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?

But pensioners for the most part have fixed outgoings. Sure there's inflation but pensions have the triple lock. Nobody else does!!
They're also not working and it has to be paid for by people who are.
My mortgage went up by £290 a month in Jan because we came to the end of our fixed term. I'm lucky. I have a friend who's went up by twice that. A MONTH. Still no WFA.

Whether or not you personally need it is irrelevant, it's the pensioners who do need it but no longer get it that people are concerned about. That's why Age Concern had a campaign going. Hopefully now the threshold will be increased.

I don’t want to see anyone in poverty but we cannot treat people as a homogeneous group.
Child benefit was capped and tested, why would you give people money based on age. The country cannot afford this any more ☹️
I worry about everyone’s future but the hand-outs need to be fair.

There are plenty people who aren’t pensioners who are equally deserving. Single universal credit claimants for a start who are trying to survive on less than £400 a month.

I agree Blossomtoes

Many people are in poverty not just ‘pensioners’

How do pensioners have fixed outgoings? I'm a pensioner.
Council tax
Water
Gas
Electric
Food
Broadband
T V License
All have just increased in price. Yes we have the triple lock but my 4.1% came to the princely sum of £7 a week.
I did work for over 50 years and paid for the pensioners then, I have no other way to increase my income as I am not well enough to work.
I had to sell my house and buy a park home because I couldn't afford the mortgage when I had to retire.
It's really not a case of one size fits all.

But they are of an age they can get a job. They have that option whereas older pensioners do not.

That's the whole point of the system, to encourage those who can work, to work.

That’s beside the point. Even the poorest pensioners are literally twice as well off as a single universal benefit claimant but our hearts are supposed to bleed because they’re old. And so many people fall for it.

The state component in the UK is lower than the average if you want to be pendantic, especially considering the huge numbers of pensioners who don’t have occupational pensions (especially women) or who have them but so small they are worth just a few pounds a week.

That is why a third of pensioners live in fuel poverty and older single women are the demographic most likely to be managing in poverty, not spending their Winters cruising the Caribbean.

This is precisely why identity based politics is pernicious and a massive distraction from economic class based politics - which Labour used to espouse.

Essentially, but the point being made was about the cost of means testing. That doesn’t apply to child benefit because it doesn’t cost the government to do it, we do the leg work and a computer does the calculation.

Actually there is rather a lot of “I don’t need it, all my friends don’t need it, makes sense not to give it to us” on this thread.

Nobody denies this payment is necessary for some. The debate is whether it should automatically be paid to all, when many don’t need it.

I'm 66, no pension, working full time because I can't afford to stop. It's a myth that all people of pensionable age are well off, and a completely unfair generalisation. As a lifelong Labour supporter I will no longer vote as I was better off under the Tories, when Starmer came in he upped NI contributions for employers giving them the excuse to keep pay rises to a minimum, did nothing for the Waspy women as had been promised and cut the winter fuel allowance the year I qualified for it, he has no backbone or social conscience in my opinion, recent sucking up to Trump is sickening. Bring back Jeremy Corbyn. I hope all of the ignorant, biased people who think all older people are well off live to eat their words when they find themselves struggling in their 60's.

Unless you die, you get old. All these ageist, ignorant posters take note.

Precisely.

That is the whole point. A young person is able to work if they want to. They will get help with rent and council tax while they are looking for a job. If they don't want to work that's their choice.

Elderly people don't have that choice. For many that extra £200 is needed. The threshold is far too low which you have agreed with so I don't know why you're bringing young working age people into the debate about WFA.

Whatever the threshold is, people just over the threshold will complain.

Personally I think they should expand the eligibility for WFA to those who qualify for a council tax reduction, as those people will have both a low income and have under £16k in savings. People with lots of savings shouldn’t get WFA imo.

Ofgem announced the new price cap today, a decrease of £129 for the average household. Maybe WFA should also be tied to any increase of decrease in the price cap?

There are so many people who need it more medically and financially speaking. Cancer patients or newborn babies with parents on UC or low incomes.

But mostly I think it was a load of hot air over not much £5 a week I think it turns out and just part of the "but we've already paid tax on our pension" except you haven't brigade as it's pre-tax and "I've worked all my life" no you haven't, maybe 40 years which is about half and "I've never claimed anything" except possibly child benefit, work and chil tax credits, childcare tax relief, mortgage relief when that was a thing, and now winter fuel payments, free TV licence, prescriptions and dental etc. etc.

The irony being it was a Labour pre-election giveaway under Gordon Brown the means testing of which used to beat Labour with. But that's politics. I'd like people to focus on why these payments are needed in the first place

But a young single full time working person on minimum wage, no disabilities, no children, gets nothing. No help with rent, nor council tax, nor utilities, ZILCH.

Half their wage will be going on rent alone, even "house share" places aren't cheap anymore.

There are some people who genuinely need and missed out, as they rely just on the state pension or have a very small private pension making them not eligible for pension credit and the extras that brings.

But there are also many who saw it as a nice Christmas bonus and were cross about losing this ‘free money’ as they took it for granted and thought it was a god given right.

My parents did the same Back then school was school not childcare