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.

....and if someone else lived at your address on the state pension, it would be split between them so they each got half.

Sounds a lot but if you’re a family of 4 living in an expensive area rent could be around £1,500+ so with bills on top it’s not that much.

And this family of four has someone who is eligible for the WFA whose personal income is below £35k per year and who is also the sole earner for the house, hence all the mortgage and bills coming out of their money?

Seems like quite a specific scenario tbh and perhaps not the best one to base older age benefits on.

It’s obviously not directed at people like your father though - he’s quite clearly in need!!

Most households of 4 won’t qualify for wfa.

Yes. It's total income.

Nope no benefits at all

I am curious, is that household income or are living alone? Do you have a mortgage or pay rent?

What a mess. 9 out of ten.

No it’s per household

Agree it’s ridiculous. And a massive own goal for Labour.

I wouldn't give them anything tbh. Pay your own bills.

I theorised about your personal circumstances because you appear to be suggesting that all women actually wanted to work in the 70s/80s but were unable to purely because of a lack of childcare. I'm wondering if you were actually not a mother at all or had a particularly successful career and are hence not representative of mothers or typical mothers in the 70s/80s at all.

I am a pensioner and I live on my own. I have my government pension and an NHS pension. Together they total about £1650 per month. My house ( reg 3 bed terrace) is paid for but I have all the other bills that everybody else has
My highest individual bill is my council tax
I have a very basic television package, which includes Internet and house line
gas and electricity
Water and sewage
Plus all the usual other bills other people and other families have.
I live frugally, I’m careful with money.
Vast majority of my clothes I’ve had for a number of years. I tend to buy new clothing if I get given vouchers for my birthday and Christmas In all my life I have never had an income higher than £26.500 pounds per year. I’m very grateful that I will now get the fuel allowance. I don’t remember the last time I was on holiday abroad.
I think that £30,000 is too high
I think it should be £25,000.

The unknown, unquantified costs of the means testing for the sake of politics. I know accountants moan about HMRC (mine does!) but I’m glad I don’t work for them.

I wonder whether someone at the Treasury has actually asked HMRC to put an estimate around means testing this?

This could have all sorts of issues buried underneath the announcement. Just like they don’t seem to have thought through the issues with removing it (eg those on pension credit ending up better off than those who have paid full NI contributions, as pension credit a gateway to other free stuff like glasses and dental).

No because they’ve paid NI all their working lives.

We wouldn’t be having half of these problems if the energy produced by the resources in this country and by the people of this country was still owned by the people of all the country. If it was still nationalised, in short. Why should the boomers who sold it and in many cases benefitted from the same get given more money to use it? We’re the people who are bloody owed!

No it’s not. It’s per person. I’m getting it, my bloke isn’t.

We didn’t sell it. The Thatcher government which I hated with every fibre of my being did. The people who really benefited because they bought shares was our parents’ generation. We didn’t have the money to buy them because every penny was needed to bring up our kids and keep a roof over our heads.

My point is that £35k income for a pensioner is more money than £35k for a working person as they don’t have those deductions.

Because they lost a By Election, and Labour M.P.s are terrified of losing their seats at next election.

I thought 25 - 30k would be fine as well . I do think its good they've reinstated it with a limit though.

Far more likely to be driven by the increase in housing costs relative to salaries but sure it’s younger generations going to university that’s their problem. Even though that’s what they were encouraged to do by their parents, teachers, employers. And many did in fact also start working and saving and paying taxes at 16 just as older generations did

It’s too much for two people together earning nearly £70,000 in retirement. My neighbours will qualify for that and they are not short of anything

Wouldn’t have made a difference if older generations went to university, it was free until 1998. The rest of your argument just demonstrates the remarkably favourable economic environment that many boomers (not all before everyone jumps down my throat) experienced and were able to benefit from. That environment no longer exists

Don't get too worked up about it, chances are they won't increase SP for a couple of years now and it will even out.