“We paid in all our lives”: AIBU to think, No you didn’t?

[Perlman]

My grandparents are traditional red wall labour voters. Born during WWII to poor families, they live where they grew up. My grandad worked in a factory and my nan worked as a secretary. Like many of their generation, they lived in and bought their council house. Very caring people until it comes to politics. They are hugely racist and advocate for sinking any refugee boats. This is despite the fact that some of their grandparents were refugees from Russia!

They want the triple lock, free bus passes, heating allowance, increased benefits for older people, et cetera. They think anyone who isn’t old who takes benefits is a scrounger and lazy. They say young people can’t afford to buy a house because they are lazy. They have inherited several, but put down their relatively comfortable position in retirement as to their ‘hard work’.

They justify their opinions and entitlement by saying “we paid in all ours lives, it’s our money”. AIBU to think that, well no, not really. You may have paid in money through taxation but clearly they are net beneficiaries of the state. They both had low paid jobs, bought and sold on their council house for a tidy profit, have thankfully lived a long life but with a myriad of expensive to treat health problems. So no, they haven’t paid for what they’re taking!

I didn’t say I didn’t believe it. That article confirms that the wealth is predicated predominantly on property prices which is what I said. You might technically be a millionaire on paper if you own a house “worth” that much but that’s all it is unless you liquidate it - and then where do you live?

As for the FT lying, well we all know statistics can be manipulated to suit, don’t we?

@Seymour5 'Because we retired before 2016, our pensions are about £50 a week less than more recent retirees. Old basic is around £156, New pension is over £200.'

A lot of people think that but in fact it is not entirely true is it? many older pensioners get way more than the basic due to paying into the second state pensions SERPS alone at 23/24 rates can give someone up to £204.68 a week extra while Graduated Retirement Benefit is also extra, it is also not true that people retiring after 6th April 2016 automatically get the higher rate, people retiring now are still in the transitional phase with their NICs pre 2016 making up the calculations the governments own figures indicate that at the moment only 44% of recent pensioners get the new full rate.

It would also depend on how the occupational pension was funded, if it was funded through your NICS in other words you were contracted out of SERPS you and your employer would have paid a lower rate of NI or you would have paid full NI with some diverted into the Occupational Pension, when this happens the state pension is less because effectively you paid in less, this is one of the reasons older pensioners only get the basic not just because they reached pension age pre 2016

@Oldsu I know there are winners and losers, but DH’s contribution record (no SERPS, no contracting out) would, after 2016, have qualified for the full new state pension. Mine is less anyway, broken contribution record (no NI credits for being a SAHM back then), contracted out reductions etc. I’m just glad that my adult children will be able to retire early, and won’t be dependent on state pensions.

Like many pensioners, I misguidedly thought that any occ or private pension would provide a better income in retirement. It has simply meant we pay full council tax, and don’t qualify for Pension Credit. We are just a few ££ better off than those reliant on means tested benefits. The new state pension would have meant a better outcome for us and others like us.

If that is your observation of people under 45 then you must be moving in teeny tiny circles. People work their backsides off but bring home less of their pay than for many generations before and with everything being proportionally a hell of a lot more expensive. In the UK in the 70s it cost 4.1 times an average income to buy your average house; it is now 8.9 times. Average rents were 10% of your wage in the 70s- it’s now 30-45%. That is why people find it difficult to save enough. It cost nothing to go to university. Fees alone are now 30,000 for students. That’s just 2 areas and it’s the same in every single part of people’s lives. Nobody is waiting for handouts but without some help, most will be unable to have what the generations before them were all able to have or won’t be able to have them until a lot later. It’s not their fault and it doesn’t make them lazy!

When I started work in 1972 basic rate income tax was 33%, it’s now 20%. Take home pay was less - a lot less.

My rent (only 50% because I shared) was 40% of my take home pay.

Only 5% of people went to university, now it’s almost 50%. Most people started work at 16.

Of course it’s hard now, only an idiot would deny that. Equally life in 1970s UK was far from the land of milk and honey you portray, not least because your figures are wildly inaccurate.

“Help” is always the opposite of helpful.

Either it costs you more in the long run or it benefits one group at the expense of another, increasing cost over all.

You need cheaper housing. Cut planning permission, red tape, taxes on builders.

You need higher wages and lower taxes. ESG is designed to do the opposite.

Yes. “Atlas Shrugged” was a popular novel in the 1970s for a reason and it certainly wasn’t writing talent.

My parents thought everything would continue to get steadily worse. They had no hope, much as we haven’t now.

5% going to university and degree requirements for professional jobs approximated to a means test preserving middle class jobs for middle class people.

Tony Blair destroyed the value of degrees so that everybody is now competing for historically middle class jobs. Everyone who wants to be a graduate is a graduate so graduate wages are down and graduate working hours/competition are up.

I work the same job I did 20 years ago, for less money nominally.

Times were hard in the 1970s, easier in 80s and 90s and are now getting steadily harder.

If you want life to be easier and things to be cheaper, you need to cut what Govt takes out.

This is not just tax. Govt has also imposed burdensome regulations. People need to be employed and take time to make sure regs are complied with. This is a production cost for both goods and services and makes everything more expensive.

They’re actually official figures, but ok. I have never said life was easy for everyone but the fact is that there were far more opportunities available with far better packages long term (admittedly more for the boomer generation than people born in the 70s). My objection to the poster was declaring that everyone born after 1980 is lazy and that people simply worked harder in the 70s. That shit needs to be shot down.

How can they be official figures when you say People work their backsides off but bring home less of their pay than for many generations before which is demonstrably untrue as income tax alone was 13% higher.

How were there more opportunities when only 5% of the population was educated to degree standard? Previous generations would have killed for the opportunities people take for granted today.

