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.

The Labour Government were politically foolish to cut the WFA when they did. It has given the Tories ammunition to attack them about 'robbing the poor'. Heard OAP's morning about it in Waitrose today - having just parked up in a Range Rover. Seriously!
The allowance should have been targeted at those in need only. In the meantime they would have been better to cut it down in stages.
There is no doubt the Tories left financial chaos - but attacking the profiteers in the Energy Sector, Water Companies and Railways would have been a better starting point.
Get the 'big players' who are sapping money out of the tax payers. Not those who have 'saved for a rainy day' or to help their children in the future with education costs or housing. They have been doing the right thing! Ridiculous to punish them.

Yeah, state pension isn’t really a ‘state funded lifestyle’. It is a social contract as today’s pensioners funded the pensions of the generations before them under the contract that they’d be funded by the younger generations when their turn came. It’s the same contract we have- we are paying the pensions of pensioners now, with the contract that generations younger than us will pay our pension when it is our turn.

So instead of being all, that’s what you deserve, being cold and watching every penny, stuck in a shack falling down around your ears because you got old, we still of working age should be thinking, how do I want to be treated? Because what we agree to pay for pensioners today is setting the bar for how we will be treated when it is our turn. We all get old, unless we die first. It will be us one day.

And as much as one can say well I saved, all the old people today didn’t save and deserve to suffer. There are no guarentees in life- one catastrophe and everything you have saved and built can vanish, your health and ability to work gone.

The thing is, when I look at a 80+yr old working in a grocery store or stuffing leaflets in post boxes, I think is that how I would want to be forced to live at that age? Is this right to treat our elders this way?

I think it’s horrible. I think we can do better and should fight for a higher state pension- not just for pensioners today, but for us, and our children and grandchildren.

I think politics has tried to justify neglect of the elderly (and disabled but that is another thread) by creating an us vs them strawman. There is no pensioners vs working families- we are all one. We will all be pensioners one day and voting to make today’s pensioners suffer- we are voting for our own future to be like that too. We are spring Turkeys voting for this years Christmas thinking hey more corn for us not realising that the very next Christmas it’s our turn on the chopping block.

I know it’s a bit off-topic but universal benefits like free prescriptions for all over 60s are a poor use of public money. Many over 60s are working and well off. I’m all for helping people in need but it’s daft to waste money on well-to-do people. In London the free bus and tube travel is offered to all over-60s regardless of their income. It seems so unfair when younger people are paying out £8-10 per day to travel to work as they struggle to pay rent.

As a couple, our income is a little over the threshold for pension credit, but as my pension income has always been considerably lower than my husband’s, should I end up as a widow, mine will be under the threshold. You seem to consider that £1000 a month is plenty to live on as a single person; after council tax, house insurance and utilities (together nearly half of that), food and transport (yes,I have a bus pass, but it is a ten minute walk to the nearest bus stop which entails a steep uphill trek on the return leg, potentially carrying shopping), I have to keep some money in a savings account in case I need to repair or replace a household appliance (eg washing machine, boiler service) or indeed to pay a trades person to carry out a repair that I can no longer manage like exterior painting or even heavy garden tasks like hedge cutting. BTW, as we each have a small pension from previous employers, a large part of this year’s increase to our state pensions has been wiped out by having to pay income tax on the small pensions, the loss of the £300 WFA means that we won’t be seeing any of that Triple Lock increase.

@SpiritAdder Excellent post, well said.

The article is talking about the way countries combine state and occupational pensions - the entire state systems. But two thirds of UK pensioners living in poverty are women - and that's in large part due to their relative absence from occupational pensions compared to men and their dependence on the state pension. (On average, a woman only has £65 in a private pension for every £100 a man does because of childcare, looking after parents, gaps in employment leading to lower-paid work.) So I'm not sure what point you're making by linking to the article but interested to hear more.

Given that we are a rapidly ageing population with fewer younger, working age people to contribute to the national coffers via NI payments how would you find the money to increase pensions beyond the triple lock that is already in place?

