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

Universal benefits are cheaper than means tested I believe? I’m sure I’ve seen data on how it’d cost more to means test than just to have a blanket benefit.

Anyway, it’s not our parents (or grandparents if you’re millenials) at fault. It’s successive governments asset stripping the country and selling us all off to mega corporations who don’t pay their fucking taxes, don’t pay living wages so taxpayer cash subsidises them etc etc.

But keep on moaning about boomers and not looking at the real culprits.,

Yes fairyliz, I think the more well off pensioners are redistributing the wealth. My DB and DSis (both on low incomes), have both had help to buy property from our parents and my SIL has always had help from the ILs - to buy a house and to replace and tax/insure her car. My parents have also paid for holidays for us all - it's their way of avoiding death duties and enjoying their money and time with family while they can. None of my parents (I have 4 inc. steps), have a bus pass, because there aren't any buses where they live! Aunt, who lives in a city, has one and uses it all the time, but as she's a terrible driver it's a public service for her to be off the road

I don't begrudge pensioners and I certainly don't blame them that they have benefited in a way I never will. It's not a system they made. Whether it's unskilled, low paid manual work or a highly paid & skilled role, then the older generation had better luck.

Locally there are families where both parents work in the same warehouse their parents did. But they are desperately poor with pretty unpleasant, cramped homes. By comparison, only one of their parents worked and supported a sahp with a reasonable quality of life. The difference is social housing was easy to get and bought for peanuts, plus their parents got a low but secure wage. Now it's all zero hours and high private rent.

It isn't about resenting individuals, but about resenting the system/ society that caused it.

Only individuals I begrudge are those who refer to themselves as poor pensioners when they are comparatively wealthy, or those who think my generation just aren't trying hard enough, with no acknowledgement that things have changed.

I also find it hypocritical that when it comes to non means tested benefits the cost of administering is always given as a reason they should continue. But the same doesn't apply when it's working benefits.

Also agree with baby I'd prefer that money went where it was needed.

Meh.

It's just the fact that we're probably gonna be working until we're 70, healthcare will be completely privatised, no free bus passes, no heating allowance, no state pension etc etc.

'However the vast majority don't so won't people get money eventually?'

FFS. Only on Planet MN do people actually think this is true.

And what backenette said.

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

Not if it's all spent on German high end cars, cruises and care home fees!

Re housing, imo it is possible to solve it. Given the amount that is spent on shite, if anyone really wanted to it wouldn't be impossible to flood the market with enough government owned social housing for anyone who wants one. Building and requisition. Then rent on a sliding scale, housing benefit at basic cost, maybe £20/£30 net profit a week on everyone else's.

Over time it would pay for itself and benefit the economy as well as individuals. Long term pure profit. It would reduce the housing benefit Bill, and people like me would be making a profit for the government, not a private ll. Plus whether it's someone who no longer has to pay a large top up for private rent, or someone already with disposable income, they'd have more to put into the economy and pensions.

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

If the answer is no it will all go in care fees then those retired people will turn out not to have had the spare cash we currently think they do! They will turn out to have been saving for the rainy day.

However only those whose parents are rich will inherit - the others, who are also taxpayers and therefore financing the bus pass, won't inherit at all. (Except indirectly via inheritance tax receipts.)
Not that I agree with meanstesting the bus pass, but I don't think inheritance is the reason not to meanstest!

Yes, it can seem wrong in some cases, but just like everyone else, 'pensioners' are a mixed bag. My FIL retired at 50 (!) on a very good pension, over 25 years ago, and every year brags about giving their 'winter fuel allowance' money to that well known charity, his local golf club. Pisses me off somewhat, but seems unfair to means test when some pensioners only got where they are through hard work and enduring much lower living standards than we have now.

I have seen a few threads where some express the view that over 65’s shouldn’t get free prescriptions, bus passes, winter fuel allowances or whatever. There does seem an assumption with some also that ‘better off’ Pensioners somehow are not deserving of their relative comfort.

I know many pensioners who are only comfortable because they scrimped and saved as young people, gave up holidays, cars and even additional children to ensure they were not dependent on their children in their latter years. They worked full time, paid into their pension and social security schemes and now fell its ‘their time’ to ‘cruise’. Some, sadly, have no access to the benefits they were promised because the retirement was raised with insufficient warning to allow them to make financial provision ~ so they have to keep working despite obvious exhaustion.

I don’t resent them getting back some of what they put in. I think the raising of the retirement age at such short notice was appalling.

It is grim to read resentment of the ‘make do and mend’ generation who learned to live within their means and not to expect to have it all.

my mum is 78 and lives in a council flat on the state pension. She has no money, no savings, nothing left over at the end of the week. She worked til she was 70, she will leave nothing but loving memories.

If your views all come from mumsnet, she does not seem to exist.

