Critics of so called baby boomers

[Pixxie7]

What is wrong with you people comments like waspi women are grabby and baby boomers have all the wealth because they bought their houses for a few thousands. I started work at the age of 16 with a salary of £7 a week, worked all my life. Did not have access to pension contributions until I was 52. Paid nearly 50 years of national insurance, which was for my pension which is not a benefit but a right, only to have nearly £50,000 stolen by the government. Imagine how you would feel if this happened to you.
Not saying you have it easy but you have far more opportunities than we ever had.

@SoyDora HAHA I'm a millennial as well and get told that a lot ! ridiculous... I can't afford avocados !

Yes priorities is the issue... not the fact that I need £350k to buy a 1bed flat where I live. Salary's are not rising, jobs are limited, degree debt is ridiculous with interest being added every year... the list really goes on.

OP stands for 'Original Poster' don't get offended if you don't understand something. I think the point of this is that no generation 'had it easy' every generation has it's problems with highs and lows. But to think you have it harder than anyone else is ridiculous.

But, what I really want is to be able to have a permanent home for my kids and not be paying off the mortgage of a baby boomer who already has more than 2 houses instead.

Yes. The idea that families have no choice but to rent privately, with the possibility of two months notice to leave at any time, maybe having to move away from schools etc, is so far from what we should be wanting for society. Not just families as well - security of tenure is surely a reasonable aspiration for everyone in a society as rich as ours? I think this was starting to feed through to electoral politics in 2017 - will be interesting to see whether it plays a part in the 2019/20 election if it happens!

Many baby boomers are not gleefully screwing over their own kids , they try to help them.

Absolutely . My parents (DD passed in Spring so just DM now) did and do support me a lot . Financially at times but in material ways too and I am most Thankful for that.

Every generation has problems. Retirement is likely now to be a luxury of past generations. Given the uncertainty Brexit is bringing, its likely to hit gen x hard at what is meant to be our prime working years. If ian Duncan smith has his way, I wont even get to think about retiring until I'm 77.
I have a mortgage and if we work hard and have a bit of luck we'll pay that off. We had no help with childcare or nursery fees. All our parents are dead and at least two lots left us debts to sort out...
My dc will have expensive uni fees but st least they get the opportunity...
They'll likely emigrate given the mess the country is in.

Look we all can go on and moan or get on with our lives ...

The 2011 pensions act gave men 8 years to plan for pension changes. The Turner Commision recommended that pension changes should be given with 15 years notice. WASPI women were only given 5 years. The first changes in 2016.

Women of a similar age have to wait disproportionately longer for their pension – a ONE year difference in birthday can make an almost THREE year difference to state pension age.

The Government bodged their communications to these women. Letters were sent out to women born on or after 6 April 1951 – 5 April 1953 14 years after the 1995 Pensions Act. Some of these women were only one year away from an expected pension when they were notified by letter.

And finally there are many many more women than men who don’t have employment pension schemes because of having no careers, many of them looking after children and or elderly parents. The state pension is a lifeline for them. There are many cases of hardship.

I'm a boomer. I bought my first house for £24k, with 100% mortgage.

But I was only able to do that because my boss was so upset that I was living in a ghastly HMO, riddled with damp and god knows what else and sharing a bathroom with several other bedsits, that she was prepared to lie on my mortgage reference letter and say I was earning loads more than the £4k I actually got.

I had to have a lodger for the first 9 years, because I couldn't afford the mortgage without. Even when my salary had gone up a lot, mortgage interest rates well into double figures made it unaffordable and at one point, I was so much in arrears that repossession proceedings were under way.

Loads of my friends lost their houses because interest rates went up and up, several of them have never been able to buy again and are renting. Only one of them has a council house, the rest are stuck in the private sector although we're all of an age where we could qualify for sheltered housing.

I've only twice been able to afford to buy a car that's less than 10 years old and long haul package holidays were always out of reach financially. I had 2nd hand furniture until I was well into my 30s because I could never afford new. I left home in 1975 and got a new cooker for the first time in 1993!

When I left home, my then boyfriend and I were in fairly well paid jobs, but the rent on our "flat" (2 rooms and a shared bathroom) was the equivalent of a months's take home pay. We lived on the other salary and were never able to save up.

The only time in my life that I've had plenty of disposable income was when we lucked into a very cheap rented flat, above a dirty bookshop on a busy main road. I was in my early 20s, and we shared with a friend.

