“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'm not sure where I said or implied that they did not deserve a state pension. Just pointing out the reality that the current workforce are actually supporting them in their retirement.

I very much hope that state pension is actually a thing in 20 years time and that they don't keep moving the goal posts as to when you can receive it. At least there are fewer of us to support in Gen X.

I'm a pensioner. I don't get full pension due to some glitch when I was not working when I had children. I also am one of those women who didn't qualify for my pension until I was 66.
I struggle with money after having worked all my adult life. This is not the fault of any government. My own personal circumstances caused my current situation and there is nothing I can do about it. I do not get enough money to pay my fuel bills and am having to use savings to top up my pension. I receive three quarters of the state pension and a tiny works pension which together make up the full state pension.
I am not grumbling but I have worked hard and at the age of 68 I am looking for work as my savings are dwindling.
It's not ideal but I am not complaining. I am grateful for my pension, but wish it could be the full amount.
I think people who complain are usually the ones who are better off anyway !

What some people seem to think is that their taxes and NI go into a separate shoebox for them. It doesn’t work like this. Any welfare benefits including pensions can only be paid from current state revenue, ie generated from taxes and NI of people currently working. Where there are shortfalls in workers as there are in many sectors this affects the amount of revenue. So immigration is important to the pensions that people are currently receiving today

Young peoples taxes are paying the current pensioners pensions and other benefits. It sounds like ops grandparents were never net contributors. Also young people already have to wait much longer and contribute more before they can get a state pension. That’s if there is a state pension at all when they get there.

the state pension is around 10% of all government spending and there are significant pressures on public finances. Yet pensioners (the wealthiest demographic - many of whom are millionaires) got a huge increase in state pension- higher than eg nhs workers. I’m not far off pension age but I can see how unfair that is.

the problem is that pensioners vote and younger people don’t. They need to sort that.

Sadly not too unusual.

The misnomer of 'National Insurance' makes people think they are paying into an insurance fund, where instead successive governments have managed a 'pay as you go' system. Instead of investing our oil revenues to create a funded system, and/or a Norwegian-style sovereign wealth fund, unfortunately we spent them.

The older generation need to understand that, and that everything they take - in state pensions, benefits and healthcare, is being paid for by their children and in some cases grand-children.

Between us DH and I have worked for more than 70 years. We will both get our full state pensions and generous private pensions. We will continue paying tax until we die. We have put in a huge amount and I have no objection to providing benefits for those who need them. I do object to those who don't need them getting more than they should.

I have an underlying chronic health condition and the NHS has denied me optimal treatment for it because the bar has been raised by NICE. I am funding a two year course of anabolic injectables personally to help prevent further deterioration to my bones. I am lucky that I have the £2400 handy.

I think it would be helpful if every baby started with a personal state spends account to which could be added the cost of medical care and education, then benefits and pensions, with the tax and NI payments added throughout their lives. It would then be clear who were net contributors to society and what individuals had cost compared to what they put in.

It doesn't matter what anyone thinks about whether any of us have paid e ought in. The social contract has been set, we pay x and in return you get y. So yes people who pay it have paid in.

I'm just because how much u paid in isnt close to what it may really cost is an issue for government policy its not down to the individual who has no control over it.

Like any insurance, you pay an amount decided for you and in return you can claim x y z. Eveb if what you claim is more than what you paid in. Thats the agreement.

The other points yanbu about.

There’s also the issue that ni is effectively a tax that is only paid by workers. So wealthy pensioners are also paying much less tax on their income than workers.

What some people seem to think is that their taxes and NI go into a separate shoebox for them. It doesn’t work like this. Any welfare benefits including pensions can only be paid from current state revenue, ie generated from taxes and NI of people currently working. Where there are shortfalls in workers as there are in many sectors this affects the amount of revenue. So immigration is important to the pensions that people are currently receiving today

Why don't people get it? And unfortunately the pyramid is tipping upside down.

The point is that ops grandparents think they’re entitled to all the benefits they get but that others are not. Because they think they “paid in” enough for their benefits even though they didn’t. That’s why it’s relevant - because they think it gives them an entitlement that others shouldn’t have.

The idea of a personal 'pot' is too simplistic and goes against the concept of society. We coexist with others and gain the benefits of shared resources. What comes with this is a responsibility towards those who are less able to succeed in this society. This may be because of health, education or societal disadvantage. It would create an even more tiered system than that which we currently have.

As for the OP. My MIL is the same. She's too old at 80 to change her views. However I remind her that she came over on a boat (from Ireland) as a child and is also an immigrant. The only difference is the colour of her skin.

