To not understand the uproar over winter fuel allowance being cut?

[virgocatlover]

It's not being cut. The poorest pensioners on pension credit will still get it. It's only being changed so it's no longer a universal payment anymore.

The energy price cap was £1834 October 2023. This October it's £1717. So it's £117 cheaper than it was last winter for average use.

In April 2024 the state pension rose by 8.5% - a rise of around £900 for those on full state pension. It's expected to rise another £400 next April.

Many energy companies still have schemes for those in genuine need. Plus the warm home discount exists for those on a low income.

I understand pensions who receive just state pension and no other income may be annoyed but there has to be a cut somewhere. But pensioners are unlikely to have the expense of rent/ mortgages in retirement which is the biggest expense to those of working age.

However most of the moans I've heard and seen seem to be from the well off pensioners who are cross about losing something. I know a woman who rents out three houses and spends the winter in the Caribbean who is spitting feathers about losing the payment. Another who spent the money on their Christmas booze.

There is so much uproar about this which didn't happen when there were so many other cuts affecting young people/workers/families. All other benefits are means tested, so should WFA.

People still see pensioners as those who fought in the war and counting pennies at the till to pay for their bread and milk. But that's just not the case these days.

Maybe the next thing to be means tested will be PIP.

Because once someone receives a benefit, they believe that they are entitled to it for life. There is currently another thread where many people are defending a single person on £65k remaining in social
housing. “They shouldn’t be turfed out.”
”Where will they go?” “If you remove social housing once people earn a certain wage, nobody will improve themselves.” “Social housing is for life.”

And here is the problem with the threshold. It means that people like @Goody2ShoesAndTheFilthyBeast’s mum, who isn’t in anyway alone here, receive no help towards housing, no pension credit and no winter fuel payment - for being a couple of quid over threshold they actually end up worse off than the pensioners that do receive all the benefits above.

Do you think the media should not question decisions of government? The government should require to and be able to justify their actions.

I’m a younger person against the full cut of the WFA. It should at least be tapered off rather than cut for everyone apart from those on Pension Credit.

Over the last fourteen years, austerity has already hit the most vulnerable within society with widening inequalities in areas that were already disadvantaged. Changes to the welfare system that impacted households with children, has shown that deprivation has increased within these areas over the same timeframe.

There is also an income deprivation indicator that impacts elderly people. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to work out, that areas where there are already high levels of deprivation, also have highest levels of deprivation amongst elderly people. These are the people that will be hit the hardest by these new reforms.

Using Council Tax Bands for changes to the WFA will be more fairer, because more properties within these areas fall under band A to C.

Pensioners aren’t just one group where everyone is wealthy. OP you must live in a more privileged area, if you can’t understand the uproar.

I agree that the WFA shouldn't be given to the wealthiest pensioners but the cut off point has been set far too low. My mum (lives alone on a state pension of just over £200 per week) will lose it as she is over the threshold by £3. She has no private pension and her state pension was set back several years due to a change in the state pension age. She lives on a Scottish Island where the winters are long and COLD. She's very careful, always the one to say put on a jumper or have a hot water bottle before any form of heating. Pensioners like my mother have no way of recouping this loss of money. It is cruel to take it away.

Do you think the media should not question decisions of government? The government should require to and be able to justify their actions.

Of course they should question to on decisions of the government but would the right wing press have the same tone if the Tories had done it?

I think you need to look at the annual pension figures even with that increase.
And also take into account the fact that a state pension now pushes pensioners into paying tax. So some of that £900 + £400 will be clawed back anyway in tax.

It will take the state pension to just over £1K a month or £250 a week.

Do you really think that an annual income of £12K and a bit is rich?

Try budgeting for food, heating, council tax, water rates, phone, clothes, maybe transport, house repairs, etc on that.

My mum pays almost £2K pa on her council tax and water rates alone. And she lives in a tiny house.

@Girlslikepearls but the point is people on full state pension are still better off than they were last winter, even with the loss of WFA.

But the Tories haven't done it.. Labour have! The party that was formed to advocate for the vulnerable - clearly they do not!

The problem with this is that means testing is expensive and would probably swallow up the money gained by means testing the winter fuel allowance.

Ha ha

The single person council tax might be going as well, that usually affects older people, though DS will be affected by that also as he has a flat by himself.

I get it. It should have been means tested like everything else. They manage to do it for virtually everything nowadays. It was absurd that pensioners sitting on millions in their houses and pension values got it. A pensioner on the basic state pension has had it cut too. That’s appalling.

It's one of the things racists csn seize on - oh look they're housing illegals but our own old people can't afford to heat their homes etc etc.

You’re all living in cloud cuckoo land. I’ve never heard so many ridiculous statements. You’ll all find out the reality of it when you get old. I hope you’ll think back and regret you didn’t take more of a stand at the time. They’re taking away your future, not just today’s pensioners’ realities.

Best you all work really hard and save into your private pensions which will allow you to live and not just subsist - oh wait, no, they’re already planning to make moves on the private pensions too.

YOUR FUTURES ARE BUGGERED. Tough!

And hopefully that person will be able to get a mortgage and free up both a social home and a privately rented one. But until that point they quite rightly should be able to stay in their home.

It's a weird thing to cut. Heat is more important for older people than younger. They are more likely to have paid tax into the system and want the benefits of that.

Why did Labour object to it recently when in opposition?

All the papers - inc. the left’s mouthpieces, Guardian, i and Mirror - are partisan and inconsistent. But the Labour government’s in power now. It should be held to what it said about the last government and then done itself.

The left wing press would have been very vociferous. That is why it is so important to have a diverse media taking a range of positions.

you are aware that only newer pensioners will get that right? those born after 1953.

My parents were born earlier than that, are older than 72, and will not get that full uplift.

Foreign aid is not about helping poor people abroad. Most of the time it consists of loans to poor countries to buy from our defence companies - guns, planes and ammo. These loans have high interests rates to ensure these countries are forever in debt to us.

Because there is a view that it's all poor pensioners who have worked hard manually, slogged their fingers to the bone etc etc when it's not really the case.

@virgocatlover

1. Pension Credit is not available to anyone with an income above £12,000 per year.

2. Removal of the single person discount for Council Tax is possibly on the cards.

3. Pensioners do not usually work, may be in poor health and as your body ages you feel the cold more. Cold can kill. From heart attacks, strokes and hypothermia, being too scared to put the heating on can be lethal.

4. An income of £12,000p.a is not wealthy. Would you be happy to live on that? Would you even be able to??

5. Fuel poverty is defined as spending 10% of your income on heating. On an income of £12,000 that’s £1,200. The energy price cap fixes the average fuel bill at £1,717. So pensioners just above the pension credit limit are - by definition - living in fuel poverty.

6. If the single person discount is removed then at the average cost for band D property of £1592 would fall on widowed pensioners.

And you really think it’s ok to remove £300 a year from poor elderly people?
Do you have shares in an undertaker?? 😡

Well they can seem to find the money to fund the security for the Royal Family. That must cost a pretty penny indeed. Plenty of cuts could be made to them, the House of Lords ect, before pensioners, don't you agree?

Me too. I think the unfair bit is that either you're on pension credits and get the whole or are just above it and get nothing. There are lots of non 'wealthy' pensioners who miss out on pension credits by a few pounds and yet they don't get the allowance or many other entitlements that claiming it gives you.