WTF? £600 winter fuel allowance for all pensioners!

[user1497207191]

No wonder the country has no money and the deficit/debt is getting bigger.

MIL just phoned up saying she'd got a letter telling her £600 was on the way to her and asking why, when she doesn't need it?

Just why??? She's not claiming means tested benefits. Her state and her husband's occupational pension are already far more than she needs to live on, meaning she saves a few hundred pounds a month into ISAs (which already stand at over £100k). Owns her own house, so no rent/mortgage.

Why the hell can't this money be directed at those who actually need it or more worthy causes? It's insane to keep throwing money at people who don't need it.

She doesn't need it, she doesn't want it. She wouldn't miss it if it wasn't paid to her.

If they can means test the child benefit and claw it back from those earning over £50k, why can't they come up with a way of ensuring winter fuel allowance is only paid to those who may need it? Why not only paid to those pensioners claiming pension credits, or rent allowance, or whatever?

@Jmaho and sorry for your recent loss

What’s the point you’re trying to make?

@KickingEAP

In addition to my post above, if your Mum is only just missing out on Pension Credit, she will probably also qualify for the warm heating allowance, depending which energy supplier she has. This is a separate payment credited directly to the energy company. Some people qualify automatically, but from what you said she would need to apply for it. It is entirely separate from the subject of this post. I believe it is claimable from around now, so don't waste time in looking at it!

https://www.ageuk.org.uk/information-advice/money-legal/benefits-entitlements/warm-home-discount/

My "workings"? There are no workings.

Last ONS figures I saw show 54% of people take out more than they contribute, and that has only ever increased with each set of figures published.

Currently 76% of voters on this thread think it's unreasonable that pensioners are getting this money. Unless MN voters are somehow significantly skewed towards the higher end of taxpayers, they are taking money themselves but begrudging others getting some.

The very obvious point I am trying to make is that the Tories did not introduce the winter fuel payment and it isn't new. Every political party in the country supports helping elderly people keep their houses warm. A pragmatic decision has been taken not to means test this benefit, and as far as I know, not one political party would do it differently. Describing it, as umpteen posters on this thread have, as a bribe to get pensioners to vote Tory, is just silly.

I don't vote Tory and never will, by the way.

Got no idea how I managed to quote you.

I was replying to someone else in an entirely different thread, well I was trying to!

WTF? £600 winter fuel allowance for all pensioners!

Well lets see. I am a pensioner and won't get a penny. And the amount you get between £250 and £600 depends on when your birthdate is - so it isn't £600 for ALL pensioners and SOME pensioners will get nothing.

I assume that everyone complaining about this handed back the money they got last year, did they? Thought not.

Yes they will be older before they get state pension but then many of them start work much older than previous generations.

My parents started work age 14 and worked for over 15 years. I started work at 17 and worked 47 years. DH started work at 17 and has so far worked 50 years (he is still working).

Many youngsters who go to university don't start work until they are in their 20's.

Also probably the majority of mothers take maternity leave and get paid for it. There was no maternity pay when my mum had me and my siblings and she did not take very long off work at all.

Those thinking it should be means tested, can you begin to imagine the work and cost involved if every single pensioner in the country had to fill in means tests forms and be assessed every year to see if they needed it?

And can you imagine what proportion of those who really need it (the oldest and the poorest) would be able to fill in an online form?

Yep, it would cost vastly more than giving the allowance to all pensioners, it would be close to impossible to find all the staff to assess the applications, and those who need it most won't even apply for it.

Frankly, it would be insanity.

You qualify for the state pension and you don't get it? Why is that?

Wrong birthday?

To be eligible for a Winter Fuel Payment, you or someone else in your household will need to qualify for the State Pension. At least one person in your household will need to be above the State Pension age during the yearly qualifying week.
This qualifying date of birth is published and updated on the GOV.UK website each year.

For the winter of 2023 to 2024, you’ll be eligible if you were born on or before the 25th of September 1957 and are living in the UK for at least one day of the qualifying week.

My parents started work age 14 and worked for over 15 years. I started work at 17 and worked 47 years. DH started work at 17 and has so far worked 50 years (he is still working).

Many youngsters who go to university don't start work until they are in their 20's.

