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.

I’m sorry the system puts you in that position. People shouldn’t have to work beyond their pensionable age if they don’t want to. All I was saying is that many people can’t. The state pension is one of the lowest in Europe and many women of SP age, women in particular, were disadvantaged. There are also people who were unable to work due to ill health and they are disadvantaged too.

Addressing some points made by other posters saying pensioners were able to by houses at low prices and had free higher education but there are many of us who were unable to afford a mortgage on our own. Before the late 70s the banks required a male guarantor, even though the law came in 1975 for them to treat men and women equally. Not nearly so many people went to university back when I was growing up so a lot of people didn’t benefit from free education. Tony Blair changed that for better or worse. It’s very easy to look at all the rights people have today and assume everyone has benefitted from them historically.

I don’t get it; energy prices lower than 2 years ago, pension higher. what’s the issue?

Pensioners don't pay it though. They are exempt.
Also OP hasn't acknowledged that some pensioners can also get housing benefit and council tax rebate.

If you have one 'spare room' you have to cover a shortfall of 14% of your rent. That's money you pay.

If one bed properties were easily available for people to downsize to I'd have more sympathy with the 'taxpayer subsidy argument' but they're not.

This thread is about pensioners who, as a group, are the most egregious under occupiers. They're exempt from bedroom tax.

Would you believe when I started working also in finance in the 2000s we didn’t get a pension scheme until we were 25 too? So 30 years later it was still the practice!

That being said, saving for retirement is something I’ve always been aware of. DH and I don’t have the best pensions but getting on the property ladder was a priority and if it comes to it, we’ll downsize or whatever it takes. I doubt there will even be a state pension by then let alone winter fuel allowance.

You seem nice.

weird thread

Pensioners aren’t affected by the bedroom premium. Anyone on a low income should check what they’re entitled to.

But, as the unions are all out objecting strongly about the WFA, and threatening industrial action to back it up, and Labour need the unions, I would imagine there will be a tone-down anyway.🤷‍♀️

Unfortunately Labour doesnt care what your needs are if you are old. No-one disputes that the WFP didnt need to go to everyone who got it but charities will tell you they received a lot of donations around the time it was paid and for that amount.

Labour have not just removed it from the well off but from people who did, and do, need it. People who worked from 14 or 16 onwards and who get maybe 50p or £1 value from the private pension they paid into. People who may put more pressure on the NHS this winter as a result.

During the 2017 election Labour said that means testing the Winter Fuel Payment would lead to an extra 3,850 pensioner deaths. Doesnt care now though.

So everyone that worked on minimum wage us at fault ! What a nasty person you seem to be.

I paid into a private pension. DH, always self employed, paid into a pension. DH’s pension company went bust, so he lost all the years he’d paid into it. He started again, but it’s derisory now. He worked until forced to stop by Covid as he was classed as clinically vulnerable.

I’ve said before that we will manage without WFA, but don’t assume we’ve been profligate with our money. He’s always worked six days a week and I had two jobs for a while to make ends meet.

Well....being a bitter millennial who has been told to stop eating avocados if I want to buy a house....its hard to muster up much sympathy

These things are awful, but are not linked to the Pension issues - your OP is woefully misleading though - why are YOU worried about your pension of £221 a week?

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.
My forecast us £221 per week.

Stammer is the theif that has stolen all our golden hours.

Yes, it was Starmer who left the Gvnt with a £22 BILLION black hole, it was Starmer who gave his cronies millions over the pandemic...

Can you tell us which union has threatened industrial action re Winter Fuel Allowance?

Completely agree

Must have missed all the pensioners crying unfair when our child benefit became means tested- or when our fuel costs last year rocketed without state help! I’m sure they all campaign for cheaper childcare costs and free school meals for children.

I've worked (and paid into various pension schemes since 1987). 24 years of conservative governments, 13 of labour and just a few weeks of Starmer.

Mine and DH's retirement is likely to be more comfortable than our children's. They have been stuffed with the cost of student loans and have only been able to get on the property ladder with 35 year mortgages.

OP you are angry with the wrong government.

It's absolutely brutal.

I think the point of the post was to show that all pensioners are not out scavenging bins to survive, they're not a single hard up group

Labour bend over backwards for the unions and those on benefits and the conservatives bend over backwards for the rich and the elderly - because those are the people they know vote for them. On the other side of course Labour shaft the pensioners and the rich and the conservatives shaft those on benefits and those with unions.

The middle aged middle classes however get shafted by all of them.

I think it was petty and pathetic to take away the fuel allowance.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvg5rl612n5o

Unless you have paid into a private pension .. pensioners will be the poorest they have ever been.

...But still probably the richest they will ever be again.
I know it's tough but I can't have that much sympathy to be honest - as someone in my 30's I'm expecting to get very little indeed by the time I retire.

The resentment comes from the fact that as the current working generation we're working our arses off to pay for their pensions when the whole system will have collapsed into nothing by the time we reach our (much higher, by the way) pension ages.

While they demand that their shillings from the 1970s somehow translate into being paid thousands per month. And then if they're told they'll get that but have to pay tax on it, they then complain about having to pay tax on it because "I pAiD iNtO ThE sYsTeM." Most women didn't even work full time for their working years, so they're claiming even more in benefits (yes, a pension is a benefit, it's an untaxed handout from the government and it comes from the benefits pot, in fact it's the highest % of the benefits pot) than they ever put in.

They also get endless freebies and discounts.

They are also oblivious to the fact that people are expected to live on much lower benefits with much higher outgoings.

And they're anti-free-school-meals for all, because that would be a waste of money for the parents who can afford to feed their kids, while seemingly wanting to claw on to the pensioner energy payouts which are exactly the same principle.

And that actually, no one has a lot of free time and a lot of money, and they have maximum amount of free time. So no, you would not expect to have a lot of money when you can spend all your time how you like.

My MIL complains she doesn't get enough state pension and is currently on her 7th cruise of the year.

1 in 10 pensioners has assets over a million. Many are sitting in their oversized houses complaining their energy bills are too high oblivious to the fact that their house today is worth 500k-1m and the energy prices reflect that.

@Allnewtometoo why is a single 25 year old not working?

Last year to qualify for a Winter Fuel Payment you could automatically qualify for winter 2023/2024 if you were born before 25 September 1957,( and met one of the other qualifying conditions applied like you were drawing a pension) this year you have to be 66 by 23/9 it goes up every year. It is paid to people who have reached State Pension age on or before the end of the qualifying week (which is and has always been the week beginning the third Monday of September each year) and meet certain other entitlement conditions, But, what is different this year is not "Those born after September 23rd 1958 will not get the winter fuel allowance no matter what credits you are on." but looks like there will be no additional top up payment and the qualifying criteria have been tightened up so only low income UC/ pensioners/ not automatic qualification for all pensioners over 66 etc will get it.

@Boomer55 let me try again; which union is threatening industrial action (ie strikes etc)?

I appreciate they're not happy and, given that Labour was founded and funded as the political arm of the union movement, the unions have some clout but that's not to say they're threatening to strike, ban overtime or whatever.