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.

My granny did, she had an almost childlike sense of fun and wonder and she could make a feast out of scraps. I've never known anyone who could cook like her. She had such a hard life in many ways.

I don't remember being cold but I vividly remember chilblains. Horrible things.

If this thread is anything to go by, divide and rule is alive and well in the UK. The Tories have ruined the economy, attempted to make the rich even richer at the expense of the rest of us, and made us a laughing stock - and that’s just in the last twelve months. But MN is full of threads about how it’s all the fault of greedy pensioners and those pesky sick and disabled people who are living the high life on benefits. Means testing is a race to the bottom. The thresholds are always set low, and you may be as vulnerable as the next person but if you’re a couple of quid over the limit you’re left to struggle. A lot of opinions on here seem to support the view that pensioners and benefit claimants should be kept on the breadline and wait quietly for death..

Or opt for "voluntary euthanasia" like in Canada.

Pensioners are far less likely to be on the breadline than any other demographic. That’s why many posters object to them receiving a concession which costs the country £2.6 billion a year. If pensioners were any other group, it would be called absolutely ridiculous that we hand over such a sum to these people (1 in 5 of whom are millionaires), when there are others in much greater need. There are double the number of kids in poverty than pensioners. But because it’s pensioners, people seem to have this bizarre notion that they deserve whatever they ask for and are inherently deprived just because of their age.

My workshy neighbours with 4 children who have barely worked since leaving school spent all the money handed out to them for supposedly coping with the cost of living crisis on buying a dog!

They are both fit and healthy and capable of working but just don't want to. I would far rather money go to pensioners any day than the lazy

Average income for pensioners as of March 2023

£511 per week (£26,572 p.a.) for a retired couple and £246 per week (£12,792 p.a.) for a single retiree

If pensioners were any other group, it would be called absolutely ridiculous that we hand over such a sum to these people (1 in 5 of whom are millionaires), when there are others in much greater need

Other groups are getting money via Cost of Living payments that are not means tested, not just pensioners. I got a £500 payment because I am a full time unpaid carer. I am not wealthy, but I am also not struggling. I han't seen any threads bashing that payment. My husband also got a CoL payment because he gets PIP. I haven't seen any threads about that, although there are often threads bashing the disabled.

How much did the £400 fuel deduction cost the government, along with the freezing of the price cap? Why aren't you outraged about all the millionaires and second home owners who benefited from that @Jamtartforme ?

Problem with this thinking is that we are entering an age of scarcity. We do not have enough money to help everybody. When I say "money" this means collected tax revenue to transfer to those groups that need help. That tax comes from national income (GDP), and is correlated to how productive the UK is.

Thats what people on here don't understand. They lie to themselves, they make excuses about the Govt being terrible, they attack posters as being terrible people etc.

These things are not mutually exclusive. You can have bad governance, and still have economic problems unrelated to it going on in the background.

This behavior is essentialy a form of deflection and its very common in the UK (in all spheres). You might as well be shouting into a hurricane. Nobody cares about effective solutions, its always about their own group first. European countries lile Denmark (for example) do not think this way. They prioritise things based on current needs, and it works well.

The economic and financial situation in the UK is so bad that the country will have to make hard choices on who it can help over the next 5 years.

Pensioners?
Children?
Single Parents?
Families?
Young people?
Disabled?

Worth repeating: there is not enough tax revenue to help all of them. You have to choose the ones in need. The ones that are really having a bad time right as a group now are:

Children
Single Parents
Disabled

Thats were the country needs to focus on. What pensioners dont understand is that a sicker population (which is happening now and is getting worse) means that there are less working people paying tax to fund the universal benefits that they receive. Thus the working population is increasingly taxed to fund the universal benefits that pensioners receive.

The math is simple in the abstract sense.

Too many working people are not working enough due to being sick, thus we keep collecting less tax, and too many people do not work because they are retired (thus they need working people to fund their universal benefits).

When pensioners voted for Brexit in large numbers they basically sealed their own fate. Young EU folks were huge net taxpayers, and when they left, the demographic time bomb in the UK has accelerated due to the existing UK tax structure.

You had about 20-25 years of kicking the proverbial can down the road pre-Brexit regarding pensions. With Brexit and the dual shocks of the pandemic and Ukraine war, you have less than 5.

Turkeys voting for Christmas basically.

You had about 20-25 years of kicking the proverbial can down the road pre-Brexit regarding pensions. With Brexit and the dual shocks of the pandemic and Ukraine war, you have less than 5

OK. So what exactly is going to happen to the UK in 5 years time if nothing is changed?

