To think the standard of living for retired people had to change

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I'm a millennial. I will retire in my seventies. Many in my age group will be still paying their mortgage off well into their sixties. Many will never be able to buy. This is not a moan about that.

My mums generation were able to buy cheaper houses in the eighties. Some have also inherited well (houses which their parents owned and didn't have to sell to pay for care, which had risen in price to above a million). They had better pension plans. Some were able to go to university for free and their degrees actually meant something in the workplace: They often paid off their mortgages in their forties. I see a lot of my parents relatives have retired early and have very enviable lives.

Two uncles have retired in their early sixties. They are both in good help. They spend their days on many holidays, eating out multiple times per week, going to garden centres, renovating their beautiful houses, helping children financially and with childcare. They will have presumably worked out their finances and could afford to continue to live like this for the rest of their lives! Possibly thirty more years!

I think they are possibly going to be unique in their quality of life. We will never have that and I don't see my children's generation having things any earlier.

In essence the generation before me were mostly fortunate, unless personal situations changed their financial situation or they lost their homes during the nineties interest rises. Retirements and pensions were never designed to support people for three decades and that things had to change hence raising the retirement age and making people pay more towards their care.

We need

Housing to be affordable for all not just those who get inheritance

Currently people who get inheritance but houses at inflated prices and everyone else is shafted

Rebuild council homes using the money you raise from inheritance taxes

Charge rents that are affordable , cover costs not make profits for landlords
Ensure that anyone who wants can have such good secure tenancy homes

House prices will adjust. Housing benefit will decrease ( you'll like that bit)

You get to keep the taxes you raise from the richer pensioners ( you'll like that too but if you cancel the state pension you'll lose that )

And then the money you get from your wages will go further because it's not taken in rent or mortgage - more people will be able to save for their own pensions and future care ( that's good for reducing the future benefit bill also )

Killing old people by denying them care ; robbing them of their pension savings ; pushing them into a works house by stopping the state pension ; that dehumanises the older person , treats them as less worthwhile than a younger person , that's just wrong. You need to solve the problems without doing that

I think the OP is WeightWhat's DC.

In the UK, the wealthiest demographic is the over-60s. They CAN pay for themselves

But they were when l was young (I’m 59) they have bigger houses that housed families. So they had equity in their houses.

Wont they always be the wealthiest demographic?

@VWdieselnightmare yes of course but they don't pay NI. So they pay a lot less than working people on the same income.

It is an issue, the tax base is shrinking.

You're not even worth a reply.

We’re all lovely, compassionate and clever.

But there are better, fairer ways of living. I appreciate you can’t conceive of those different ways but in actual fact other countries already have different arrangements. And the demographic demand is such that we need to too.

Be gone, entitled retirees - better lives for working families.

But why should they pay Nl on pensions? No previous pensioners have.

Theyve already had the retirement age snatched away.

And yet I got one

I thought half term was over?

No previous pensioners have lived this long or cost the NHS/social care so much money.

But that’s not their fault. Should we just get rid of them all?

Maybe you should’ve left school and started working full time at aged 14 like my parents. And saved hard for 50 years.

Or at 16 like me and DO, worked full time for 45years. 6 weeks maternity leave. No paternity leave. We went without and saved hard so we didn’t have to be too old to work and have to depend on state handouts.

How do you think people managed before the welfare state?

Why shouldn't they? Anything we pay or receive from the government is constantly changing, I don't see why this should be different.

One thing on MN which baffles me is young people whining about their parents' generation and all the money they apparently inherited. Who do they think is going to inherit that money when that generation die? As they are so against inheritance I do hope that anything coming their way is donated onto a worthy cause.

Well I am retired and sitting in my cold house under a heated throw as I try to cope without the heating for as long as possible. There were many years when I as a single mum simply could not afford to pay into a pension so I only have a small one plus my state pension. Yes, I own my home but it is in a bit of a state, a little two up two down that need repairs that i cannot afford .. I live in a rough inner city area and feel too vulnerable to go out after dark, not all us pensioners live in lovely homes. I cannot downsize because where I am is the cheapest area in the city. I ve never had a car, could never afforded driving lessons, I needed every penny I earned to feed and care for my child (dad paid nothing), pay the mortgage and all the bills. I think it is tough for young people today but please don't blame oldies like me, I had it tough and it is not easy now.

You are being entirely unreasonable. I am a very small fraction too old to be a “millennial” and this is not my experience at all. Both my parents grew up in council properties, with outside toilets and large families and very limited funds, meat was a treat etc. Both left school at 15 and have done relatively well in that they own their own properties, (hanging on to them by the skin of their teeth in the late 80s), retired at 65, but my god, they both worked full time for 50 years! They have paid their way. Both paid into private pensions but in no way have an extravagant or expensive lifestyle. I’m 6 months shy of being a “millennial” but my experience has been very different to yours. I have been given nothing (they didn’t and don’t have it to give), I went to a standard comprehensive school, and I will inherit nothing. But I will retire well before I’m 50, I own property far beyond what they ever could and I now help my parents out quite a lot and it makes me happy to do so. They definitely did not have it easier than me!
I also know several “late millennials”, who are doing extremely well and are far outstripping what their parents could ever earn.

Another deluded one.

Why would any generation choose to pull the drawbridge up behind them, especially if they have children???

We should be striving to ensure that everyone has at least a decent quality of living.

And cut out the "old people" crap. It's patronising and rude. I am only just in the boomer generation, and I am not fucking OLD!!

You sound very immature. Are you about 14? You too will be "old" one day, IF you are fortunate. You will then have a generation baying at your feet like you are now. Good luck with it.

If there's more people in that age group, it's because there were no bloody choices for women but to keep having way more children than their bodies could cope with or they could afford. No contraception, no independence, raising children in poverty and staying in marriages they were unhappy in. Then they have to listen to foolish people like you bleating on and railing against them for fucking having the audacity to get older. Consider yourself so lucky that you have all the life choices, freedoms and opportunities that all of those "OLD PEOPLE" achieved for you!!! Catch a grip.

Do you know, when I was a child actually, I loved old people. I loved spending time with them. I loved their life experience, their humanity (most of them!), their stories of their lives.

@Ladymarycrawley1920 well said!

Not everyone will inherit though. Building a system where younger people have to rely on inheritance or parental help only magnifies inequality.

It must have taken the day off school.

They will be voting for their own poverty as well.
Or do they think they will never get old?

I'm sorry about your situation, and you are far from alone. Hugs x

I am sure it must be so hard to read all this crap from entitled numpties who have grown up with with so many luxuries in their lives. They are totally immature, grasping and selfish. Anyone with the slightest bit of commonsense some are spouting. Couldn't give a flying fuck about anyone but themselves. What have we given birth to, as a nation? (Thank god my kids don't think like that!)

https://ifs.org.uk/articles/things-go-swimmingly-those-generations-who-shout-loudest

the economics geeks agree with the OP. The wealthiest generation currently are the pensioners, despite what people commenting here’s lives experience might think.

I agree op. My parents are in their 60s now, both retired early and have an amazing lifestyle, have inherited over a million in property and both had free degrees and great pensions from two public sector jobs. I don’t think we will have the same!!