To think free bus passes for the old should be abolished?

[Bumpitybumper]

Statistics show that on average wealth peaks at age 65-74 in the UK, why then do we give these people free bus passes? It makes absolutely no sense at all and is just an unnecessary expense. The idea that 'young' pensioners are a relatively poor group of people is completely incorrect and it only serves to enhance the already massive intergenerational wealth gap between baby boomers and everyone else.

This. I agree. Our communities are interconnected.

I have no problem not giving it people who don't need it/have a car but if you means test it I do worry a lot of pensioners who need it simply won't apply.

I really don't get the inter-generational pensioner hate. You'll all be pensioners one day and are simply making it worse for yourselves.

We clearly can afford both pensions and to look after families, students, nurses, children in care and the homeless etc. It is a huge con by the political class to milk us dry and cut everything back whilst doling it out elsewhere. It is a CHOICE on behalf of the government where they splash the cash and in recent years it has been on other things rather than the people. Labour are just continuing what the Tories were doing and even ramping it up - their policies are bafflingly anti-worling class.

The billions and billions they can suddenly magic up for vanity projects to make them look good on the world stage/WEF/WHO should only be what's left over after looking after their people.

I cannot work out anymore whether that makes me far left or far right though!

Well except children travelling to mandatory education. They should have free bus travel more than this group.

So you can give 'feedback' to anyone you wish - but others are not allowed to do the same to you. I rest my case.

I have not been rude - annoyed, yes. Annoyed on behalf of the pensioners you are clearly bashing on this thread. You know absolutely nothing about me as a person. End of.

Incidentally, going back to your original post - have you actually looked at how the votes are going so far @Bumpitybumper ?

I think that says it all really.

Maybe I come across like that but I find most of your post to be a complete red herring. Parenting and disabled people have nothing to do with whether 65-74 year olds should automatically be entitled to a free bus pass.

Are there bigger fish to fry than bus passes? Of course but that doesn't mean that smaller issues can't be discussed and debated in their own right.

I think your post is well put together, and has valid points. But I would also say that it’s the life decisions that individuals make, along with a bit of luck, that plays a huge part in how decent a life you might have. People have different priorities, make some questionable (to my generation) choices around their lives, and dare I say look to blame someone else for anything that doesn’t go right sometimes.

@Seymour5

When my Granny got her bus pass it was called the penny ticket. She also had to pay a small annual fee for the privilege. You had to pay a penny for each journey and it was restricted hours.

We were do glad she gave up driving! In her early 60s as she had a license that she got at 17 for driving tractors as a land girl. She never had to sit another test.

If hope they are still around when I am 67. I have really bad rheumatoid in my hands. I got an automatic but the pain in my hands often stops me from driving. I tend to get the bus into town.

I don't claim DLA as I can still walk although somewhat slower than my peers.

@Seymour5 ignore that! I was going to make a point on how few people under 74 would have had their first child before 1979 but I did the maths and decided that given my mum was considered a geriatric mother and excessively old having me at 30 I was probably wrong. It's amazing how much older women are having their first child now (I had my first at nearly the same age and I was the second in my school year group to have a child). But that's an entire separate topic!]

I have given no personal feedback to any posters on this thread! I have not commented on people's writing styles or made comments about them as a person even when I feel I am being deliberately misrepresented for potentially spurious reasons. The only observation I have made is that I have been more polite to you than you have been to me. Obviously this is subjective in nature but I haven't resorted to personal insults. I also haven't suggested I know anything about you as a person as I obviously don't know you at all.

I have seen the poll and I accept the majority of people on this thread disagree with me. That's totally fine and how democracy works. We will see in a few years when wealth inequality between the generations increases and more young people come of voting age how this impacts things.

Yes abolish the bus passes and make them sit in their cold houses - that way they’ll die off quicker leaving houses to more deserving young people.
or wait - these pensioners are the ones who have paid taxes for years to fund public services and make your lives easier.

im so sick of pensioner bashing - I could’ve had my bus pass five years ago but chose - like a lot of my friends not to take it because I don’t need it and am capable of paying my way. Not everyone is.

my husband worked for 43 years and died before being eligible for any state pension - I don’t moan that he contributed but got nothing back at the end. You’ll be old yourself one day - enjoy listening to younger people who’d be quite happy to deny you any joy in life.

You do come across like that I’m afraid, and have a real downer for some reason for a tiny select age group. Being in that age group, I can actually tell you that most folks won’t even have a bus pass, because they are likely to still be driving, unless for health reasons that the DVLA says they no longer can. None of my family or friends in your narrow window of “being subsidised” has a bus pass, most are busy helping their children raise their own families and they aren’t doing it via a bus. Don’t forget, outside of London and a few other big cities, bus services have been slashed to the bone, so relying upon them isn’t for the faint hearted.

Sidetrack but be aware there's an age limit to claiming DLA (PIP). Once you pass a certain age the government considers that mobility issues are just a given and not an indication of disability.

I raise this because my mum did what you did and didn't claim because shd felt she could cope and wasn't 'disabled enough' (she was!) She decided she was disabled enough and looked into it last year to find out she'd aged out (if she had applied younger she'd have kept it).