What pensioners dont understand is that a sicker population (which is happening now and is getting worse) means that there are less working people paying tax to fund the universal benefits that they receive. Thus the working population is increasingly taxed to fund the universal benefits that pensioners receive

Why do you talk about pensioners as though they are some amorphous blob who understand nothing? It is so bloody patronising and offensive. Your ageism is rank.

TheThinkingGoblin · Today 15:30

My ‘thinking’ is acknowledging the difficulties and yes scarcity that may come. Precisely because of this we need a government with integrity and a genuine wish to make decisions which will be as fair as possible about taxation, benefits and pensions. The tax system we have is an old relic, extremely cumbersome, very complicated. Also undeniably unfair!

I hate to dwell on this but if human beings continue as we are, whether we have a pension or a benefit of some kind or not may be less worrying than wars over who has food/water/liveable land. This is probably my only reason not to mind being older.

You get poorer.

But we have all got poorer over the last 13 years, and that is not because of pensioners. I thought you were going to predict something much more extreme. I am a bit disappointed tbh!

So, business as usual regardless of whether we spend a couple of billion each year on the WFA.

Again, though, pensioners pay tax at the same rate as the rest of the population.

I get my state pension and my tiny occupational pension. My occupational pension takes me just over the tax threshold when added to my state pension. I pay basic rate tax on that. The basic state pension is around 8K to 9K a year, which is below the taxable rate.
If anyone, including people of pension age are committing tax fraud, then that is what needs to be addressed.
DH is in better health than me and intends to keep working until he is 70. He pays his tax on his earnings too, just as he has done for the last 40 years.

So what should we do? Keep those over 66 working till they become too frail and sick to continue? Put anyone over the age of 66 who cannot work into an institution and let them starve/freeze? Or introduce legislation to legalise killing them off?

porridgecake · Today 16:19

So what should we do? Keep those over 66 working till they become too frail and sick to continue? Put anyone over the age of 66 who cannot work into an institution and let them starve/freeze? Or introduce legislation to legalise killing them off?

Why does this nonsense keep getting repeated? Not wanting universal freebies to be given out just because people reach a certain age, whether they actually need help.ot not, is not the same as wanting all over 66 year olds killed off FFS

We may just as well call you a child hater for not wanting poor families to get the help instead.

The argument seems to have moved on to not enough people paying tax. I am just pointing out that pensioners do pay tax.

So many people getting sucked into this divide-and-conquer bullshit, tying themselves in knots blaming the elderly (who do pay tax incidentally), disabled people and basically anyone drawing a benefit for their own circumstances. Division is exactly what the government wants - you've been stitched up like a kipper!

Yet, the obscenely wealthy (who don't pay income tax!) find every loophole going to avoid paying taxes on their wealth, which the govt are only too happy to oblige with and encourage. And then there's corporation tax avoidance, energy companies, etc. etc. Redirect your ire, it's not your nan that's the problem!

It has been stated numerous times that depending where in the country they live that pensioners homes will make up a significant amount of their wealth, which is not a very liquid asset.

Its a way to deflect from what is being discussed.

They do this a lot on here.

This type of "thinking" arises when an individual drives their decision-making based on "emotions" rather than "facts". They are completely reactive (as this thread has proven dozens of times) Its become a huge problem in the UK because this is amplified (on purpose) by the right wing media and social media.

Everything is reduced to "race to the bottom" and "starved to death" & "freeze to death" etc.. Everything has black/white thinking.

The finer details of public policy and financial numbers is too much for them. They don't understand them, and more importantly, they dont want to understand them.

The last 13 years have been nothing compared to what is coming.

The UK cannot borrow as it could 13 years ago. It is stuck due to much higher debt service costs and structural inflation.

Do you know what happens when you get poorer?

Public services deteriorate further. NHS will fragment to the point you will have to go private.

"Free at the point of use" will be gone. As will free prescriptions. You will all have to pay.

You are seeing this a bit now. This will get much worse as nurses and drs leave abroad because the country cannot afford salary increases.

Infrastructure starts falling down. Hospitals, schools, trains etc.. they all get worse. You are seeing this in a few areas already.

This kind of managed decline also then affects investment into the UK. Why invest money in a failing country? Investors will simply go elsewhere.

Population then gets sicker and works less. End result is a brain drain: younger people leave abroad because there is no future in the UK, this then exacerbates the problems for the country because there will be less net taxpayers, and a higher proportion of sick and retired people.

Thats whats going to happen in the next 5 years.

Do you live in the UK @TheThinkingGoblin ?

Yes.