I don't think any generation has had it particularly easy for people on average or below average incomes, just different kinds of hard, tbh.

Should have added this on pp. One thing I would worry about if I was a boomer is their own care in old age. My GM is lucky to have children that are nearing retirement age or going part-time and can chip in together with her care and save her from going in to a home (for the time being at the early stage of her dementia). If younger generations are expected to work until they drop, that leaves very little time to care for their elderly parents.

No MIRAS tax subsidy on mortgage payments

True, but then interest rates were in the teens when I bought my flat.

It is true that some younger people make generalisations about baby boomers ( how very dare anyone asume I voted for Thatcher and am now a committed Brexit supporter).

Lol, @Paintedmaypole, I share your indignation. I always voted Labour until I moved to a Tory/Lib Dem marginal, and started tactically voting LD. And I voted to stay in the EU in both referenda. I only know 6 people who voted to leave and all bar one are considerably younger than me!

I have no idea what point you were trying to make, but you are wrong. You have no idea how difficult it is for us now.

Tax rates were actually higher in 70s and 80s though - 33% basic until 1979, then 30% until 1986 - and higher rate (though op wouldn't have been paying it I assume!) 83% until 1979.

I recall a teacher telling us that income tax was 8s 6d in the £, ie 42.5%. This would have been around 1966/67, when I was in my first couple of years at secondary school. Thinking of that makes it plain why all our public services are going to shit.

Some perspective.

I'm 32. Been saving since I was 14, to buy my own house. Worked since I graduated in a range of menial jobs. Saved everything I could despite paying 50%-60% income on rent. Went back to uni (self-funded) and studied/worked for 5 years to re-qualify into a vocation. I now have a respectable job. I now earn more than the average wage. I now have a 10% deposit. I look giddily at the prospect that I might be able to get out of generation rent, and join the housing ladder!

I go to a mortgage advisor who tells me that as a single person, I don't earn enough to get a mortgage. I need to keep saving, get a payrise, or find a partner. In the meantime, I need to hope like hell that house prices don't keep rising beyond my ability to save - as if they do, I don't get anywhere.

Meanwhile, my parents retire at 55 because their house - bought for £32,000 - sells for £820,000. My mum starts campaigning for Back to 60. She tells me that I just need to work harder, because it was hard for them too.

Inter-generational inequality is real. For all I know that we need to stop fighting with each other - because it distracts us from the real enemy - the rhetoric in your OP (opening post, not old person) is just devastating to me.

Let's assume you'll live to be 85 OP. Do you really think in your 50 years of NI payments, you paid enough to cover a £150 a week pension for 25 years and all your healthcare on top as well?

No you didn't, no where near that. So instead of stealing our NI so you can sit on your arse at 60, suck it up. We will be working until we're 80 no doubt

OK, I will declare an interest, I am 61 and as such a WASPI woman. For the first 15 years of my working life I was in relatively low paid jobs in the NHS which I left for big business.

I have never earned a huge amount but I managed to buy a house when I hit 40, sadly I lost it two years ago when I was made redundant and had five years of temp work. I now lodge in someone's house but I am lucky, I am not on the streets and can feed myself.

I know I will need to work for at least another 10 years.

What some of the posters forget is that for many women who married in the 60s and 70s, they were expected to give up work when they married. That happened to my sister in 1974. Then, if they got part time work, they were told that they were not eligible for a pension as they were not a full time employee.

I think you are all missing the point, there seems to be a concerted effort to get generations blaming each other (divide and rule) instead of taking note that successive governments have used our hard earned money payed as NIC as there own piggy bank. So instead of investing those millions over the last 50 years or so they kept taking from it, not investing in social services, not investing in NHS, or obviously pensions. So now some suit in a back room has worked out if we have to work longer a lot of us will be dead. And so that will save these parasites we see arguing and embarrassing the country in Parliament of the Hook untill they can pass the problem to you the next oaps. My solution is simply close the ridiculous shambles called Westminster. Move out of there bubble of opulance and open a real parliament in the middle of the country, amongst the REAL world.
Some how they have now got you all paying you NIC, (which you remember is supposed to be for social services, NHS, Pensions) Taxes and also another payment for your pensions. Let's hope in 40 /50 years who ever is on the gravy train then doesn't say to you all O"o sorry but there isn't enough to pay your pension, you will have to work a few more years "hopefully most of you will have died off by then"
And perhaps if the Rediculus idea of selling off all of the council houses and just pocketing the money instead of building new council homes for the young to start there live in we wouldn't have a situation as dire as it is.
So don't blame your parents, or grandparents, blame the real villains the self serving, parisites who ignored the people vote and have just concentrated on them selves for three and half years. 650 MPs not doing as they were told by the people who employ them.

