“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 think it’s sensible to look at political parties’ past records when deciding how to vote. The thought of having to tolerate any more of the current lot makes me feel physically sick.

My ILS "have paid in all their lives" except FIL worked cash in hand and very rarely paid tax, and never paid NICs for atleast the last 20 years he worked.
MIL has never paid tax and only just over the threshold for NICs...
But anyone who needs any benefits isn't a very nice person however they should get more now FIL is retired apparently because the system is no way to treat anyone who's paid in their entire life! ...
I don't have patience for it, they're stuck in their ways, and I have to avoid the discussion with them.

You'll be old, have a myriad of health problems one day. You'll feel entitled to your hip replacement, triple bypass, whatever..

My grandparents and parents worked a lot bloody harder than I ever have; starting from the bottom on process lines, manual jobs, menual jobs etc for low wages, often no occupational pension, fought in the war, brought kids up alone, on rations, during the war. I don't begrudge them anything.

Your parents did not fight any war.

Enough with the delusional "war this or that"

Its a farce. The people that actually endured the war are all 90+ now.

The 60 to 80 group in no way endured a "war"

Its pure nonsense.

As another 61 yr old worker paying a mortgage and juggling this with caring for my disabled ds, always as a lone parent - I'm a bit sick of this ageist wank too.

Our demographic don't benefit from the triple lock as we can't receive the state pension until we're 67. I'm fully paid up, with a bit of additional too, started working FT at 15 - but until I'm 67 I've gotta keep going as the SP is all I'll get.

My DF was at El Alamein. In South London, my DM heard doodlebugs go over, and sometimes explode nearby, in her teens.

She also paid the Married Women's rate of NI when she was working, before and sometimes during, her marriage. It was lower because it was expected that her DH would eventually claim State Pension for both of them. This was normal.

Unfortunately, she continued at that rate after they separated, instead of paying the normal NI rate, so got only a tiny pension at 60. By this time she also had a small mortgage, and had to plead with her employer to let her continue working for a year after the then women's retirement age so she could pay it off. The right to work after retirement age is quite recent, I think?

As they never divorced, when DF died in 2016, she finally got an increased State Pension.

ie DF fought in WW II in the Middle East, then he was involved in liberating Italy.

this with bells on

My mother was bombed out of 3 different homes in Sheffield. It still affects her. Can we stop with all the “no one living was affected by the war” crap.

I agree. I have parents and in-laws aged from in their late 70’s to early 80’s all from different areas of the country. All had what would be now be considered very difficult childhoods with dads away at war, and then returning injured and refusing/unable to talk about what they had been through. All of our DPs lived in tenements or shared housing with multiple generations and outside toilets. Rationing didn’t completely end until 1954.

DPs then all went through very frugal marriages and parenting in the 1970s and 1980s with sky high mortgage rates. Clothes were passed down and/or bought at jumble sales. Meals out were maybe 3 times per year. Overseas holidays were extremely rare. We went on two during my whole childhood to Spain and were considered very middle class.

Our DPs have only had more money to spend in the last 20 years partly due to massively paying into private pensions during their last decade or two of working and downsizing from larger houses. After all they’ve been through I don’t begrudge them their reasonably comfortable retirements.

And naturally those folk wanted the best for the children born after the war. And I'm very grateful - I got free higher education.

I expect they wanted the best for their unborn great-grandchildren as well, never thinking that those very great-grandchildren would blame their Boomer grandparents for the fact that post-war Britain wanted the best for all the nation's kids.

*during and after the war, obvs

Well said @SequentialAnalyst !

My dad was in Le Havre, demobbed in 1945 at 41, died before he was 60. I don’t remember him ever having good health, although he worked. My parents weren’t home owners, DH and I bought because we couldn’t get a council house, being newcomers to an area in the 70s. Our house won’t pay care fees for long. We’re int’ North.

Thank goodness the DC don’t need it! We scraped a deposit, and struggled with the mortgage in the 80s. Saddens me that perhaps we should have spent more when we were young, on holidays and other nice things, but we wanted to have a house, and eventually leave its value to our DC or the grandchildren. I just hope neither of us need care.