Perhaps those grandparents are feeling this way because they never claimed benefits ? There are lots of people who never work a day in their lives and live off benefits making a career out of it getting benefits for all sorts of things besides the basics

You lost me at sinking refugee boats. Good god! Sadly there are going to be more like them in the future.

I don't think you can change them.

My mum is in her 80's she stopped working age 36 and became a sahm she insists "we paid in all our lives" but she didn't my dad did as a high rate tax payer. However she worked not even full time for some years in a low paid job. Nothing wrong with being a sahm I am one but I am very aware I pay nothing in to the system I pay for a private pension using my Carer's allowance for my disabled child.

You won’t change them. People don’t change unless they want to. People especially don’t change lifelong beliefs at an old age. Best to detatch and attempt not to speak to them on these topics. Try and find another way to connect with them. What common ground DO you have?

If they raise an issue like this look at them blankly and let the convo fall flat. Then change the topic. It’s a skill to not get riled up and not react. But it’s a skill you can learn with practice.

Sorry to go off topic but I can’t get past “they advocate for sinking any refugee boats” - what the actual fuck?! Being old can be an excuse for many things, but not being this much of a cunt.

My mother is the same, that's part of why I'm no contact with her. It's extreme selfishness which I just can't get my head around. In her case she goes on about having paid in all her life and gets absolutely furious if you point out she never paid anything. She married at 16 and spent her entire adult life as a housewife. And now she's 67, living on her own in a 4 bedroomed council house, bitching about foreigners getting everything, while she gets nothing despite having paid in all her life.

You are right in so much as they are overestimating their contribution and underestimating their take out and thus see themselves as having had more agency then they really did. I guess it’s human nature.

@MorePressureMoreRelease I think it's more realistic than simplistic and would help a lot of people to see in certain terms the balance of their inputs and their outputs. It would also help with the ingrate attitude within organisations such as the NHS where we are all viewed as takers and the way in which all people are handled is as the lowest common denominator. They are not doing people favours, they providing services which are free only at the point of delivery and their staff shoukd treat all people as potential contributors.

Yes my parents are like this and it's depressing and embarrassing. (We are now NC for many reasons.)

They have horrible attitudes and opinions, the stuff about letting refugees drown is grotesque. However, I don't think it is wholly a generational thing, I know people much younger who have horrific opinions and sadly these days are not afraid to voice them. There is a guy on my street who I call the "friendly local racist" who thinks because I am white I will automatically agree with his bile. He even hated the prospect of Ukrainians coming here, saw them as "foreign scroungers" and can only refer to Sunak as "that Indian". I have no time for Sunak, but his ethnicity is not the issue for me. He's about 35, I am way older and have always despised racism and prejudice in general. My mum was the same generation as your grandparents and that is where I get my values from, she brought us up to be non-judgemental and to always challenge racism. It is much more complex than all old people being nasty bigots and all younger ones being open minded. That said , I really feel for you having to listen to that sort of talk.

I don't wish to generalise but I do know that my grandmother, who was born in 1923, never thought like this -- and that really was the generation that paid with their lives! She worked in a munitions factory throughout WW2 and my grandad was in the Navy, but was always pro-Welfare State and immigration, having lived through the Depression. You sometimes get the impression that the next generation, too young to really remember the war, want people to conflate them with their parents when really they've been the luckiest generation in history.

That made my blood run cold. One of the things I sometimes think about is how terrifying it must be to be on one of those boats and when people do drown I think about the fear they must have gone through while they were dying. I am old too, I think it is about empathy rather than the amount of years lived

But the way the system works is that you are largely paying it forward. The taxes and NI I have paid in my lifetime should be funding benefits, pensions, NHS fees etc for the next generation. My parents generation paid for the benefits my generation get.

What has really screwed up the system is that we are living far longer than the original calculations factored in, when they brought in the suggested age for retirement for example it was expected that most working people would obligingly die within a couple of years of retirement, meaning that not only did their pension entitlements go back into the pot, but they didn’t end up costing the NHS for age related illnesses.

We finished paying WWll debt in 2006 so that’s where a fair amount of their taxes went. The only people who ever contribute more than they take are those on eye wateringly high incomes and/or are childless.

The fact still remains that your grandparents are correct @Perlman. They have paid in all their lives if they worked - at very high rates at various points, basic rate income tax was 33% plus 9% NI when I started work. I started paying tax when I was 18 and will still be paying it until the day I die.