Every generation has its challenges and it’s just divisive and pointless to point the finger at any other generation and weep that it’s harder for you. It’s different.

Only 5% of people went to university, now it’s almost 50%. Most people started work at 16.

People say this as though it's a benefit for people today. The truth is you HAVE to go to university now to even be considered for jobs that you could walk into without a degree in the 90s. And then be left with the benefit of a massive £50k loan to pay off throughout your working life. It's absolutely not a benefit. It's another thing that's harder for young people today.

i completely agree. But we kept being told how wonderful it was the it was free. It wasn’t that wonderful if hardly anyone could get a degree. And that closed the door in the face of people who would really have benefited from higher education.

I agree, and it’s largely down to employers to change that culture. Hiring school leaver apprentices is more tricky because it is often difficult to discern who is most suitable as none of them have much experience. You end up interviewing a lot of young people, and trying to see beyond their nervousness to who they really are.

It is tempting for employers to hire a new graduate because they are more mature than a school leaver, not much more expensive and have some knowledge / proven interest if the degree is appropriate; but they still need training and supervision.

Companies for sure need to get off their backsides and offer more in house training with day release at college.

Exactly right.

A 22 year old graduate now has the same opportunities as a 16 year old school leaver in the 80s.

At least they are getting over the head full of false expectations they were give ten years ago.

Lots of excellent, high status employers are being sensible and taking school leavers again. I’d do that unless the degree is a prestigious one.

I don't believe the innate intelligence of the population has changed much since the 1970s (or since the 1790s). But the insistence that more degree level qualifications would benefit the whole economy has back fired big time. Instead you get corporate HR departments just using the filter of first degree to sack off a sizeable chunk of applications. A friend in grad recruitment HR for IBM in Brussels said that they checked the degree and the university and round-filed any one short of the level. And anecdotally, I recruited for my (entry level) replacement in NYC publishing, offered my preferred candidate and my boss decided on a candidate from an Ivy League college who was an incompetent waste of space. For an editor's job, with rudimentary errors in SPaG. You couldn't make it up!

I am sure you will refuse any inheritance from these horrible old people.

There's been a lot of these dog whistle ageist posts recently, haven't there?

I'm one of the horrible old boomers... I don't think my GenZ kid will turn down anything coming down the line, even though it hasn't arrived in my bank account, because I have two living near-nonagenarian parents.

Yes and there will be a lot more. Boomer bashing seems to be becoming something of a sport. 🙄

Fortunately, lots of us boomers are familiar with t'Internet and computers so not entirely helpless. FFS, I have had a computer on my desk since 1983!

They don't care.

That is the conclusion that I have reached. Its entitlement fueled by a lack of education and close to zero critical thinking skills (like OPs parents).

So, what to do?

You do what you do to a toddler that throws tantrums. You take their goodies away.

1. We need subsidised childcare in a hurry as its hampering women from working and damaging the economy.

To fund this you legislate away the triple lock in favour of a sustainable uprating of state pensions using demographics and economic and financial metrics.

1. The NHS is near collapse because the pensioners do not pay in (no NI) and heavily use the system.

To fund better pay for Drs and Nurses, along with investment into more places to train more you introduce a graduated NI tax for pensioners based on income.

1. Local Authorities are broke

You fund extra revenue by updating the banding system from 1991 home values to 2022 home values, and you add in a few more upper bands.

And voila,

The UKs economic problems are on the way to being improved.

The effective tax rates were a lot lower back in 1972.

If you earn from £50k to £60k now you are looking at 85% marginal rates due to the removal of child benefit.

Its even worse from £100k to £120k now.

100% marginal tax rate with removal of tax free childcare and tax free emount of 12.5k.

On short, people earning £50k to £150k are carrying the entire country.

Its a massive tax burden and people are naturally fed up.

1. We need subsidised childcare in a hurry as its hampering women from working and damaging the economy.

To fund this you make every employer pay women equally, crack down on absent fathers and incentivise employers to set up high quality nurseries

2. The NHS is near collapse because the pensioners do not pay in (no NI) and heavily use the system.

The NHS is near collapse became it has a huge shortage of qualified staff. To address this you allow qualified doctors and dentists awaiting assessment as asylum seekers to work. You make it a condition of NHS funded training that at least five years are worked in the NHS post qualification and you don’t write off student debt if they emigrate. You also reopen step down beds so older patients aren’t readmitted as fast as they’re discharged.

3. Local Authorities are broke

You fund extra revenue by updating the banding system from 1991 home values to 2022 home values, and you add in a few more upper bands. And the all the young families will pay shedloads more council tax as well as sky high mortgages and extortionate childcare

Fixed it for you.

I think I have heard it all now.

Your "grand plan" to fix the massive lack of Drs (GPs and specialists) is to let asylum seekers (who are not medically qualified to practice in the UK and are few and far between) work in the NHS.

Amazing. Duning-Kruger springs to mind after that gem.

Your "grand plan" to fix the massive lack of Drs (GPs and specialists) is to let asylum seekers (who are not medically qualified to practice in the UK and are few and far between) work in the NHS.

No it isn’t. Read what I actually wrote.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/apr/09/trained-medics-who-could-ease-nhs-crisis-stuck-in-asylum-limbo

This is why I find it largely pointless to discuss these things.

You don't even have a basic understanding of the problem, and to boot, you will twist yourself into a veritable pretzel generating outlandish ideas to solve problems primarily because you are allergic to the reality that "pensioners need to pay in more".

Thats why the only solution is to ignore pensioners in general and legislate away their extra benefits (which are making everybody else poorer) out of existence.

I really do hope Starmer understands this as well and he is playing the long game.

Its the only way forward now for the country