That always baffles me how people who never fought in a war like to bring it up like they did. There was hardship after, sure, but it's not the same. 10 years later there was a huge boom period.

You’re right, it’s not the same.

The phrase usually used is “lived through the war”, meaning endured the hardship of the 2nd world war. Which both of my (living) parents did.

This is of course not the same as fighting in a war, which my father also did.

And we certainly have the experience of being the children of those people that lived through the war.

And the experience of being the grandchildren of people who lived through two world wars in 40 years.

For younger PP:
I suggest going on Ancestry and finding out your own ancestors. Or watch a few episodes of Who Do You Think You Are. Watch some of the Back in Time series by the BBC. Then you will have more idea of how things which are historical events to you, are still in active living memory eg in a relative of mine in their late 90s, and will be able to understand how everyone is, has been or (hopefully) will be: young, middle aged, old.

And, IF WE ARE LUCKY, the experience of being the grandchildren of people who lived through two world wars in 40 years.

The figures are from the ONS. The opportunities for boomers specifically? Not paying for university if you were going (not many did, but the opportunity was there), lower proportion of income being required for a house deposit, final salary pensions…. yes, expectations and so on were different and yes, every generation has its challenges but for a generation which has had the most out of the benefit system than any other before or after them to point the finger (which is what the poster I was responding to was doing) and declare that subsequent generations are just lazy is disgusting.

Mine did. Parents born pre 1910, my father was in the army from 1939-1945. I’m a boomer, he died suddenly when I was in my teens, he never had good health after WWII but never stopped working. My mother was widowed in her 50s, lived in private rented housing all her life, had to find work as a widow, went cleaning, then housekeeping til she was 70. Rationing was still in force when I was a child. Society was far less consumerist, little exposure to luxury.

I’m of the last generation where women in some employment had to resign on marriage, where there was little childcare, no child benefit for the first child, and no NI credits for SAHMs. My state pension is about half of the basic, old state pension. Fortunately I have a small occupational pension, but as pointed out earlier in this thread, that is just enough to preclude DH and I from Pension Credit and its add ons. Neither of our incomes is above the threshhold for income tax, but as a couple we can afford to pay our bills, although fuel costs were scary last winter. Very grateful for the WFA. DH has a health condition where he feels the cold more than me.

We have a small house, not worth anywhere near those of my Gen X children. But if they inherit it (no care home fees we hope) then the grandchildren will benefit. We had children fairly young, the norm for our age group, DC established themselves first, and are heading for much more comfortable retirements. They may not even get state pensions, if the government brings in means testing.

I think in general my generation did have opportunities, but I also believe we were generally resilient. Many were brought up in poor, overcrowded housing, council housing was more expensive than slums, and was unaffordable for many. Benefits were minimal, unemployment meant taking any job or losing them. The mindset was different, there was little if any entitlement. Buying a house was considered a risk, and for many by the 1980s, it was. The double figure interest rates meant repossession for some, we hung on by a thread.

My DF was in Burma during WW2. DFIL was in North Africa.

My parents' house was purchased for £3000 but has increased in value by over 5000%. Additionally, 20% of baby boomers own a second home, leading to a transfer of wealth from young renters to older property owners. Baby boomers own the majority of UK privately held housing wealth, with those over 65 owning £2.587 trillion in net property value.
This demographic is also causing strain on the NHS and road networks, (costing my business £78000 plus VAT annually). However, their ability to pootle about is not impacted.

The generation we’re talking about is ops parents who would have been born well after the war.

Yes, my own generation - I am early 70s. We grew up expecting our lives to be the ones our parents and their parents, the voters of post-war Britain, hoped for us. However, the world has changed so much, in so many ways. My great-aunts, who both lived till I was in my 30's, and who were among the million Surplus Women for whom there were no young men to marry, couldn't even vote until they were 28. Their lives and society changed greatly during their lifetimes. It's the same in my case. I suspect it's the same in every human being's case, if they live long enough.

My DM, who was caught out by NI as described above, is still alive. DF, whose State Pension entitlement passed to her after his death, died in 2016. This is living memory I'm talking about.

Of course not everyone can be criticised but it's a fact that on MN certain groups are exempt!