It is grim to read resentment of the ‘make do and mend’ generation who learned to live within their means and not to expect to have it all.

Firstly are there many of that generation left? Because that certainly isn't a boomer.

No one is saying pensioner poverty doesn't exist, just that there is huge intergenerational inequality.

Many of today's young will go their whole life paying into pensions and living a frugal existence and have nothing to show for it and never retire.

my mum is 78 and lives in a council flat on the state pension. She has no money, no savings, nothing left over at the end of the week. She worked til she was 70, she will leave nothing but loving memories.

Did she pay into a pension? Presumably she gets all the rent paid and 700 a month for all bills and expenses with no tax.

beyond it's because of pensioners like your mum I think the non means tested benefits should be reformed. It seems ridiculous that someone wealthy gets exactly the same as someone struggling.

We have local pensioners in rural poverty, after hard, isolated rural lives, and others that could have their income and savings halved and still be wealthy. I'd rather the wealthier pensioners benefits were redistributed and used for those that need it like your mum.

She'll be getting the old rate pension, i.e £122 a week. She may or may not be claiming housing benefit but even if she is that's £122 a week for utilities, council tax, food, clothes, TV licence, everything. A bloody pittance, poor woman.

Won't the old pension have pension credits added to it so about 700 a month to live off with a 25% and 75% CT discount. Obviously can get full housing benefit.

That's more than some people on NMW have after rent.

That's why you need to save for a private pension, but at the same time I would be happy with that amount to retire on. Nothing fancy but a decent standard of living.

If the old rate state pension is her only income, she'll also be entitled to pension credit and housing benefit and maybe council tax benefit, so check she is claiming everything she is entitled to.

It's not a fortune, but it's enough to cover the basics. DM lives alone in her house that she owns outright, on an income of around £9-10k pa and she seems to manage fine, always decorating, going on days out, shopping in M&S, treating the Grandchildren and buying 'stuff'.

She's always trying to give money to me and my sister 'because she doesn't need it'.

byondthepage
Yes ~ both my parents dead. They worked but never owned their own home, never had a car and never holidayed abroad and still nothing to leave in a will to any of us. If they were still alive I’d expect them to be collecting their pensions, bus passes and the rest.

If they had managed to put money into savings and buy their own house, I’d still want them to collect their pensions, passes and the rest ~ because they had paid into the system ~ and this would entitle them to take out from the system.

I don’t think there hat onecgeneration will ever persuade another generation that they have it better (or worse).

When I gifted money to w family member, leaving me now short of money with minimal savings, I was told, in no uncertain terms, that it was my own fault for handing over the money. On the other hand, there are so many threads where people bemoan the fact that it’s so difficult to buy a house these days (which is true) and an expectation amongst some, that parents should help out their children financially and practically.

Yes, we own our home, but there’s no spare cash for meals out, luxuries etc. Maybe we shouldn’t expect luxuries, but little treats arechat oils the wheels of day to day living. One of the major reasons for depressive illness is isolation and loneliness. Many people use their bus pass to get out of the house for a bit. Even if you have the money to run a car, you may not physically be able to do so. Does that mean that you shouldn’t be able to leave the house?

That thread this morning might allegedly have been about means testing but it didn't take long for the resentment of older people to spill through.

Why people just don't post that they are resentful of pensioners because they perceive them to be better off I don't know.

And I am over 60 and still working full time by the way - no bus pass concessions or anything to envy me for.

"It is grim to read resentment of the ‘make do and mend’ generation who learned to live within their means and not to expect to have it all.

Firstly are there many of that generation left? Because that certainly isn't a boomer."

Babyboomers start in 1946 don't they? So they would certainly have been a 'made do and mend' generation, many not at all well off in their early (and later!) years. And you only have to be over 70 to have been born before 1947 so yes many many make do and menders remain with us!. (I'm not saying they all were, obviously. But in reality even being born in the mid 1950s means that your standard of living as a child and young adult might well have been in many ways much lower than nowadays )

Yes but being at such a young age then I don't think boomers are mend and make do, many have no recollection of rations. Boomers parents certainly were though, I know mine were but they died many years ago.

Big mistake to assume all less well off pensioners (or indeed less well off people) are in such circumstances because of some misfortune or injustice.

Yes ~ unplanned misfortunes occur like ill health, bereavement etc

However, so do bad life choices ~ having children before establishing secure incomes, financial bad habits, ‘live for the minute’ lifestyles, not investing in your own education at a young age etc etc

Not all who ‘have not’ are blameless.

The younger generations know they will have to take out private pensions and financially plan for retirement.

Bringing in means testing would be a very costly exercise and lead to a spend spend spend mentality will no incentive to save (and even less incentive to contribute into a system you won’t benefit from.

Exactly so southatdidn'twork