Winter fuel payments

[dearydeary]

I have just heard on the news that this is being discussed again and they are considering reinstating them.

While I think that people who are on a lower income (pension credit for example) may need additional help I do not think this should be a universal benefit any more.

It appears the government is still looking for votes. What about everyone else in society? Younger people at universities or just starting out? Individuals with disabilities?

Surely we need to be moving to a more means tested approach as the finances need rebalancing?

Where pensioner need help, I am happy to support but many older folk have benefited from good pensions, valuable house price increases and a stable employment market. This is not the situation for many of us any more.

Have I lost the plot?

Urgh here we go. A rational conversation becomes derailed again.

I'm not a victim. I'm not a pensioner so not missing out. Just found it strange a person would say their parents let them go hungry because couldn't afford food yet kept on having more kids. I think thos kids are the victims here.

This sounds sensible, providing they raise it higher enough. If think £20k is sensible. Cuts out the wealthy getting it but ensures many struggling do get it.

I didn't say you were a pensioner, you are a victim of something though as you seem very angry, angry enough to be quite cruel about someone's parents on the internet! You can choose how you look at things and perceive things.

Previous poster asked me how Farage would fund paying WFA to pensioners. I answered her. What is irrational about that? Not answering would be irrational.

I'm angry about Labour and their kids EU ass policies whilst screwing fisherman.

It must be annoying when we make valid points.
My parents are boomers and my mum always admits things were easier for them than they are for young people now. It’s refreshing when pensioners actually can see this.

It doesn’t mean we don’t think you didn’t graft or experience hardship at any point. We all work ridiculously hard now and won’t get the same pay offs unfortunately. If you conceded a bit you’d see a lot less resentment.

Not all pensioners are rich. Many are in poverty. Some of them are feckless but a lot worked hard & experienced hardship.

However the average young person today will not end up with the same wealth as the average boomer today.

With regards to inheritance it's far more beneficial in terms in building wealth to get on the housing ladder in your 20s as opposed to waiting for a deposit in your 50s.

Labour love wasting tax payers money

Tories don't?

The pill became available on the NHS for married women in 1961 and unmarried women in 1967. Opting for birth control after the first two or three children have been the sensible and compassionate response given your parents dire financial position. Many women now limit the size of their families because they cannot afford to support more children. It isn’t ideal, but it is sensible.

For this to have not been available as a choice for your mother, you would be - at a minimum - 67 years old now.

I think this unlikely.

Coupled with your assertion that your parents-in-law received £600 WFA which was never possible as the WFA was a maximum of £300 per household if at least one of the couple was over 80 years old. You would know this if, as you claim, you really are so knowledgeable about your PILs financial affairs.

I smell a rat.

Things may have been easier for them, but not necessarily easier for everyone. There will be differences between individuals within a generation including differences between those born at the start and those born at the end. The younger baby boomers are still working and will be working until 67, whereas the older women retired at 60. The list of possible differences between a cohort is endless for any generation. And there are also commonalities between generations. Divide and conquer is seldom a good way forward.

Many women now limit the size of their families because they cannot afford to support more children. It isn’t ideal, but it is sensible.

It's one reason birth rates are so low.

Don't give them the satisfaction of your annoyance.

What a load of rubbish. You realise schools still have outside loos? Or that the reason 50% go to uni now is because they have to just to get a basic admin job even though it will likely leave them with £40k debt

There are plenty of pensioners that don't have a growing bank balance.

There are also plenty who do.

It should be means tested, 100%. This ridiculous narrative that all pensioners are poor comes up again and again, mostly by Reform voters.

Well it is what most people want, but some are criticising him for (allegedly) u-turning, even though they flamed him for restricting the WFA in the first place. 🤷‍♀️

The threshold for means testing should be higher.

They should also scrap free prescriptions for over 60's and bring it in line with the actual pension age

Just wait until disability payments are cut, Labour will be even more hated

Well that will be a tricky one for some right wing MN posters @caringcarer given so many rage on about PIP fraud and "mobility" cars. I guess there will be name-changing and tune-changing if the proposed the cuts go ahead.

They should also scrap free prescriptions for over 60's and bring it in line with the actual pension age

certainly won't be free when im 70

60!

@C8H10N4O2

Something like a fifth of them are millionaires apparently so there you go….

It’s funny you say that about older single women because I gave the exact example of my MIL who is an older single woman. Worked part time in a admin type roll in the NHS, retired at 60 has over 50k in her account. She also bought her council house.

Yes my mother absolutely did get it done in the NHS. Would have been over 40 years ago. She must have said about it affecting her confidence and she got one.

Soon it won’t be 40% of people the go to uni because the cost of everything else is astronomical, so it’ll only be for the wealthy families very soon, like what you’re describing. Yes I acknowledge that men would have had the most advantages however, women got to retire early by 5 years and now it’s all work to the bone until you drop, regardless of sex. Men still have the top jobs in general so it’s not perfect now either. Plenty of women these days would love to work part time and spend more time with their children, but it’s almost impossible for many now so it’s peaks and troughs.

The governments were wrong for not building more houses but that’s irrelevant to the point that that generation absolutely benefited above any generation since.

As I said, perhaps they could make the threshold higher but there is no way it should be available for all. Much in the same way CB isn’t.

The last time women’s state pension age was 60 was in 2010.

Assume a woman born in 1950 was able to buy a house at 25 years old with her husband, that would be 1975.

In 1975 average house price in London was £12,000 and £10,000 outside, average salary for a manual worker was £48 a week for men and £27 a week for women - that works out at £2496 pa for men and £1404 for women.

Interest rates were around 13% in 1975.

Assuming a typical 25-year mortgage, someone buying in 1975 would pay off their mortgage in 2000. They would have been paying throughout the uncertainty of the late 1970s, the high interest of the 1980s and the recession in the 1990s.

What was different was the ratio of houses to population.
In 1975 there were 19,000,000 households to a population of 56 million - roughly one house per 3 people. In 2024/5 there are 29,500,000 houses to 69.5 million people - roughly one house per 2.3 people.

Are you really sure they had it easier??

How does everyone know how much is in their MILs bank account, DS doesn't know about ours and we don't know about his