Gutted about NI rise

[CarryOnNurse20]

I know we need it and we have so much money to pay off. But we have been scrimping and saving after a hard couple of years. Every penny is accounted for from pay day to pay day. I’m a nurse and my pay has been capped/below inflation my whole career. And now the NI rise means any savings etc we have made will now be gone. I’m gutted.

@Cheeseplantboots

It’s not just about old people though. I have a disabled adult son. The support and care is practically non existent because there isn’t the money to fund proper care for him.

Very true, I think a lot of people equate it to just the elderly which isn't the case.

[quote Realyorkshiretea]@adeleh I agree 100%.

@weresouth yes I think they’re going to make NI payable past pension age. It was quite something watching pensioners go into meltdown about it, after spending many years voting in the tories and happily watching them slash and tax everyone else.[/quote]
Oh do stop lumping everyone of pensionable age together as a band of crowing/whinging leeches. Many have endured punitive interest rates and inherited nothing, as their parents’ entire wealth has been use to pay for care.

The governor has borrowed a shed load of cash to pay furlough, free school meals or vouchers, £20 uc increase.... the list goes on, and it needs paying back.

I've not received nor needed any financial help during covid times, but do I begrudge paying more back, no! It needs paying back, we knew it would have to be.

I wonder how many people moaning about it had most of last year off on furlough...🤔

Well that’s you, @lllllllllll . I think it’s lacking in self awareness to expect skint people to think the same way & be happy their money goes on wealthy pensioners than feeding their own kids.

@VanGoghsDog that’s one person. Older people are many many times more likely to vote Tory than younger people.

But the boomers ARE well off, so given we’ve crashed the economy to protect their health, surely it would be morally correct for them to make bigger contributions towards their own care?

@Realyorkshiretea for heaven's sake, most pensioners are NOT well off! But then you do seem rather fond of sweeping generalisations, as evidenced by your earlier posts on this thread.

People who are anti this tax are not acknowledging that it will pay for those with disabilities to receive better care either.

Government lol. Not governor

@Claudethecat

also cannot believe some of the people who get awarded it. My friends dad gets it. At her wedding he was dancing round the dance floor. He had cancer many years ago seems to get it based on this. It certainly doesn't stop him doing anything, he looks after grandkids, walks the dog etc. There seems to be little in the way of checking that it is going to the right people

You have no idea what health problems your friend's dad may have.

Oh FFS. Look if we have eyes in our head we all know that there are people getting supports which they could almost certainly do quite well without. To give just one example, I have an uncle who gets meals on wheels and home help not because there is anything wrong with him mentally or physically but because the 24 hour domestic appliance that was his wife died and heaven fortend he should be expected to boil an egg or push a hoover around. Why do you find it so hard to accept the posters observations at face value? Only the wilfully naive would say that there isn't a minority who take the piss.

Well that’s you, @lllllllllll . I think it’s lacking in self awareness to expect skint people to think the same way & be happy their money goes on wealthy pensioners than feeding their own kids.

@Realyorkshiretea for the 90 millionth time - NOT ALL PENSIONERS ARE WELL OFF.

@Booknooks but this still disadvantages disabled people - if wealthier pensioners stumped up for their own care, it would free up public funds for the disabled, who have had much less opportunity to accrue such assets.

Did they have a workplace pension? What proportion of pensioners is this?

A lot of employers pension schemes were not open to women back in the old days - up to the 1970s at least. I was working for a County Council in the early 90s when they opened up their pension scheme to part-time workers. Guess which sex made up the majority of part-time workers?

@lllllllllll no, which is why I SAY WEALTHY PENSIONERS WHY ARE WE SHOUTING ARRRGHHHHH

@midgemagneto

Not every young person is financially unstable or poor

Not every old person is wealthy with a big pension and expensive house

It's not unfair because it's favouring one generation, it's unfair because it's favouring the rich over the poor

absolutely this - well said.

'But insisting dementia patients sell their homes to pay for care isn't fair'
@LondonJax - I'm so confused by this expectation that we will leave something behind to our families so therefore shouldn't fund our care needs. Why should the state pay to house, feed and care for someone who's home is sitting unoccupied so that the family benefit when they die? Of course we all want to leave something behind for our loved ones but unfortunately it's just one of the risks we take in life. If the neighbour inherits a house cos the parent died of a heart attack so be it, life's not fair. We don't all equally put into the pot and we don't all equally take out of the pot. Having money and assets when care is needed is a great advantage, the standard of some homes is appalling and social care put you in the cheapest place, not necessarily the closest to family or a chosen home unless you can afford the top-up. I know if either of my parents needed care I'd happily sell their home in a breath to give them the best care. We should view our homes as assets and if we don't want the assets sell them off young, spend the money/give the inheritance to the kids early and let the state put you where they want, I know which I'd choose.

