rely on inheritence, or it could come too late to be of any practical use.

The value of the property could be spent on care, or the elderly person could get a lifetime mortgage and most of the value could be eaten up in interest and charges.

It's recently been reported that the descendents of the baby boomers who have benefitted from massive property inflation will themselves be around 50-70 before they inherit, which is no help when they are in their 20/30/40s and needing to buy a family home.

Also, many asset rich cash poor people can't help their children with deposits without remortgaging, which they may be unwilling or unable to do.