Not a disaster for my mum except she likes to save money and so is annoyed, and I don't know the details but do look into it to make sure you don't fall foul of this. My mum would have qualified 10 if not 15 year ago, but she wouldn't admit her condition had progressed that much.

A very valid point @gesturecritic 👍

I don't have a downer on this group at all. My parents are in this group as are my PILs and I love them all dearly. They are absolutely part of my life so I understand and appreciate what they do. All of them have a bus pass and use it relatively frequently for leisure travel. They go into the local town on the bus to avoid parking charges and use it to go to local tourist hotspots on scenic double deckers.

I also though know that some of my children's friends don't have a car so all school runs are done on the bus. They are families that are a lot less well off than my parents and PILs. Why wouldn't we be trying to help these people first?

I am not driven by a hatred of anyone. I just want what resources we have to be allocated in the best way. I don't think 65-75 year olds are the most obvious or needy option. I don't have a particular axe to grind generally about the generation.

So, it appears I am not the only one commenting on your style OP..... 🤔

Absolutely and (I've said before) ultimately how wealthy someone is is down to luck. Yes some people don't work hard or don't make good spending decisions and are poor, but plenty of people are born to wealth, don't work hard and make poor spending decisions and are still wealthy. The difference between the two groups is usually chance of which family they're born into!

I am a high earner (and still get the bus 🤣) and have worked very hard to get where I am, but I started with an inherent set of advantages and I have my health and haven't had anything particularly unlucky happen to me in life. I am conscious that it could have gone very very differently. For example, at 16 I would have killed to be one of the 'cool' kids, but I was odd and they had no interested in me. I was easily led at that age and it would have taken very little for me to go completely off the rails. But because no one actually wanted to hang out with me (apart fom other odd balls) instead I studied, got good grades and went to a good university. Pretty much pure luck in reality!

The thing is though, this applies to everyone. It's still not a reason why being 61 justifies a benefit! It's absolutely a reason why the idea of 'they've paid their way' is abhorrent to me - we shouldn't be allocating benefits on the basis of how much someone has paid in, but how much they need.

Baby boomers are net beneficiaries of the tax system. They have contributed less in tax than they will receive from the welfare state. It's a bit of stretch to say that this has made younger people's lives 'easier' who in contrast will be net contributors.

If you look back in the thread there has been some pretty nasty stuff written about me. Hope that makes you feel better about your own posts! Afterall of more than one person does it then it must be totally ok...

Yes, I remember it did not arrive for the first child till '77 as I had my first DC in late '78. It was very helpful since I had no job - ex-DH had moved employment because he had messed up his job big-time, so that the job I would have got was geographically out of my reach.
I think it is the one benefit that should be universal, money the mother has that is exclusively hers - controlling and mean partners are as frequent as ever they were.

Given how much my mum likes her free bus pass she was very angry that her pride lost her this much money 🤣

[And just because I feel I have to keep saying this - I don't begrudge my mum her bus pass!].

Vile post, pensioners have already had their free TV licences taken away and their winter fuel allowance, now you want to.take the bus pass.
Says alot about you.

These are people that have paid into.the system for years, these are people that may not drive and rely on buses to get them out and about.

Sounds like you want old people at home freezing cold, no tele, no buss pass.
You'll be old yourself one day .

Many can't drive , they need access to doctors, supermarkets etc. Of course they should have travel concessions

Baby boomers are the children born just after the war up til roughly 1955. They experienced rationing and also the beginnings of the Welfare State and, like the generation just before them, are larger and healthier than any generation before them - rationing and the provision of free Guernsey/Jersey milk, malt, rose hip syrup, cod liver oil and an expanding vaccination system eliminating many childhood diseases made them so. But they are also the generation who, if working class, could be brought up in abject poverty/genteel poverty (the difference between abject and genteel is that you were unlikely to find rats etc in your one-room with shared kitchen and bathroom home if you were at the genteel end). Then they grew up and got qualified - the new grammar schools helped inumerable working class children - and worked hard. They paid for wars abroad and welfare at home and saw the world blossoming and then fall to pieces under Thatcher. They had high rate mortgages and until the mid-70s had to pay for them on one income, or they rented like their parents had, but in better quality housing - families living all in one room became a rarity after the 60s. And they paid taxes which were high to provide all the goodies that are now enjoyed by the young. Having put in they are entitled to receive back - as you will be when you are old. Carping at the previous generations is as old as Ancient Sumeria, and as accurate.

Baby Boomers were born between 1945 - 1964. A 65 year old today would have been born in 1960 and reached adulthood basically in the 1980s. They absolutely did not experience rationing or rebuild the country after the war. The 1970s, 1980s and 1990s were largely periods of economic growth of the kind we can only dream of today.

Baby Boomers did not pay taxes for the 'goodies' we enjoy today. They are net beneficiaries of the system meaning they gained more from the system than they paid in.

Rationing ended in 1954. Even at the top age of the range were talking about (74) they were 3!

Everyone has it hard it different ways in different generations. The age group that really had it hard were the Silent Generation (except right at the end maybe) and the Greatest Generation and even before if they were alive during WW1. There aren't many of that group still around but I am happy for all the money in the world to be thrown at them.