Plenty work around uni. I did & have paid NI since 17, the contributions back there were tiny.

If ministers read threads like this, they must be laughing themselves silly.

Indtead of people laying the blame for the financial mess this country is is, on the right people, which is the government, they have succeeded in setting one group against, resentful of what anyone else might be getting.

The blame needs to be put back where it belongs.🙄

@saraclara perhaps @Neriah lives elsewhere.
We live abroad so obviously don’t get a winter fuel allowance.
The government decided that France and Spain should be knocked off the list of winter fuel payments based on some dodgy weather rules.
It was nothing to do with those two countries having the most British retirees🤥

The average income for a pensioner in the UK is £15k (ONS figures, ie from actual data rather than polls, surveys or the local cabbie).

Living the dream on 15k for sure. One of the biggest demographics experiencing poverty is older, single women after a lifetime of job discrimination, caring for the previous generation and the successor generation.

Yeah total bitches sucking the life out of the young.

I think these millionaires are, often, just asset rich, particularly if they own houses in London/South East.

Unhappily, bricks and mortar do not pay the bills.

I know. I totally understand that there are a lot of poor vulnerable pensioners, but my in laws and parents (who I love dearly and don’t begrudge them for it) have big mortgages paid off, lots of savings, multiple properties and are living the high life 🙈. Whereas a lot of people my age are really struggling with nursery fees etc. while we are hardly on the poverty line, I definitely feel that I could use £609 at the moment more than our parents! But get about the means testing thing as well. My in laws are of course Tory voters as well 🤔

The article claiming that loads of pensioners are gazillionaires was lazy copy and paste journalism using PR stuff from a lobby group with form for selective statistics. They didn't just include high valuations of property but also high valuations of the actual pensions themselves including the state pension.

Anyone with a pension will have a notional pot of some size, including all the currently young when they draw their pensions.

Doesn't alter the fact that the average pensioner income in the UK is £15k and we have the lowest pensioner incomes in Europe.

So the title of this thread is wrong, either deliberately to stir up resentment or the OP didn't check their facts.

Because I was born 4 hours and 23 minutes too late! I qualified for my pension on 25th September, and 24th September is the last qualifying date. It would appear that I won't be having any winter on account of my birthdate.

In all honesty I neither want it nor need it, and would donate it - as I do my wonderfully huge Christmas bonus (I am also disabled so have had this for a few years now) of £10. But my objection to this is that many vulnerable and poorer old people / pensioners will not get this winter help simply because they were, effectively, born before autumn. I don't think means testing is feasible, because it is too complicated and labour intensive - curretntly it would cost more than it saved. I'd be in favour if that weren't the case. But the cut off date excludes many people who deserve the help because they are pensioners and they do have to get through winter. It would be relatively simple to make it up to a weekly amount, and allow people to claim the proportion based on the number of weeks of winter that they are in receipt of their pension.

@Zebedee55 My MIL is a great example of an asset rich but poor pensioner she lives in a small terrace house paid off with her divorce settlement near a station that’s a few minutes to the heart of London. For that reason her house is worth about 600k. She does get pension credit, she was a SAHM for years with a very high earning DH, huge house, housekeeper, children in private school, he messed up his own pension in some deal and it was gone, they divorced when in their late forties . She worked for about 20 years in low paid work after divorce and no pension.

People need to remember the Labour Party introduced this payment and they also introduced tuition fees in higher education. They are all the same honestly, Rishi may not be worrying about his heating bills but neither is Keir.

I was the same @Neriah. I had to wait three months longer for my pension because I was born seven hours too late. You and I illustrate just how bonkers the transition process for Waspi women was.

The payment is also higher this year, as it was last year, as it includes a cost of living payment. OP conveniently did not mention that.

Cost of living payments have been paid to many people not just pensioners. In fact my neighbours who claim benefits and work cash in hand (and have done so for years) have had quite a few payments and certainly are not short of money

But older people in this position do have the choice to move and release equity. It all very well to moan about being cash poor when you have the means to change that.

@StrictlyComeback doesn't sound like she lives in a 5 bed detached family home. I wonder how much she can downsize to in that area. Or are you suggesting she moves up North where properties are cheaper but might not have the support and friends she has where she lives now