You just don’t want to think this through do you. Women who are pensioners now spent most, or all of their working lives earnings peanuts because it was legal for them to be pain a fraction of what was paid to men. Their NI was not very relevant because men were given a couples State pension. That only changed in recent years. This situation inevitably meant that most women who are currently of pensionable age don’t have private pensions and most of the small number who do were only able to accrue enough for a very small private pension. Up to 1975 in the UK, it was legal for women to have their employment terminated once they married. This was particularly common in teaching and clerical jobs.

I appreciate your view for women who are not yet at pensionable age, but don’t you have any empathy and compassion for the women who are pensioners now?

In Scotland we all have free prescriptions. Before anyone starts moaning: I have a relative who is a pharmacist. He informs me that the money spent on processing the money taken in prior to free prescriptions here was actually more than the amount taken in.

It would be cheaper for everyone in the UK to get free scripts.

Thank you.

One of my neighbours was left in dire straits in her late 70s, because the local council took all of her husband's work pension when he had to go into care. (He had vascular dementia and had become violent.)

That’s really interesting. I had no idea.

To get a higher state pension taxes would have to increase, cuts would have to be made elsewhere, the state pension age would have to go up, or all of the above.

Both free prescriptions and free travel should be in line with state pension age, surely.

State pensions cost around £126bn/year

The first thing I would do is have a flat tax relief on pension savings of 20%.
This would generate around an extra £16bn/year.

The second thing I would do is reverse the NI cuts which would raise a further £20bn per year.

The third thing I would do is raise NI paid by employers by an equal amount, raising another £20bn per year

The fourth thing I would do is bring back the 50% income tax bracket that was cut to 45% for earnings over £150k

The fifth thing I would do is rejoin the EU, as that would more than offset the NI increased by eliminating the extra £40bn in costs of doing business due to the red tape of being outside the EU.

The sixth thing I would do is raise the threshold for pension credit to NMW full time level per individual (no reduction if living as a couple). State pension would not be triple locked and calculated in a weird way, but be a guarenteed UBI of whatever is full time at the then NMW.

Seventh thing I would do is eliminate the free prescriptions, free bus passes so on- these are all sticking plasters meant to hide how state pension is too low. Once it is high enough, pensioners can pay the going rate same as everyone. Ofc, I do think prescriptions should be free for everyone as they are in Scotland, but the principle is the nub.

They were when they were introduced!

In most places the free travel is pension age, I think it's only London it's not, don't know why it's different, maybe a council thing

Exactly this. This is the 1st time I am really seeing how middle class Mumsnet really is. The amount of people with no sympathy for pensioners getting this money taken off them. Shocking

My nan, in her 80s, is on state pension.
It's not alot of money and she lives a very frugal life and is able to save so much money she has to take out cash every few months to remain under the savings threshold.
She rents a 2 bed flat, receives housing benefit that covers her full rent, council tax benefit, free prescriptions, free bus fare.
Even she admits, how much she receives is no where near covered by how much she paid in over the years.

Some bits of this article don't make sense to me - it says than private rented homes have the most poor quality homes, surely there are more people of other generations privately renting than older people, so this is actually an argument that older people are better off than others given most of them are home owners?

Also there's definitely some selective info in there eg stating 18% of older people are now in relative poverty - but failing to mention relative poverty has been creeping up all round and in 22/23 30% of children were living in relative poverty.

Age UK say the 60+ Oyster card is really helpful for older women workers who tend to be on low wages, carers and volunteers. I think it's a brilliant initiative.

It is very middle class, all the old people bashing threads have posters with parents and relatives with loads of money in big houses that have investments and go on holiday several times a year so they think it's the norm.

I am amazed at the views of some folk here. Your in for a shock and hope you wont bitch when its your turn.

So you need 35 years or NI and in some cases you require more
National Insurance - Wikipedia
Not all get the full state pension e.g.

payments start at 16,
6/4/75 - 6/4/2010, young people in full time secondary education or training (16, 17, 18 year olds) were given NI credits for those years.
No credits were given for the tertiary education years.
The 16 - 18 credit system ended on 6/4/10.

