To give you the pensioners facts

[Moier]

So many threads about pensioners being well off.
I've just had my forecast.
I turn 66 in November .
Those born after September 23rd 1958 will not get the winter fuel allowance no matter what credits you are on.
Esa etc etc.
My forecast us £221 per week.
Also pensioners still have to pay rent.
Council house tenants will still pay bedroom tax.
Pensioners won't get council tax reduction.
Unless you have paid into a private pension .. pensioners will be the poorest they have ever been.
And we waited an extra 6 years for bugger all.
Stammer is the theif that has stolen all our golden hours.

The 'WASPI' women were actually given notice of the planned changes.

My perspective on winter fuel allowance is that it should be means tested, but that the state pension alone is too low and the threshold should be higher.

@Moier do you have any private pension provision?

It would help if there was some kind of state backed housing provision for the elderly - almshouses basically.
Renting and living on the state pension is not realistic.

Anyone can save into a private pension, there is no minimum amount.

Everyone is a full time mother.

None of this is justification for expecting your retirement to be your golden years with no financial worries if you haven’t saved towards it.

You presumably have other money coming in other than child benefit though…?

😂
That’s odd, my now-deceased grandparents definitely had workplace pensions that they paid in to from the 1940s onward.

For people on the “old style” state pension, there was always the assumption that you would be either paying SERPS (state earnings-related second pension) or into an employer final salary scheme on top of accruing your right to the basic state pension.

I’d love to know how many of those 800,000 have occupational pensions that are funded by the state eg doctors.

Nonsense. It's not 'spare cash' required for a pension - it's not netflix. It's a 100% required and needed outgoing, should be viewed as important as all other 'essential' bills. If you HAD to pay it like NI then you would - thats how important people should view it, almost as if its a requirement rather than a luxury.

Where on earth have l said l personally don't have private pension?
This post l put is for pensioners in general ( some of my peers mainly).
I personally don't need my pension and won't be claiming it .
If you have read any of my previous posts.
When l was younger an abusive ex threw me under a bus and left me for dead. I was in a coma and left severely disabled.
He got jailed and it took me 16 years to get justice and a big pay out..
I haven't had a relationship scince .
I don't have a vagina any more.. my pelvis got crushed.. my hips / jaw/ ribs/ skull got broken.
Well actually most of my body.
I was on DLA before my payout.. l don't need to claim anything.
Some say I'm lucky to have a few million.
Rather have my body and mental health back.
My post was for those born after 23rd of September.
Not me personally.
I will be still helping my family and friends who have been there for me financially.

You mean the Women who were informed that the pension age was going back up to be inline with men back in 1993/94? The Women who have had 30 years to look at increasing their pension provision.

An employer contributing towards an employee’s pension? The horror. How unexpected that they would have more money than those who haven’t saved into one.
Whats the relevance?
It’s well established that public sector pay is lower because of the benefits like pension contributions or sick leave being higher than the private sector minimum.

they were very much a thing when I started work in 1990. do you mean auto enrolling?

Well... From this thread I have learnt I would rather be a broke pensioner than smug, snippy, and devoid of empathy.

@Moier you said you wanted to lay out the facts, describing a £221 a week income. Most won’t be living on just that though, they’ll have more.

20% of pensioners live on the state pension.

20% are millionaires.

And much in between.

After housing costs, the average pensioner has a higher disposable income that the average working family. Hence the move to remove some universal benefits.

And again noting - I think the threshold at which they plan to apply this is too low.

IT is true that those born after 1960 and especially Gen X and younger are going to have much smaller pensions that previous generations. This is because since the Thatcher era, companies have not had to provide final salary pensions (ie pensions based on the last salary you earned). Instead, this has moved to pension savings schemes which have a much smaller yield. However, I contest the accusation that Starmer is a thief. Most pensioners nowadays have big fat company pensions and do not need the winter fuel allowance, which was initially only paid when temperatures dropped below a certain amount.

With a massive blackhole in govt funds, the govt needed to do something quickly to stop the economy crashing (and we know how bad that was when Liz Truss did it). This seemed a quick stop gap because most pensioners are better off than a lot of younger people. Ideally, a properly means tested winter fuel allowance would be better, but means testing costs money. I am sure there will be an adjustment later on for those that actually need it.

I fail to see how £100-300 in winter fuel allowance amounts to "golden hours". That's £1.92 per week.
Nobody wants to see freezing pensioners but, come on now...

The relevance is in the cost of funding defined benefit pensions, and the high cost of final salary schemes.

These are far more common in the public sector than the private sector, and are a significant cost to today’s taxpayer as money is not invested to fund them - todays taxpayers fund them.

Yes it’s an important part of the pensions conversation that these pensions are costing a huge amount. The government itself knows this - that is why new entrants to these schemes have far less generous agreements.

It’s absolutely untrue the workplace pensions only “became a thing in 2012”. And many people of retirement age can and do work

So this is your critique of what the government are providing for your old age, what have you done to provide for yourself for your retirement?

As I understand it, the poorest pensioners will claim the winter fuel allowance still - why should a pensioner with a 50k income receive any benefits at all bar their state pension?? It's just being means tested, like UC is, like Child Benefit is.

This isn’t the facts, it’s literally just your own personal circumstances.

Oh god not this again? It is getting worse than the VAT on private school fees.

The oddest thing is how they keep banging on about pension credit.

It would appear they aren't aware that pension credit is set at £218.50
Pension is £221 so unless they haven't got full ni contributions then no-one will qualify.

They've said they put extra funding into the household support fund. The councils around me insist on debt counselling before any application can be made. My mum who's 80 said she'd use a hot water bottle before being forced into debt counselling.

The cut off is too harsh it should have been similar to child benefit.

You gave A pensioner’s facts. Not all, just one example.

I'm 55 and in social housing, no real private pension to speak of. I was curious re the rent as DS also lives here and works. So of course currently we pay it in full. I had naturally assumed that when I retire, he would need to pay the whole rent himself. Well apparently I can get benefits equal to my "share" and he would only need to pay the other half. If he moves out, the benefits will cover it all. (Aware that could change in the future but if you're talking about right now, then that is the current situation).

And you're wrong, pensioners don't pay bedroom tax. They do also get some level of council tax relief if on state pension alone. Under £197 a week it's 100% off CT. So on 221, you wouldn't pay more than £24 p/w.

I'll be getting my free oystercard at 60 so I can travel all over London for free. I'll get free prescriptions, free eye tests etc. It all adds up.

Currently my utilities come out at approx £40 p/w. Lets say £25 CT. Food etc £50. Other subscriptions like internet/netflix etc, I'll say £25 p/w. That still leaves £80 a week to play with. Sure I won't be going on luxury cruises. But that's 4k a year left over. Lots of working people don't have that once they've paid all their basic costs. Unemployed people get less than 4k a year to pay everything.

The "poor" pensioners generally own their own homes. They have a small private pension that doesn't do much to improve their lives but it's enough to make them ineligible for additional help. Something like the boiler breaking down wipes out their finances. (something renters don't have to worry about). There might be things they can claim that they're unaware of. They are the ones that struggle.

Some really mean replies here. We have the benefit of hindsight but are people really unaware that it wasn't the norm for everybody to be paying into private pensions over the last 50 years, particularly women. Some for sure, but not everybody. Many people will have felt assured that the state pension would be sufficient their needs. The world has changed hugely, especially for women.

That said, if you were planning to be completely dependent on the state pension and winter fuel allowance then you were never likely to have a particularly golden retirement. The fuel allowance is a relatively small sum of money so it is an indication of how tight people's retirement incomes are if it makes such a difference.