Just out of curiosity OP - you clearly knew that you hadn’t paid into a pension plan until you were 52. Is there a reason that you didn’t do as another poster did and find an independent pension to save into? I will lose about £80k from my pension (teacher, won’t see a decent chunk of it) but have set up an additional so that I’m not totally screwed when I retire.

So you won't be able to claim state pension until you're 67. As will be the case for every other woman who comes after you, if the pensions age doesn't go up again.

Why does that make you any more hard done by than me?

Yes, I know 20 years in advance of the fact (as did you as this was first discussed in the 90s) but I still can't do anything about it.

I have a works pension that's linked to national retirement age, as are many pensions, so surely we're all as screwed over as each other? I don't understand why you having to work until you're 67 makes you worse off than me?

It’s not a competition of which generation is better or worse off, each has its own unique benefits and challenges. But I can understand frustrations of young people today, it’s harder to buy a house, university is no longer free etc. But generation Z will probably have their own complaints about millennials as well.

Actually the WASPI women were ripped off by the UK government quietly adjusting the pension age again after loudly adjusting it.

All women, and now men are being “ripped off” by the change in pension age. The only difference is, they claim they didn’t know, didn’t have time, weren’t able to supplement with personal pension. Pension at 60 has been taken away from the subsequent generations of women too. Pension at 65 has been taken away from subsequent generations entirely. Some can take in personal or workplace pensions, but some will still not be able to afford to retire at 67.

They are not any more “ripped off” than we will be.

What they are is acting way more entitled than the youngsters they accuse of being.

@MintyMabel

The 2011 pensions act gave men 8 years to plan for pension changes. The Turner Commision recommended that pension changes should be given with 15 years notice. WASPI women were only given 5 years. The first changes in 2016.

Women of a similar age have to wait disproportionately longer for their pension – a ONE year difference in birthday can make an almost THREE year difference to state pension age.

The Government bodged their communications to these women. Letters were sent out to women born on or after 6 April 1951 – 5 April 1953 14 years after the 1995 Pensions Act. Some of these women were only one year away from an expected pension when they were notified by letter.

And finally there are many many more women than men who don’t have employment pension schemes because of having no careers, many of them looking after children and or elderly parents. The state pension is a lifeline for them. There are many cases of hardship.

Women of a similar age have to wait disproportionately longer for their pension – a ONE year difference in birthday can make an almost THREE year difference to state pension age.

This is the really unfair part. The transition arrangements for women are frankly bonkers.

I am so sick of intergenerational fighting and blaming. We all have it hard. The poorer have it harder than the richer, the north has lower house prices but also lower wages and the majority of the most deprived areas are in the north. Everyone has there own kind of hard. My parents (born in the 50s) had it hard, my mum is a waspi, she had very few opportunities to save and get her own pension as she was a poor woman from a poor family. I had it hard (born in the 80s), I have student loan debt from a crappy 8 year period where it doesn't get written off until you're 65, I pay a fortune in childcare and I had to move to a cheaper area away from family and friends.

Luckily my parents don't think I have it easy and am a materialistic, wasteful ingrate and I don't think she had everything handed to her because yes her house made money but unless she wants to go live in a bedsit and not look after her grandkids for my brother she's not going to see that money until she has care to pay for.

In every generation, the only people who don't have it hard in the same way are those who are born rich.

Yep, having money behind you must make all the difference.

My mum is a waspi and talks just like you, OP. As I wonder with dread what my cohort's retirement age will be when we get there. Its 68 at the moment... I struggle to care that she's had to wait a few years to get her pension because she got to be 'young retired', Will I be so lucky? She shouldn't have been dicked about, no, but she's living in luxury nonetheless.

My eldest is 24. He started his first permanent job this week. His grandfather who was made redundant at 55 started work at 15 (he was born in 1929) so worked for 40 years; would have been 50 without redundancy. DS with a retirement age of 68 will work no more than 44 years.

DS has significantly better prospects than his grandad had.