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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

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

413 replies

Perlman · 09/08/2023 09:44

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!

OP posts:
Daphnis156 · 09/08/2023 12:18

I don't think the State holds an account where what you pay in is looked at against what you may have received. So we would never truly know.
Pensioners often pay tax on their state pensions, VAT on purchases, and huge amounts of tax on petrol if they drive. Not to mention high taxes on alcohol if they have the temerity to drink.
It may be your grandparents find your views on the vast amounts you feel they receive as obnoxious as you find theirs on immigration.
Sinking the boats is so Alf Garnett...
If you are as condemnatory to others as you are to your older relatives, and can only tolerate views aligned wholly with your own, then you will have a poor, unenriched life.

DisquietintheRanks · 09/08/2023 12:19

floribunda18 · 09/08/2023 11:16

YANBU. I think some people imagine there is a huge imaginary state pot they pay into, part of which is distributed to them when they retire. Infuriating when it comes with a pulling up the drawbridge behind them, I'm All Right Jack attitude.

Worth pointing out it is actually us working people who are paying for their state pension currently, pensioners are by far the biggest users of NHS services, by some way, and by far the biggest benefit recipients (state pension being by far the biggest benefit). But you are likely flogging a dead horse. My DM gets it, my DF definitely didn't.

Tbf there should be an entirely separate, ring-fence pot into which people's state pension contributions are paid. That's how it works in other countries. I for one do not love the idea that I have to pay money into a pension that I may never see.

smooththecat · 09/08/2023 12:19

midlifecrash · 09/08/2023 11:42

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

What, so you mean to say that the government haven’t actually invested the pension money and they have to scrape around elsewhere to pay out? That seems like a massive fuck up. No wonder it’s so low.

RudsyFarmer · 09/08/2023 12:20

They’re basically telling you they don’t like the change that has happened in their lifetime. They are completely impotent to change it and their way of coping is to vocally protest in a way that is socially unacceptable to most.

My parents are the same abd we don’t talk politics anymore.

drpet49 · 09/08/2023 12:20

Moglet4 · 09/08/2023 10:01

You are absolutely right. Unfortunately, there are far too many who think like this and they are too old to change their minds 🤷‍♀️

They are too ignorant to change their minds

dramoy · 09/08/2023 12:20

I started paying tax when I was 18 and will still be paying it until the day I die.

Is that not the same for many others?

dramoy · 09/08/2023 12:21

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

plummeting birth rates too hence why we need immigrants

BlackOps · 09/08/2023 12:21

Dear Mumsnet

I hate my grandparents so much and I invite you all to slag them off behind their backs!

Plus I'm going to make them sound really evil in my opening post

Love OP

dramoy · 09/08/2023 12:22

Hello grandparents!

Thingstodotoday · 09/08/2023 12:24

Allthegoodnamesarechosen · 09/08/2023 11:03

ooo look, another ageist hâte thread! Yippee

Oh look another poster without critical thinking skills/reading comprehension. Hurray!

TallulahBetty · 09/08/2023 12:27

YANBU, this is THE richest elderly generation we have even seen, and probably ever will do. More should be means-tested for them, but it never will be, because it's taboo to even suggest that we don't lavish everything on them.

Squirrelsnut · 09/08/2023 12:27

I'm not sure what you want, OP. Lots of people agreeing in thinly-veiled ageist vitriol that your GPs are arseholes?

CerberusWoof · 09/08/2023 12:28

@theyareonlynoodlesmichael

If you made them go and watch people drowning they would change their minds.

That's the thing, they probably wouldn't. 🙁

As long as those people were brown.

LemonTT · 09/08/2023 12:28

I think there are very few people who were borne in the 1940’s and grew up in council housing (limited at that time anyway) who inherited generational wealth in red wall areas as described in this post.

The OPs grandparents situation is very unusual a doesn’t tell us much about much. The wealth disparity and inequalities in this country are between the SE and basically everywhere else apart from a few university cities.

The working classes did not create the gap.

