To say the £35k winter fuel threshold is way too high!

[chocolateismyweakness4]

The threshold needed to be raised, but £35k?! I wish I earned that and I have a mortgage and commuting costs. It also doesn’t take into account savings (so they could have millions in the bank) or household income.

We all know it’s a bribe, but they still won’t get pensioners to vote for them.

Having made a mess of child benefit, they are doing the same. I am a single pensioner over the 35K, ok I don’t need it. Most of my couple friends have one high pension and one decent but not high. Also 2x state pension for them. Lower earner will get the fuel allowance. . So they earn more than double me, in some cases, they are getting it. So unfair

1977 introduced- so yes boomer parents got it

I like the ‘head in sand’ approach to the cost of housing for younger people.

The trend has continued - more people renting in their 30s and 40s, less home owners.

Buying a home was far more achievable in the past than it is today.

I can only dream of having a 35k income in retirement. I'll be lucky if I have 18k.

instead of labelling the elderly, people should wonder why the U.K. has the lowest pension in Europe. If pensioners were really selfish they’d be out on the streets like those in France complaining about raising the pension age, which successive governments have done. They could have easily added the extra £200 onto the actual pension and no one would have noticed or given a stuff, but governments want to look generous and so labelling the money as some sort of allowance to help with extra heating costs was a cynical political move. I’m one of those selfish oldies who owns a (small terraced) house in a grotty area , but apparently I’m selfish and grasping. I’ve had 4 kids and remember clearly when there was too much month at the end of the money. I now don’t have that worry which makes me greedy . Instead I’m getting ready to do a 10 hour stint caring for a 4 year old GC tomorrow.

That’s all we hear- don’t have kids if you can’t afford them blah blah. Well you can’t have shit wages and then complain when young people claim benefits.

It works both ways. Are you disagreeing with my factual statement?

I agree OP. The average full time wage is about £37k (roughly what I'm on), so basically around half of full time working people will be on less money than people getting the winter fuel payment. And the majority of them will be nowhere near getting any state benefits (apart from child benefit), and often have student loans, children, mortgages etc that most retired people don't have, plus none of the discounts, free bus passes etc. Nor have their earnings been protected against inflation by a triple lock for years.

However, it's better than the old system of millionaires getting it I suppose....

I agree. The entitlement of some in this generation (not all, of course) is shocking. The very same people are the very first to label poorer, perhaps disabled people, those with children, etc who are genuinely struggling as entitled. They clearly don't understand irony.

So much whingeing and stupidity. Comments about the needs of different age groups that recognise childcare and mortgages but dont mention needing people to do things you used to be able to do yourself, or the greater sensibility to cold, or the dental and health care costs.

Young people now get more from the state than "boomers" did at the same age https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/personalandhouseholdfinances/incomeandwealth/articles/generationalincometheeffectsoftaxesandbenefits/2019-08-21

but it isnt enough enough for them that they will build resources as they age, they want everything now. They dont leave school until 18 and many barely work before they are 21 while older generations worked from 14, 16 or 18 as few went to university - so of course they didnt have student loans.

And now they are also expected to fund their childrens house deposits out of any savings they may have managed to accumulate.Two thirds of parents hand over cash https://www.zoopla.co.uk/discover/property-news/revealed-how-much-the-bank-of-mum-and-dad-gives-children-for-deposits/ and sometimes a lot of it -
data published by technology company Twenty7tec showed that 110,325 buyers received at least £100,000 from a member of their family in 2024, up by 8% when compared to the year before.

In the UK, more than £5 trillion worth of assets is expected to change hands over the next 30 years. I cant easily find figures on what boomers inherited but I suspect for many it was a few hundred if they were lucky.

The only bit that is factual is that more people go to university now.

You have provided no evidence that this is why home ownership rates are so much lower among today’s under 40s vs pensioners at the same ages.

Used to be a bonus for those on a certain benefit ( not sure which one) Was around in the 70s , still at£10 then but obviously worth more then

Little to do with that and mostly to do with the fact that housing is not far, far more expensive in proportion to incomes.
I thought the University thing had already been discussed. The sort of jobs that 'boomers' could walk into with a couple of O levels now require a degree and tens of thousands of £ of debt. No doubt someone will come along shortly to say that they are jealous of the fact that the young could take on more debt than they could. 🙄

Other countries in Europe do their pensions differently. They pay higher taxes for them too.

It’s obviously a factor. Back in 1991 most of that cohort would have had their first job at 16.

I wish I earned £35k now, even with student loans and NI.

Perhaps it makes you feel better to make excuses rather than to just admit that house prices were far, far more affordable for the boomer generation than they are now and that this is clearly the chief reason why ownership rates have fallen.
Please see earlier post for comment on Uni.

I thought there had been family credit / allowance in some form, not means tested initially, since the welfare state started in 1945?! (Can you tell I was testing my DD on GCSE history recently!) So yes, families have also had state help, but that includes the current pensioners if they had children. And that stopped being universal years before winter fuel allowance did.

That you feel it’s a factor isn’t evidence of it, and completely ignores other issues like the huge increase in price:wage ratio over the same time period.

Yes if the mortgage companies had kept the rule about borrowing 3 times a single income or 3 times one and 1x the other in couples the house prices wouldn't have gone so bloody crazy. . Can't remember who changed the legislation on that but it did no good

I was wrong, you are correct, thank you.
Hope Labour changed that, I feel sure it used to be £350 to a married couple.

I'm pleased at that, as two use no more heating than one.

Very true.

Food banks were needed back then, but not available, so people had to make do with daily beans on toast, or take charity from others. Churches also acted in a food bank capacity back then. As far as needing two salaries, people used to do without. They had no money to spare for anything other than feeding the family and paying bills. People caught buses all the time as they couldn’t afford a car (buses these days are mostly empty). Now, if a couple can’t buy their kids the latest technology, take them on holiday, let them have their own bedroom and wear new clothes (often hand me downs back then), they actually consider themselves as deprived.

It was impossible for most without parental help back then. May not have been inheritance but living with parents while saving a deposit would be unthinkable for most now.
My parents (war babies) helped us all onto the property ladder. My DM retrained and went back to work full time to support us all through uni. It wasn’t cheap with three of us, but as a lifelong socialist she felt it was her responsibility not the states.

Like most generations it is our lived experience that we fall back on. My generation may have benefitted from lower housing prices but mortgage payments were still a significant chunk of our monthly income. What we didn’t have was the huge expense of modern digital living. Stuff that young people are incapable of going without.

But that is a different argument and one that can’t be argued with our current reliance on the technology. The fact that my broadband and tv subscription costs me more than my energy bill every month is embarrassing, especially when 20yrs ago, pre internet, it cost the price of an annual tv licence to watch TV.

When you realise that you can’t have everything life becomes much simpler. We no longer do foreign travel, preferring a better standard of living year round with the money we save. When you are retired every day is a holiday.

I was surprised at how warm DM. (82) needs to keep her house just to stay warm (and she does layer on woolly jumpers), and she is at home a lot more than people going out to work. Her heating bill for her 2 bed terrace (wall and insulation) is far higher than ours for a 3 bed detached house.