I know this will be contentious - cost of living rise

[qualitychat]

My mum is a pensioner and gets Disability Benefit and Mobility Benefit and Pension Credit. She receives almost what I get in a month. She is moaning about the Government not doing enough about the cost of gas and electricity, which I agree with. The thing is they have said that people on benefits and pension credit will be given lump sums towards their bills. I am a middle earner and so is my husband. We will likely get nothing. Do you not think it will be the ordinary working families who will be squeezed the most if something is not done?

I don’t think the class living in true poverty are bigger than the working class, no.

@Wouldloveanother I agree. I know if you are born into poverty class you likely stay in it. I got out, but it was very hard. I suspect few people outside this class understand what it is like to be written off by society, including even your teachers when you are still a young child in primary school. Our Headmaster in primary even said publicly that most of the kids ins school would amount to nothing. I could feel that little was expected from any of us in school except to behave and not cause a problem. They had zero ambitions for us.

If a pensioner becomes disabled they don't get DLA, just AA which is much lower. How is that them getting more than a fair share? Different for the OPs mother as she became disabled before retirement age so she continues with the DLA.

@Sally99 there is the lowest unemployment rate since ww2. 3%
Theres never been a better time to find a better paying job or ask for a payrise

Very true, my MIL became a widow in the 1940s, he died as a result of war injuries so although he died in 1949 she was classed as a war widow and got a pension from his country, much higher than she would have got if he had been in the British forces. She couldn't get a mortgage, she had a good job, she had a very secure pension but as she had no male guarantor she couldn't get a mortgage. She lived in a council house until her death. If she had been able to get a mortgage in the 50s 60s or even 70s her financial situation would have been so different.

@Discovereads I set my children’s pensions up for the day they were born in 2000 it was common knowledge by that point pensions were going to be required I was certainly not what you would call financially savvy at 23 years old but I knew I was going to need to give my kids pensions to make sure they would be okay.
incidentally I put five grand in each of them in 2000 and 2002, neither of them need to contribute another penny for the rest of their lives and they will have an adequate retirement.

Exactly. My mum when she was working full time could have afforded a mortgage but had no male guarantor. As a divorcee shunned by her family nobody would lend to her.
People forget how recently things have changed for women. A friend setting up her own business in the nineties could not get a loan without her husband's signature agreeing on the loan.

ilovesooty · Yesterday 20:29
So many people looking for other people to criticise and look sideways at. Heaven forbid anyone should get something they don't - or they're perceived as getting "handouts"

divide and conquer. Never fails, does it?

Well, yeah you can’t blame people who work really hard but are getting increasingly skint for not wanting to subsidise people who are on already fairly generous benefits, can you?

(I know they’re not all generous)

25% of the U.K. population is working class socio-economically speaking, and 22% of the population are also in poverty, leaving only 3% of the population being working class and not in poverty.

Your experience represents only 12% of working class reality, whereas @antelopevalley ’s experience represents 88% of working class reality.

It complicates things a bit that 47% of people who have middle class income & wealth identify as working class.

Yeah I’m afraid that isn’t true, 1994 I left school at 18 and got a mortgage on my own and a loan to set up a business sorry to spoil a good story.

Were you married though? Single women always had more rights than married women.

It was 1994 she could not get a loan without her husbands signature. She was told if she was not married she could have gotten a loan by herself.

My mum by 1994 was not in a position to take out a mortgage. She was in her mid-fifties already with bad arthritis, it was too late for her. She needed to take one out in the seventies.

So please do not call me a liar.

@Discovereads Some are so quick to call people liars. I hate it. Why would I lie? That would be stupid.

I’m sorry you are making that up , it’s just simply not true. there may have been other reasons why she couldn’t of got a loan but it was not because she was a woman.

@Discovereads at 18 ? No i was not married 🙄

I would rather those who are most at risk are helped

no one should have to choose between heating and eating

yes I will be squeezed and money shall be tight but that’s preferable to those who have to make such choices

i shall have to help out my mum I don’t want her having no heating on

@antelopevalley I’ve done a bit of research and it seems it did happen that women were refused mortgages without a male guarantor as late as the 70s, but that was unusual even then, and certainly by 1980 this was no longer the case. Why didn’t your mum take out a mortgage then? I’m not arguing, I’m just asking.

@Wouldloveanother she was not a high earner and needed to be able to take out a 25-year mortgage. She did not have enough working years left by then.
Glad to see you now accept I am not lying.

I got that from your post without even having an explanation as it's just common sense - she was older by that time, probably less for a deposit, less time to pay a mortgage off so wouldn't qualify etc

So that would’ve been the reason then, not just ‘being a woman’? You said My mum when she was working full time could have afforded a mortgage I doubt she went from able to afford a mortgage to in a completely unlendable position merely 4 or so years later, unless she became unemployed? Particularly if you were living in a cheap area.

@Wouldloveanother Five years earlier would have allowed a 25-year mortgage making it affordable. Affordability tests were far stricter then and no leeway was given for a single mum with two children. A 20-year mortgage meant higher monthly payments. Not sure why that is too difficult to understand?

I think @antelopevalley is telling the truth about 1994. Because even today it says lenders can and do refuse to give a married person a sole mortgage in their name only and will require a joint mortgage with both spouses signing as a condition of getting a mortgage. See it says, “your choice of lenders might be reduced” meaning lenders aren’t required to approve you for a sole mortgage when married, they can and do discriminate and can and do require a joint mortgage with the spouse Co-signing. It’s not hard to then presume this would disproportionately affect women due to the gender pay gap and societal sexism.

“Can you get a mortgage in just your name if you’re married?

Yes, but the majority of lenders prefer that couples who are married or in a civil partnership take out a joint mortgage, however, there are a plethora of reasons that you may want to take out a mortgage independently of your spouse or civil partner. Your choice of lenders might be reduced in these circumstances, but there are specialist mortgage providers who will be able to accommodate your needs.”
www.onlinemortgageadvisor.co.uk/mortgage-application/so-youre-married-but-want-a-mortgage-in-just-your-name/

So why not borrow less and have a 20 year term? I just don’t think your anecdotes is 100% based in truth.

My friend did get a business loan in 1994, but she could not get one without her husband signing his agreement. I remember because she was furious. As she said it was her business, nothing to do with him.