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

Why?

1970 Equal Pay Act came into force in 1975 and the Sex Discrimination Act 1975 changed things for the better for many women.

Until that point men could still be paid more than women for doing the same job and it was common for women to need a male guarantor for obtaining a loan, overdraft or mortgage. So whilst a woman may have been able to obtain a bank account prior to this, she didn’t have an automatic, legal right to one on the same terms as a man, nor could she access the same benefits associated with the account on her own.

Requiring a male guarantor to access full functionality of the account meant she wasn’t fully financially independent of either her husband or father until the law came into effect.

Using those figures the taxable income for a single woman was £2325. Which at 30% tax gives a payable amount of £697.50 or just under 19% of total salary.

Using 2024 figures and minimum wage salary, the taxable amount is £11,225. The tax due on this is £2245, or 9.43% of annual salary.

So, in 1980 the percentage of annual salary lost to income tax (19%) was greater than that in 2024 (9%) for women at the lower end of the salary scale. The tax free allowance in 1980 was 37% of the gross annual income for women and 25% of the gross annual income for unskilled men. Today the tax free allowance is approximately 52% of full minimum wage income.

I’m not really sure what point you’re trying to make.

Don't you think pensioners have been there done that too? Dont you feel that in later life one shouldn't have to worry about whether to heat their home or eat?

God willing you'll be a pensioner one day and realise how crass your words are.

No, they haven't. They haven't had to live with sky high house prices because most of them grew up in a time when you could buy a house on one wage. They haven't got £60k of student loan debt, because they could have had university education for free.

And why should they be free from worrying about whether they can heat or eat when millions of working and disabled people do have that worry? They've had 14 years of being shielded and protected because of how they (on a population level) tend to vote. Now it's done and they have to take their share of the tough times.

It’s scit right now to be young trying to get in the property ladder but that doesn’t make it ok to target pensioners. Plenty of pensioners affected by this are just over the threshold. They left school at 15 and worked in physically demanding jobs for low pay. There are others who escaped abusive marriages and had to start again. There are those who were widowed with young children who had to scrimp and save to get by. Not all pensioners are living it up n a six bed house they bought for tuppence. I would rather the government went after second home owners before pensioners and did more to stop big firms evading taxes. They also could have shave one prevent of the public sector pay rises they offered ( I’m a teacher so this would affect me). It just seems the cut off is far too low. What really annoys me is the hypocrites who we know full well would be all over this if the tories had done it. Can you imagine the threads on here about Tory scum if sunak had done this. And no - I didn’t vote for the conservatives or reform.

@Superhansrantowindsor

‘What really annoys me is the hypocrites who we know full well would be all over this if the tories had done it. Can you imagine the threads on here about Tory scum if sunak had done this’

Quite. Annoying but not surprising.

This.

Many pensioners don't like to hear stuff like this though. Doesn't suit their narrative. They want to feel like they are the only age group affected by anything - ever.

Where were all of the pensioners when the 2 child benefit rule came out, or when 100s of 1000s of people had their PIP or ESA cut because they were deemed as 'not disabled enough,' or when the grant was cut from college kids (JUST AS MINE STARTED!) or when University fees tripled (JUST AS MINE STARTED!) And where are these pensioners when people on jobseekers allowance get sanctioned and have their money stopped, because they were 33 seconds late for an appointment? Not a peep out of any of them. Just happy it's not happening to them, and that they are apparently untouchable.

As has been said by many on here, the vast VAST majority of pensioners don't need this £300, and the ones who do need it will get it. Many pensioners have had so many advantages in life, and handouts, and so much good fortune, that it's about time they took a hit.

The majority of pensioners are no longer people who went through war and famine and the depression etc, many of them are people born in the 1940s and 1950s, And yes I am aware the second world war went to 1945, but they were children then, and would not have had to worry about anything. It was their parents who suffered.

In my experience the people complaining the most about this winter fuel allowance being stopped for pensioners, are people born in the 1950s, and the mid-late 1940s (people aged between around 66 and about 79.) And they almost all do NOT need it.

Something like 800,000 pensioners qualify for pension credit but are not claiming it and that’s why there’s a big campaign to ensure they do.
even when my mum was in a care home she was paid the WFA and when I phoned up to query it I was told everyone automatically qualifies for it - which was clearly bonkers.

No I don't! My mum is a pensioner and freely admits how lucky her generation has been with free university education and affordable house prices - they bought their family home on just my dad's salary and now it's worth half a million quid!

I work with very underprivileged families who have had the piss taken out of them for too long with austerity and cuts. A PP posted a graph up the thread about how as a group, pensioners are the least worse off in this country. No one seems to start threads crying about closures of Sure Start centres and libraries and all the things that make tangible differences to children's lives (which by the way, affects outcomes across their lifespan - their being pensioners themselves included!) so it is pissing me right off all this moaning about this.

I have always thought universal benefits are a waste of public money. Child benefit is another one. Regardless of the party in charge, tax payers money should be spent on looking after those in genuine need and creating a society where everyone has a chance to reach their full potential. The only reason the Tories didn’t do it was for votes.

But the fact remains, no matter how small a proportion of pensioners it is, between 1 and 2 million pensioners are being deliberately pushed into fuel poverty by a government, it now transpires, didn’t even bother to do an impact assessment.

Now of course we can all go “oh well, the majority will be okay so never mind”. But, that’s not right, no matter how many contortions the Labour sycophants put themselves through to justify the actions of the government. And using anacdata / ‘experience’ to convince themselves or that is an act of desperation.