Then if you go to a uni course for a masters, or have any resits you could be 4 to 6 years short of NI credits by the time you finish at uni at 24.

But there's a potential catch. Some years in which you paid NI don't count when working out how much you're entitled to, because they're not deemed 'full' years. e.g. part time bar staff depending on how much you earner a week.

so to get the full 35 years NI credit etc (24+35) if you worked every year after qualifying in a masters till you were 59, you might get the full state pension
taking gap years or taking part time work till you found your ideal job is going to make it longer.

This could mean you end up with less than you thought, in which case you may want to buy extra NI credits.

In the last 15 years or so the older farts struggle to keep and get new jobs and suddenly being asked to pay £4.5K+ for 2 years of NI credits get to the 35 years or so credits become worrying.

Gaps in my NI record as a result of staying in full time education - Community Forum - GOV.UK (hmrc.gov.uk)

pay for more NI years

So all those stating all or most pensioners couples are rich on the "full" new state of £450 pw pension best be making sure they do what's needed, because the 7 or 8 years spare till reaching 68 is not a lot to catch up

The WFA £200+ a year matters where I am from (South York's) for a lot of folk.

The total number of private rented homes is smaller than the total number of owner occupied homes. That is why the % of elderly in non decent homes and % non decent rentals can differ and still be true.

The non decent home issue is important because it shows that pensioners are not better off in terms of fuel poverty simply because they own their home. Non-decent homes mean homes that are often EPC E or F and so 3-4x more expensive to heat than an average home. So saying, oh £1k a month is plenty to live on isn’t true if your heating and electric are £400/mo because you’re in a crappy home- own or not own- that’s an expense pensioners are more likely than any other age group to have to shoulder.

The 18% in relative poverty isn’t being selective, they said the highest of all adult categories. Too many of the children in poverty are living with these pensioners or being cared for by them.

Ok. Though I suspect poverty levels of other individuals are masked by the 'headed by a person aged X' because eg young people in poverty are more likely to rely on their parents to house them where that's possible, or sofa surf, and whilst they may not be in a really low quality house many other people can't even afford a low quality house.

I do wonder why older people living in older poor quality houses don't sell up and get a new build flat; I know it isn't ever an easy decision to leave your family home but if your life is miserable because you're freezing and achy then why not improve it?

I also work with vulnerable people. A lot of the people I work with are over 65 and rent, they rent, and they may have a very small pension from work - or none - and they don't qualify for pension credit. The worry is huge and real.
This is me. I have an occupational pension which covers my (private) rent and part of my counci tax. I turn 66 at the end of the month and l'm still working until l get my state pension. My state pension is actually going to be slightly more than l'm earning at present (I'll get the full pension, l've worked and paid NI (with no gaps) since l left school), because l have health issues (including a serious blood disorder) which means l'm not able to work full time.
l'm currently working 5 days a week, but only short shifts, because that's all l can manage physically.
I'll be slightly over the limit for pension credit, which is comparatively low.
I believe being in receipt of pension credit makes you applicable for several other 'benefits' (not sure if that's the correct term), things like help with council tax (l currently get the single persons discount), heating, etc.
My rent is about half of my current income (plus my council tax) and l've been in my home for 9 years, I'm lucky with my landlord, they're decent and my rent is very reasonable for the accommodation and the area, they've only increased it once since l've lived here, but it's still a big chunk of my income.
I don't use my central heating. I heat the living room with the gas fire (no point heating the entire house just for me), a heated throw, and an electric blanket in bed. I have arthritis as well as the blood disorder, so the cold affects me.
I've applied for sheltered housing because of my health issues, but am on a waiting list. The rent there is more reasonable than where l am, l'll be downsizing.
I think l'm lucky compared to a lot of people. It's not easy but just now l work in a supermarket, so l get staff discount on food, groceries, etc, which is a huge help.
That will stop when l retire, though. But l'll manage. A lot won't.