@Babyroobs - exactly. I provide 24 hour a day care, 7 days a week. That means no nights out - ever , not had a night out in almost 20 years. No holidays. Absolutely zero social life, all for £65 a week. Residential care would be around £2,000 per week for the level of support he needs and a suitable place is almost impossible to find.

[quote Realyorkshiretea]@Booknooks but this still disadvantages disabled people - if wealthier pensioners stumped up for their own care, it would free up public funds for the disabled, who have had much less opportunity to accrue such assets.[/quote]
I agree, I said in an earlier post I don't think the cap should be introduced.

@thecatsthecats

Possibly an unpopular opinion, but I think it bizarre that older people expect to hang onto their homes as well as take up a new home in a social care setting.

I will only need one home when I'm older, and care also. Having an asset I can sell to fund that is perfectly logical. Sad, but then so is lots of stuff associated with aging. You're entitled to be sad, but expecting to pass on thousands and have your care funded is taking the piss.

Bring on euthanasia. I want the freedom to die, and to live well before that.

(caveat, yes yes, lots of different circumstances etc)

I agree.

The NI rise won't affect me, as I'm over pension age, so don't pay it, but it's an appalling hit on the lowest paid.

Porcupine, most people left school with five O levels or five CSEs; only about 55% of my girls selective school cohort went on to sixth form and A levels and less than 15% went to university. Several became teachers; about the same number became SRNs/physios.

Five decent O levels were good enough for articles with a local solicitor or accountancy firm, if never for architects (but my first serious boyfriend was an architectural technician, and IIRC could have qualified on the job but would have taken years to reach chartered status) or doctors or dentists. CSEs weren't equivalent, so were taken by the less able, and the least motivated left school without qualifications. The practical and technically minded went off to be apprenticed to their dads or uncles or cousins and learn a trade, with day release C&G courses.

DH was accepted for officer training with five O levels, as were most of his friends: graduate entry was rare, unless it was a medical/dental commission. The services upskilled officers as their abilities were recognised: one woman I knew joined up at 16 and left a fully qualified barrister. A friend's son with a B Eng and Masters in renewable energy didn't get into Sandhurst until 26. Today's school leavers are probably bursting with the equivalent skills, but the world turned topsy turvy and went crackers for qualifications after Tony Blair.

Boris and the tories keep on showing people who they are but the public take no notice. They will obediently trot off and vote them in next election. There is no appetite for change just apathy and in fighting about who has it worst. The government have done an excellent job of turning voters on each other as a distraction from who the real fat cats are. But hey we got Brexit done and Jeremy Corbyn isn't PM.

We should view our homes as assets

@BeenAroundTheWorldAndIII urgh, no no no. People viewing homes as assets is a large part of why the housing market in this country is in such a dreadful mess.

I think XinMing that most people up to the mid sixties left without O levels. I wouldn't like to put a figure on it though. It didn't matter too much because there was plenty of unskilled work available. However, having an unskilled workforce is not good, which helped to make the UK the 'sick man of Europe', but that is a different debate.

[quote Realyorkshiretea]@Booknooks but this still disadvantages disabled people - if wealthier pensioners stumped up for their own care, it would free up public funds for the disabled, who have had much less opportunity to accrue such assets.[/quote]
Wealthy pensioners do “stump up for their care”. Mine paid £1k a week each. It was entirely right that they should.

@SmokeyDevil

I wouldn't feel so annoyed by it if I believed the money was actually going to go to social care. But standards won't improve, pay for carers won't increase, and the money will likely just go towards tory mps pensions and pay.

Or to increase the profits of the owners of private care homes, while the staff who actually do the caring are paid very little above minimum wage, if they're lucky.

There's a care home near me where you can always tell if the owner is at the premises. Their big fuck off Rolls is parked right outside the front door when they're there.

Fact is the Tories will not implement any measures which will impact the Tories. And they are the top 5%, probably even more rarefied than that. But we voted for it. And the sad thing is people with 10 years left on the mortgage for their 3 bed semi thinking that Boris & Co see them as peers...

Taxing the genuinely rich, taxing super rich corporations (Amazon made £17.5 billion in sales in the UK in 2019 and paid £293 million in taxes), dealing with the BTL insanity, all these things would be common sense measures.

But not if you ARE the genuinely rich, investing in rich companies, and BTL landlords - and that includes most of our country's decision makers. So they just set about telling the rest of us how simply unfeasible that would be

The days of politicians being public servants are long gone. Now they are the super privileged taking one for the team.

With the up lift of £20 going and NI going up the working poor are just going to get poorer.

There's a care home near me where you can always tell if the owner is at the premises. Their big fuck off Rolls is parked right outside the front door when they're there.

That's awful. Perhaps all care homes should be state owned and run.