All reasonable people are doing, including many Labour supporters and backers, is saying that the threshold for withdrawal needs to be higher.

If any other government had done it the very people supporting pushing 1 to 2 million into fuel poverty would have been throwing vitriolic insults around. Those same people are now trying to justify it.

And secondly, I thought one of this governments opening statements was that they would do the right thing. It now turns out they haven’t even bothered to work out what the impact of their actions will be. Which isn’t good management, never mind leadership or government.

No one seems to start threads crying about closures of Sure Start centres and libraries and all the things that make tangible differences to children's lives (which by the way, affects outcomes across their lifespan - their being pensioners themselves included!) so it is pissing me right off all this moaning about this.

I completely agree with this and am furious about the two child benefit cap. I question whether the cut off for WFA is high enough but totally agree with it in principle. Of course, because I’m a pensioner who doesn’t need it, I’m immediately accused of being “I’m all right, Jack”. You can’t win if you’re old!

It's easy to say I know this/these pensioners who have millions.

It's easy to say today's pensioners had it easy.

Thing is, pensioners are old, often have underlying health issues, often live alone (not by choice).

They've worked all their lives, have brought up families, often take care of their grandchildren to help our families.

Do they not deserve, in their twilight years, a little peace, warmth, security, not having to worry about finances?

It's easy to say I know this/these pensioners who have millions.

Well it’s easy to say it because it’s factual. Close to a third of all pensioners in the UK are millionaires. That is not some tiny majority in the slightest!

Do they not deserve, in their twilight years, a little peace, warmth, security, not having to worry about finances?

Well of course everyone deserves to have an adequately heated house which is the exact reason the UK has a welfare state, but they don’t deserve it any more than any other demographic in society. Surely you aren’t arguing that?
Does every person over the age of 65 automatically deserve subsidised heating? I genuinely cannot fathom a the argument for that.

This. I can't believe there are people on here who think that someone in their twilight years should suffer.

Yes there are many pensioners who don't need the WFA, but many do and they won't get it.

Many of those pensioners faced the same hardships as today's youngsters. We're not talking about the pensioners who went to university, which would have been far less than today, but the ones who left school at 14/15 who went to work at low paid jobs, struggled to put food on the table, did numerous jobs, raised children, worried about paying bills, saved up for household items etc. Paid their tax and NI allowance all their working life. Weren't able to have a private pension, and now only get the full state pension of £220 a week.

You'd have to be a very callous person indeed to wish suffering on an older person.

No one is saying that. But the cut off point is the difference of a measly £2 a week. Tell me why you think a pensioner with an income of £218 a week is more deserving of the WFA than a pensioner with £220 a week.

The cut off point should have been higher.

There’s all sorts of people and types of families. Many pensioners will not have worked all their lives and had any children or even taken proper care of those that they did have.

There’s also millions who were tradespeople and black cab drivers who only accepted being paid cash (the card reader was always broken) and didn’t pay their full tax and National Insurance. So those people are probably also whining about the WFA when they didn’t even want to pay their fair share in the first place.

My point is, that pensioners aren’t some blanket group of frail old people and a lot of them didn’t even pay much into the system but still have a massive sense of entitlement.

I’ve had a few conversations with pensioners recently and not one of them understood that what they paid in doesn’t cover what they are receiving. If, for instance, they are getting 15k PA pension then they weren’t paying in 15k per
year out of their salary into their pension pot when they were working. They seem to think that there’s a box on cash under The Bank of England with their name on it. Also, some of them will be retired for longer than they even worked so how do they think that works?

They also didn’t get that their pension contributions are long since spent on those that retired before them and that people that are currently working are paying for them. There are now far too many pensioners because when the pension scheme began people might be retired for maybe 5 to 10 years, nowadays they are being retired for 20+ years.

@HeySummerWhereAreYou You don't think children suffered during WW2? Really?

Their houses being bombed, being evacuated and sent to live with strangers, their fathers being sent to fight not knowing if they would ever see them again.

Honestly!

@Bomdigi

Ah I see, that's the problem as you see it, "there's now far too many pensioners"

What do you suggest we do, cull them when they get to 70?

🤣 We could do like in Logan’s Run and ‘renew’ them (as long as they don’t include me in that of course).

But, yes, there are too many pensioners. This is causing worldwide problems now. If you force older people to work longer then it takes away jobs from younger people but if you let them retire too young then they are living longer and drawing their pension for longer.

I don’t know what the solution is (other than an a morally unethical cull), but maybe by encouraging healthy lifestyle choices for children and young people (no smoking, not exceeding alcohol consumption guidelines etc) then they will be more healthy when they are themselves pensioners and not require as much use of the NHS which maybe frees up some extra money towards the state pension. Just an idea.

Could not being in paid employment give you a clue?
Pensioners do not have the earning power of other people that is unless you expect them to get a job, but then you would complain that they are taking jobs from the younger people.
To be honest, they just can't win, a lot of pensioners on here are being honest in saying that they really don't need the payment but they were given it anyway so they are not going to refuse it are they?
There are a lot of pensioners who don't need it so either spend it on their children or grandchildren.

I couldn't agree more but some people on here can't see the wood for the trees. 🙄

the ones who left school at 14/15

There aren’t many of those - the youngest in that bracket were born in 1933, so are now 91.

If the cut off was higher people would still be saying why does X get it but not Y? There will always be people just above the cut off.

Capping it to those on pension credit is an administratively easy solution. The government already have the income details of those pensioners and can then apply the wfa to everyone in that group.

A cut off at the threshold for income tax would be even easier to administer and much fairer.