What are all pensioners getting another £300 this winter??

[F0RBIDDENFRUIT]

They are amongst the richest people in the country, yes there are poor pensioners but a lot of them are way richer than anyone else.

£300 more for energy, none of the old people I know need this, they all have more money than their children.

Just because they vote, that is the only reason they can be doing this.

It appears to be this. The wealth referred to is mainly in property and pension pots. It’s only to be expected that pension pots would be bigger given that they represent decades of contributions. And it’s not hard to be a property millionaire in London and the Home Counties.

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/personalandhouseholdfinances/incomeandwealth/bulletins/distributionofindividualtotalwealthbycharacteristicingreatbritain/april2018tomarch2020

Lots of ignorance on this thread, some quite disgusting comments actually- what a surprise.

Ideally yes it would make sense to means test it, but I'd rather everyone get it if it means those who desperately need it get it.

Willmafrockfit · Today 07:59

yabu
many pensioners need it
they need the heating on more than younger people

If this is the logic then surely homes with a newborn should get it too?

@Goslowglowworm

have some compassion for the elderly, who cannot simply do star jumps to warm up

People on benefits who have children under 5 get extra money when it is extra cold.

By your logic if one vulnerable group can't have it no one can!

The clue is in the name. It's called English for a reason. We speak it properly here, everything else is an (incorrect) adaptation.
The science is mathematics, so it's shortened to maths.

It’s actually the opposite. Pensioners are very difficult to criticize and as they vote in big numbers they don’t tend to get criticized by political parties.

No one dares mention the cost of pensioner benefits. Yet the state pension alone costs £100 billion a year. Fully 10% of the entire government budget. About the same as the entire education budget. And 20% of state pension goes to millionaires and they got a 10% rise that public sector workers got nowhere near. Yet no one is saying anything

Pensioners get it universally though. Parents of little babies don’t

All benefits rose by 10.1% in April, why single out pensions?

To clarify regarding the November £300 COL payment......
All people receiving the State Pension, (which, btw is not a benefit), receive the Winter Fuel Allowance. They will also get the COL payment.
Other groups of people on benefits listed in my previous post will also receive the COL payment.
The Winter Fuel allowance is totally separate from the COL payment.

As with most government decisions, it's politically motivated rather than fair or based on actual need. Wealthy >60s don't need free prescriptions, bus passes, subsidised rail travel, etc but the government is unwilling to remove any of these things because the pensioners tend to vote for them.
A discussion is needed given that there are far more children living in poverty now than pensioners. Who knows if it will happen though.

why are pensioners being picked on?
because some of you know some rich pensioners?

big deal

Pensioners don’t get subsidised rail travel. The senior rail card costs £30 for a year. Wealthy pensioners tend not to apply for, let alone use bus passes.

We don’t need a discussion in relation to children living in poverty. We need to vote in a government that will address all poverty. It certainly won’t be a Conservative one but you won’t find a Labour one removing pensioner benefits either.

LindyLou2020 · Today 09:32

To clarify regarding the November £300 COL payment......
All people receiving the State Pension, (which, btw is not a benefit), receive the Winter Fuel Allowance. They will also get the COL payment.

Of course it's a benefit!!

we ALL got help for fuel last year
did you donate that @F0RBIDDENFRUIT and others?

i thought not

Originally it was not a benefit as such. it was part of the National Insurance system, along with sickness pay and unemployment pay. It was different from Social Security benefits. It was like a state run version of private insurance. It has all got muddled with changes to the system but in the post war period people thought they were paying in to an insurance scheme for their retirement.

in the post war period people thought they were paying in to an insurance scheme for their retirement.

The clue’s in the name. 🙄

Why the eye roll. People above were disputing whether the state pension is a benefit. I was saying that originally it wasn't seen as such and that the people that are pensioners now, particularly older pensioners won't see it as a benefit. Pension credit, on the other hand, would be seen as a benefit.

The eye roll wasn’t for you @Anonymouseposter. It was for those who insist that NI is a tax when its intention is clear in its name. And that the state pension is a benefit.

Oh behave @beguilingeyes! Plenty of ESOL learners learn American English, and that's perfectly valid. It's not as if our own English English is set in aspic.
And I speak as a slightly pedantic English speaker who's a journalist by trade.

I’d like to say I’m sorry for my comments on this thread.

I do project - years of hearing my abusive boomer parents tell me young people are lazy wasters who could buy a house if they learned to work hard like them and not have Netflix. I also had the misfortune of sitting next to a woman in her 70s in the hairdressers this week, saying she thought all working age benefits should be taken away to “focus their minds” and encourage them to “work hard like we did”.

I do realise these individuals are not representative - it just made me want to lash out. Particularly for my parents, it’s hard for me to be objective. And I took it out on this thread, which was opportunely timed.

I’m really sorry to those that I offended or upset. I’m bowing out of the thread now

.....And she was educated in the US (land of the free and Donald Trump) and Canada, doncha know.

@fitzwilliamdarcy Wow, what a heartening post. I think most of the invective on this thread comes from projection. Sorry your folks were awful, that must be really hard. I know some pensioners with really c**ty views, but like you say, they are not representative and in general I feel pensioners deserve our respect and support, while they are still with us.

Exactly. A house they bought before the areas house prices escalated. Then they are living on peanuts, scraping by and wearing hats, gloves and coats because they are afraid to put on their heating. The pensioner haters would say that they should sell up and move to a cheaper area and a smaller property. Old age is not a time of life to move away from the familiar people and resources. Loneliness is already a big issue for the elderly.