To think that with over 1million pensioners in poverty, removing the WFA makes Labour the nasty party, who tell blatant lies?

[TealTraybake]

And hypocritical lies at that. Just a few months ago Labour ‘vowed to be the party for pensioners’

‘Nearly 1 million people aged over 66 in the UK are living in deprivation, according to government statistics, the highest number since comparable records began.
Labour, which analysed figures from Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) records, has vowed to be the party for pensioners, with plans to insulate millions of homes and reduce energy bills. It has also “committed to retaining” the triple lock which guarantees annual rises to the state pension’

I understand the WFA should be means tested - but the current threshold is far too low. Food prices have gone up. Energy prices have gone up. Some pensioners need that WFA 🥺.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/apr/16/nearly-1m-uk-pensioners-deprivation-official-figures

I was on one of the zoom calls - Carol Vorderman called on Keir Starmer to apologise to pensioners and the economics editor at the Guardian said the policy was "mean and stupid." Jeremy Corbyn is hoping to join us next week.

Politically inept. Shocker.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/sep/05/labours-decision-to-cut-winter-fuel-payments-is-mean-and-politically-inept

Not if you're a carer or disabled. Some disabled people receive less than £400 a month. Even less if you're under 25.

Many Labour supporters oppose this decision because they believe it to be mean and stupid. They are right on both counts.

No it’s £299 for a couple, for a single person with no children it’s £190. And this figure is just gathered by comparing other weekly incomes, considering pensioners have a huge amount of wealth it’s not an entirely useful number. The weekly income for absolute poverty, ie only concerning a minimum standard of living is £173 a week, the minimum cut off for the winter fuel allowance is much higher than this.
The average income for a pensioner couple in the UK is £561.

Its just ironic people are claiming it’s okay for a pensioner to now have saved any money during their lifetime for their retirement, but that a younger person receiving a lower amount of state benefits is okay because they could just work more.
Which is it, could the pensioner have worked more to have more money or not then?

*some pensioners have huge amounts of wealth

The lengths people will go to to convince themselves that 'their party' is being fair 😂

And guess what, so do some young people, some working people, some single people and some families. But not all. Which is the point lots of people are making but labour supporters on the ground are ignoring. Not however their more influential supporters...so how do you reconcile your position with theirs?

That's why party politics always fails the public - I just don't understand why there's a constant race to the bottom from those on the left. We are not going to grow the economy that way, are we?

And for context, we are talking about raising the threshold to a level that doesn't create fuel poverty. That extends it to a further 1 million people. Cost £300 million pounds. Our government has spent 33 times that appeasing the unions in the same week.

"I'm sure all the "prosperous pensioners" you site will leave all their expensive properties and wealth (that they worked hard for) to their children so not all will be in vain.
As for the state pension, you can forget it, I guess in time it will somehow be phased out."

@Scenicgirl I didn't say anything about "prosperous pensioners", I said that the pensioners of today lived through a period of relative prosperity that we are unlikely to ever see again. That is a fact. The choices they made to secure a comfortable retirement during that period are neither here nor there.

The fact of the matter is that the younger generations who will - shock horror - have worked just as hard, and in many cases for much longer, may not even be able to retire never mind be given benefits such as a winter fuel payment.

Something has to give, and I for one am sick of the younger generations being expected to prop up an older generation that didn't have to contend with two recessions, constant threats of war, hyperinflation, a severe cost of living crisis, well over a decade of austerity, a crap NHS, student loans etc etc. And before anyone starts - please be clear on the maths: a person who is 70 years old in 2024 was born in 1954. Free healthcare, free HE and FE, a functioning welfare state. Yes, there were challenges as there are for every generation. But nothing compared to today or what the next 30/40 years will be like.

"But ironically, this particular group of pensioners are likely to have been very low paid workers for all of their lives and so lived, probably, quite uncomfortable lives. Low skilled jobs tend to be more physical (cleaners, labourers) and so they will be physically in poorer health than their richer counterparts."

@Lizzie67384 you realise that those low paid, physical jobs are still needed and are being done by the younger generations today right? So what happens to those people in 40 years? I'm betting a state pension will be a distant memory never mind winter fuel payments. So the younger generation is paying forwards with absolutely no support, with the expectation that the support that is being provided to OAPs now will not exist in any way, shape or form for them. How is that fair?

@Tryingtokeepgoing **some pensioners have huge amounts of wealth

The lengths people will go to to convince themselves that 'their party' is being fair 😂*

The lengths some people will go to in order to argue with reality. There is more wealth and less poverty in pension aged people than any other demographic, that’s just a fact.
There are over twice as many children in poverty as pensioners.
Poverty affects pensioners less than any other age demographic, so while some pensioners fall below the poverty line it’s a societal problem that they are insulated more than any other sector.

Party has nothing to do with it. I would support any party removing universal pensioner benefits like the wfa and bus pass and making them means tested.
More pensioners had a comparatively lower income and more of them were in poverty 29 years ago but today it doesn’t make any sense for these benefits to be universal based on age rather than income.

