To resent the U-turn on winter fuel allowance?

[BlueEyedStarling]

Perhaps I'm existing in a bubble, but all of the pensioners I know, are pretty well off, or comfortable, at least. I live and have older family in the South East, but my dad and his elderly partner, live in the North. Literally, all of them say they dont need the WFA, but happily accept it regardless and shouted from the rooftops when it was taken away from them. Just how long can the working age population keep paying for this increasing, triple-lock section of society who are, as a whole, the wealthiest amongst us? Personally, we fell through the gaps of being able to receive any child benefit (only just!), but have always been willing to accept that we didn't need it and therefore shouldn't have it. Is it that our middle-aged generation just dont shout as loudly about things that affect us? I do want to add that I am very aware that there are many pensioners who should be in receipt of the WFA and that the cut off was too low. Also, that our pensioners fair pretty badly in comparison to much of Europe. It seems criminal that it can't be means tested to benefit those who really do need it.

Oh I know damned well those baby boomers didn’t care. I was there, with landlords laughing at us literally.

Take your ‘stereotypes’ and shove them with the rest of your reinvented history. Go dig out some early threads on this website about housing and the debates we tried to have with them in the late 2000s. We know they don’t care. Yet they still have the right to force us to, apparently.

It needs to be means tested or linked to certain benefits.

I know at least two pensioners who donate their WFA to the food bank.

Don't assume that all well off pensioners who receive it simply keep it for themselves.

The baby boomers have been quite happy to watch everyone younger than themselves freeze in mouldy rental flats and work for nothing for themselves.

Have we? That’s odd, I could have sworn I worked and paid my taxes for almost 50 years, provided for my own pension, paid off my mortgage and continue to pay tax after retirement. I don’t and never have owned a buy to let and got my son on the housing ladder. What exactly have I done wrong?

If they had linked it to the tax that pensioners pay, anyone in the 40% tax bracket doesn't get it, surely would have worked?

So your personal experience is driving your anger. Boomers give in terms of leaving financial legacies to their children; helping them when they are in debt, needing to get on the property ladder or upgrade their homes. They give back to the community with volunteering work and involvement in local projects affording locals a better quality of life. How very selfish and grabby of them. You are ignorant.

I get that would be an easy way to means test but my income is nowhere near the 40% tax bracket and I dont need it. Setting a decent limit and then an affordable way to administer it is a challenge.

It was a bit of an own goal as now they’re stuck with u turning. A better level to cut off at the start would have avoided the backlash in both directions.

The original payment was paid by Gordon brown to get him votes as we all know oldies vote more than young and they more often vote conservative.
Maybe others should do the same, free driving tests to get the young vote, a free train pass for oldies - they are bribes, is that how politics should work.

Agree with this. School boy error.

I agree. Lots of other people live in poverty and worry about heating their home too. When I think of the pensioners I know, the vast majority are living in 4 bed detached houses, swanning about on holidays several times a year, eating out regularly. They don't all need it. Som do - which is why it should be means- tested; and maybe there's a case for raising the threshold. But the wealth disparity between the old and the young in this country is huge. I'm tired of the old "poor pensioners" narrative when it simply isn't true.

I only received it twice. I'm not wildly rich but I could do without it and donated it to a local homeless charity..

Single mothers wouldn't have been given a council house in my city in the 70s 80s or 90s. A high rise flat on a grotty estate but only after a spell in a hostel.

If you think it was all so easy watch Cathy Come Home and see how life was rather than some fantasy.

Surely the position of sanity is to do it as a council tax rebate for the poorest, ie for those in bands A-C or whatever - could easily be done on a sliding scale and take into account whether someone was a solo occupant. Councils have this information, central government can change their grants accordingly. Requires little admin. Yes, it will mean that those with low incomes in massive houses will miss out, but then it’s not unreasonable to expect people to take that into account in weighing up whether to downsize.

Almost all the people I know don't need it including the few people that will keep their heating turned right down but they have excellent pensions (people who have done the same job as me).
It is not quite a u turn perhaps a right angle in the hope of including a few more people but there will always be those who just miss out.
I only got it a couple of times - didn't need it but nice to have and split it between my children (give now rather than later so no inheritance tax)

And I don't live in a four bedroom detached house, am nowhere near the 40% tax bracket and the only reason I can afford several holidays a year is that I'm still working to finance them. I still don't need the WFA. The cut off point was too low though, and they have to find a way of means testing it.

@WaryCrow

there’s a level of truth in what you say, but it’s an exaggeration and you’ve got the ordering wrong.

Privatisation has been used as a (not very good) tool to try to make the government some money. The reality is that the welfare state has always been expensive and the demographics issue has been storing for some time. The 80s wave of privatisation came off the back of the U.K. having to be bailed out. Later privatisations such as Royal Mail were about trying to get debt down. There has to be a level of more realistic acceptance of what people can have from the state and what they can’t.

And how does handing on inheritance help society as a whole?? How did my working to pay for twice the original cost of a landlord’s house over 15 years and then watch him hand it over to his feckless single-mother daughter help my family exactly?

You are the ignorant one - or worse, the one using information to lie. Pretending that the shift back to a neoimperial Regency /Victorian society as described by the likes of Dickens as a fit substitute for a nation working to support all of its citizens in equality and democracy.

Don’t like people resenting the rich? Then don’t create two-tier societies.

The government just can’t win. I see your point but equally there are many poor pensioners who have no way of supplementing their pensions unlike working people. We pay less pension than anyone in Europe.

Other countries in Europe finance pensions in a different way.

I’d like to think that someone could start a charity for pensioners who don’t need their WFA to donate it to. Then needy individuals of all ages could be helped with the funds. Would anyone donate? 🤣
I like to think I would if I were in that position, sadly on my current trajectory I’ll be needing the WFA.

Lots of us were already donating it. The local foodbank was very grateful for mine.

They means test child benefit (in a very crude and unfair way) - if they can do that, why not do exactly the same for pensioners and the WF allowance? If there's a higher rate taxpayer in the house, it gets clawed back.

@ilovesooty- end result is their pensioners are better off

This country is going to keep going down the pan while politicians say what voters want to hear rather than what would benefit the country most. Reforms plans would leave a £55bn black hole in the countries finances. A black hole bigger than the entire criminal justice system. The budget black hole that Liz Truss suggested and sent the bond markets soaring was only £33bn. The guy is totally and utterly insane, but is desperate for power so will say and do anything to gain control - while the countries prosperity disappears down the plughole. We pay £105bn a year on debt interest. That’s before interests rates soar. That’s before we add an extra £55bn a year in borrowing. The country is skint.