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.

It’s only 10 grand lower than my annual salary and I’m a graduate working in healthcare… I gave a mortgage, bills, tax, NI, council tax and car to pay for monthly 😳 yet no benefits whatsoever.

The U turn has been caused by left wing back benchers who detest cuts in any form especially as they have prided on the Labour Party as being the anti cuts, anti austerity Party. They are fearful of losing their seats, especially to Reform, hot on their heels in working class communities.

Reform used it as a political weapon to smash Labour with. Every single Reform post on Facebook mentioned “freezing grannies” (as well as the usual boat comments).

A lot of homes in Ireland are heated with oil which is really expensive so I can see why they do this.

Yes and also very young children and babies need warm house too!

This is the most ridiculous ageist post yet.

@chocolateismyweakness4 if you have state pension and a tiny private pension you can have an income of 13k, The pensioners most likely to be in that group are older - over 75. They are also more likely to be women and/ or ethnic minorities. Your health may not be brilliant so you have to pay people to do things for you that you used to do yourself. You feel the cold more than when you were younger and that £200 was a bit of help for you.

I am fully aware they don't pay NI but they pay Income tax so they will not be pocketing the full £35k. I have just put the figures into the an online tax calculator and it comes to £30, 515 pa and remembered to click the "pensioner" option (thought MN would probably like to call it "selfish entitled Boomer who lives in a house worth at least a million quid" so it has not deducted Ni. To my slow and aged brain that works out at approx £2, 344 a month, a shade under the assumed £3k a month.

I get just over £12k state pension

Presumably that includes a SERPS element? Very few of us get that now.

But true!

I agree and the best thing would have been to tackle the exorbitant and ever increasing prices charged by the utitaity companies and I am sure that i recall Starmer going on about all fuel bills being cut by around £300 which would benefit very many people. I also remember being very cold as a young single mum in the 80's as I could not afford to heat my home. Me and my then little one would huddle up in my bed with lots of blankets to keep warm in the winter.

Not as much need for free childcare when you could get a mortgage for an average house based on 3X one person’s salary though.
Childcare is still a long way from free and pushes so many people below the income that the higher end of these pensioners will have.

There was no childcare, free or otherwise. Which, if you were a single parent, made life very difficult. There’s no argument that childcare is expensive but it’s for a relatively short period of time and then disposable income improves.

They did - I remember my mother cashing the family allowance cheque at the post office.

But don't forget that at the time people of my age had young children, we were paying mortgage interest rates which peaked at 18%. House prices might well have been much lower, but with mortgage rates at 14-16% for several years, it was very difficult for many people to manage in the 1980s and 1990s as well.

Er, no. There are Boomers who are still up to seven years away from pension age.

Where are you getting the idea that the £35k is tax free.

It's absolutely ridiculous OP and I completely agree with you. No wonder this country is going down the pan! Once again 'Middle England' and the working age population have been completely screwed over. We will all work ourselves into the grave paying for these wealthy, triple-lock pensioners! £15k-£20k would have been much more acceptable. Where's the common sense?!?!

I would rather be paying 14% on a £40k mortgage than 5% on a £400k mortgage over 35 years, which many mortgage terms are nowadays.

It is a completely nuts cut off and totally at odds to how people in other age demographics get by.
35k and yet someone on minimum wage pays their full heating, their full commute, pays for the dentist, prescriptions etc?
Nothing but a blatant bribe.

True, but as a child of the 80s with one working parent earning an average wage - while life wasn’t full of luxuries we certainly had enough to eat, holidays etc.
Parents were then able to retire at 60, free bus pass etc, plenty in savings and will likely still qualify for this.
The threshold should have been raised but not as high as it has been and spent instead on younger families who are struggling.

They bloody better be. We can be relied upon to vote - or not - in our own best interests.

I’m 1968 and started work at 16 thinking I’d retire at 60. I’ve known for years however that retirement age had gone up and now will be age 67 for me.

Pension age had to increase unfortunately.

It’ll prob be 75 for me by the time I retire - or I may not even be able to afford to retire at the rate things are going, so count yourself lucky. Worked since 15.