Why do some people keep bringing up ‘appeasing the unions’. They are the Labour Party. The party for working people. But, it wasn’t appeasing the unions, it was restoring some of the lost pay (that the workers deserve, by the way) that 14 years of austerity took away from them. People deserve be paid properly for the work that they do. Also, the pay rises have nothing to do with the WFA, that is just a Conservative party political tag line to score points. (I am not one of the people that got this particular pay rise by the way)

No. YABU.

My dad worked from he was 15 to 65, but only has the state pension. He was employed in a trade, and in his day, private pensions weren't for the likes of him. There will be thousands like him. Just because that's not your experience doesn't mean it's not reality for an awful lot of of today's pensioners.

That’s another thing. ‘Working people’. What exactly is meant by this?

I work. My husband works. Are we therefore, the Labour party’s ‘working people’? The English language suggests we are.

This is why we need to defend these payment now like the winter fuel and when it comes to it, state pension. Fighting to retain these now will benefit the future generations of people who will retire, who also deserve to be protected and kept warm in winter and not have to live below the poverty line. This affects all generations one day who will retire

We weren’t talking about those people. The post I responded to was quite specific.

You have a very narrow view. I absolutely think these benefits should exist for pensioners who struggle. It’s not defend it/ fight for it to be retained or abolish it entirely.

Couldn't agree more.

That generation was gifted a once in a millenia, maybe even once in human existence, opportunity to create an equitable society that cared for the many but instead opted for corporate greed and private wealth for a few.

Something has to give, and I for one am sick of the younger generations being expected to prop up an older generation that didn't have to contend with two recessions, constant threats of war, hyperinflation, a severe cost of living crisis, well over a decade of austerity, a crap NHS, student loans etc etc. And before anyone starts - please be clear on the maths: a person who is 70 years old in 2024 was born in 1954.

The flaw in that particular argument is that, student loans apart, the 70 year old has also lived through and been affected by all those things. A crap NHS affects older people more than any other generation.

How about not being in the pockets of the massive unions and basically giving them a blank cheque. That’d save a lot of wonga!
if you’re old enough to remember the 70s, you’ll know.

People who complain about public sector pay restoration, while simultaneously bemoaning that pensioners didn't have the opportunity to save for their old age due to working in low paid jobs, really are a different breed.

£12k a year for a single person with no housing costs is enough to heat your home.

Put your money where your mouth is and YOU try it for a year.

Everything, bar prescriptions, has to come out of that sum.
Imagine you live in an area with few buses, or you’re too unsteady in your feet to use them (people seem content to make the old struggle to stand on lurching buses now), so all travel - to the shops, the doctor, to see any family - has to be done by taxi because you can’t impose on friends and neighbours every time you need to venture out. Imagine you’re less able to do all the little jobs you currently manage - sewing on buttons with deteriorating eyesight, changing a plug, moving a washing machine to find the leak, weeding the garden, carrying heavy shopping - you can no longer easily manage alone so you need to pay someone to help out. No pension credit so you won’t get free glasses nor tv licence, no reduction on your phone either without PC.

Your boiler breaks down and you need to get it replaced.
You have £1000 in savings you were hoping to put aside for your funeral.

You’ve just had the WFA withdrawn and there’s talk of removing the single person’s discount for council tax.

What do you do?

Do you replace the boiler and hope nothing else goes wrong so that £1000 can be used for repairs. You worry that means you won’t have the funeral you’d like, but you hope at least someone will scatter your ashes next to your husband.

Or do you live with the broken boiler because you might need that £1000 to pay the extra council tax or to pay for other bills as they always go up.

If you can’t see how unbelievably cruel this government is being by refusing to confirm or deny what taxes will increase in October, what services will be withdrawn and just how much more difficult it will become for those on a low income then frankly you’re a sociopath.

People, particularly the elderly, suffer health issues from worrying. It raises chemical levels in the blood which can have a negative impact on heart health.

But hey, if they die of fright then the government can seize their home and move in someone younger, so win-win, hey?

Your great-grandparents who lived through times of utter deprivation would be ashamed to see what you’ve written, to see that you’re happy to impose penury on the vulnerable. With any luck they never had the misfortune to actually meet you.

I was just going to comment the same. 70 year old have also lived through all this and more!

I for one am sick of the younger generations being expected to prop up an older generation that didn't have to contend with … hyperinflation

The Bank of England base rate is currently 5%. You do realise that in the 1980s it was consistently 13% or 14%, don’t you? And inflation was over 12% in the 1970s.

Someone born in 1954 was in their 20s in the 1970s and in their 30s in the 1980s, trying to pay a mortgage whilst raising a family.

Does none of that count though, because they’re no longer young?

Dearheart, I’m not suggesting that you’re a Tory bot.

I’m suggesting that you’re a pro-Tory antagonist who persistenly and energetically posts repetitive anti-Labour polemics here, even posting a re-worded version if one gets removed.

And I’m certainly aware that people disagree with me who are not in the pay of the Tory party.

My point was that you might as well be. Not because you support the Tories - there’s not much point at the moment - but because you put so much energy into attacking a Labour government that’s been in power six weeks. In fact you started doing that about 24 hours in.

Bots don’t froth that fast.

Loads of people are talking about the Labour gov after 6 weeks, and criticising them. Maybe not on the mn threads you read but pretty much everywhere else.