Blossomtoes · 09/08/2023 12:29

dramoy · 09/08/2023 12:20

I started paying tax when I was 18 and will still be paying it until the day I die.

Is that not the same for many others?

Of course it is. It also means that it’s entirely true for me to say that I’ve paid in all my life. I don’t understand why this fact is apparently so contentious.

MotherofGorgons · 09/08/2023 12:29

If you are as condemnatory to others as you are to your older relatives, and can only tolerate views aligned wholly with your own, then you will have a poor, unenriched life.

I don't think I am very judgy, but I do require that people I spend time with not applaud little kids drowning because they had the bad luck to be born in the wrong country. Guess my life will be devoid of rich meaning.

SuperiorM · 09/08/2023 12:30

Sorry, but yes they did pay in and expect the system to work. Successive govts - sadly not all nasty Conservatives - have undermined this.

TheGreyRockess · 09/08/2023 12:31

Do they read the Daily Mail or the Express? Some readers' minds get poisoned and they turn into entitled, self interested ladder-pulling racists.

LakeTiticaca · 09/08/2023 12:32

My late DF, who was born in the 20s into a family of 11, no inside bathroom, toilet, central heating no NHS or welfare handouts, lost his father as a young child through terrible illness caused by poor working conditions (no health &safety back then)had a favourite saying to us kids: "you lot don't you're born"
How right he was.
I don't know what he would think of all these illegal immigrants complaining because they don't like the accommodation they have been provided with.
My guess is his opinion would be like the MP, F.Off back to France if you don't like it!!

cloudydays97 · 09/08/2023 12:32

Perlman · 09/08/2023 09:44

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!

If they're this discriminatory be honest and tell them, go NC don't just post on Mumsnet. Will you be happy to accept an inheritance from them? Just wondering how far your morals go

gettingoldisshit · 09/08/2023 12:32

MrsMarzetti · 09/08/2023 11:07

You slate them but my god you are not so bloody wonderful yourself. To rip your Grandparents to shreds on SM is beyond low, maybe you would rather they gave up the myriad of health treatments ( i take it you won't ever use the NHS) One day they will be gone and when you stand at their graves your scathing attack may just come back to haunt you.

Absolutely this!!! This thread is hateful and the people posting vile things about elderly people are everything and worse than the things you are calling op's grandparents!

BoredZelda · 09/08/2023 12:35

I think the biggest irony they seem to miss is, whilst they bang on about being treated fairly and getting all the thinks they think they deserve, the younger generations are paying for it, and will continue to, in a way that will leave them worse off than today's pensioners. And yet they still call the younger generations "entitled".

I also think of their youthful days, in the 70s and 80s where benefits were easier to get, the iconic dole bludger was really a thing, and large numbers were on sick pay (a government con to keep unemployment numbers low). Two or three generations of families who never worked again after the heavy industry shut down. But the minute they became pensioners they became hardworking people who have paid in all their life.

I think it's great we no longer have big numbers of pensioners in poverty. We really do look after our old people better than we used to. I just wish it wasn't at the expense of the young and other vulnerable people.

dramoy · 09/08/2023 12:35

Absolutely this!!! This thread is hateful and the people posting vile things about elderly people are everything and worse than the things you are calling op's grandparents!

Hateful? 🙄

Blossomtoes · 09/08/2023 12:35

SuperiorM · 09/08/2023 12:30

Sorry, but yes they did pay in and expect the system to work. Successive govts - sadly not all nasty Conservatives - have undermined this.

Exactly. Successive governments of both persuasions have completely failed to plan for the biggest generation growing old, yet somehow it’s the fault of people who had no control over the time of their birth. Crazy.

User6424678852 · 09/08/2023 12:36

You are conflating a lot of different things, so your AIBU is unclear.

They sound like unpleasant people so YANBU to dislike them ir their opinions.

However WRT benefits for older people YABU. It’s a social contract. Some people will get more out than they paid in (like your parents) and some will pay more in than they get out.

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