To be annoyed pensioners effectively now get a bigger personal allowance

[FlightBeforeXmas]

So because of the fiscal drag from not increasing personal allowances the chancellor has announced basic state pension will not be taxable.
So if you earn this amount you pay tax on it despite having the extra costs of working.
Pensioners are also much more like to own their homes.
How on earth does this make any sense?

I'm not entitled. I am not even a pensioner. But I can see beyond my own circumstances and know spite when i see it

I'm not entitled. I am not even a pensioner. But I can see beyond my own circumstances and know spite when i see it

Precisely!

First house we bought in 1973 was (literally) a 2 up / 2 down terrace with no bathroom and an outside toilet. We used to go to my mother-in-laws for a bath! The walls were running with damp and mould. I brought my first baby home to that house.

But we didn’t moan - we accepted it, even though it was shit!

Later, when we bought a small semi in the 80s (in which we still live BTW) the interest rate on our mortgage was 15%. Yes, you read that right … 15%.

No free child care; no after school clubs; meaning I could only work part time, even though we desperately needed the income. Women paid much less than men for the same job!

I didn’t want this to turn into a ‘we had it harder in our day’ post because I do genuinely feel for younger people today.

However, some on here seem to think all today’s pensioners have had an easy ride. If they want the lifestyle I had … they’re welcome to it!

I receive a state pension plus two different private pensions. My taxable allowance absorbs my state pension amount plus a small part of the private pension amount. Everything over that I pay income tax on. Does that explain?

If you are one of the pensioners who gets the full state pension (half don’t), it is not expected that the state pension will exceed the personal allowance until 2027.
I think the government has just decided for the small amount of tax they will receive back, the expense of making/assisting some old people do tax returns is just not worth it. Some don’t know how to use a computer.

Exactly. Some things can look easy If you don't understand the whole process.

Me too. Such a cross patch,

@LondonLass61 It's not agist to say that we as a society can't afford to pay pensions for 30 plus years to the average person. When the post-war generation pensions were set, I dont imagine we thought so many folk would be retired for 30 years - more likely expectation was retire at 65, die at 70. Now, we retire at 67 but die at 87 (hopefully!) - still 30 years of retirement. But the immediate post-wsr years have people able to retire in their 50's, drawing final salary pension schemes from the public sector relatively young, and could well live into their 90's. Obviously they have a right to those pensions, but the state pension is inadequate for some and unnecessary for others - which just seems ludicrous situation.

Now, we retire at 67 but die at 87 (hopefully!) - still 30 years of retirement.

Er, 87 minus 67 is 20. Not 30.

Lord knows I'm not good at arithmetic but even I know that.

The people begrudging pensioners their state pension payments as over-generous might like to consider that their parents and grandparents get about 50% of what a Spanish pensioner with a full contribution record receives. My state pension is just under £900 per month; my Spanish equivalent receives about €2200 each month.

Don't kid yourself that the UK is a growing economy. It's deteriorating, in fact it is shredding, faster than I can write.

It's not as if they are getting anything else! Actually, wait....

Well I was born in 77 and had a lot of those things. And we were NOT a wealthy household. My dad was a van driver and my.mum was a barmaid who gave up work (pretty much forever) after i was born. We had child benefit, 2 cars (they were crap but we still had them) and we went on holiday almost every year. Usually abroad to stay witn family. And actually if you had to live with 'harder times. Didn't your kids? Presumably they were there too. And funding benefits now for older people that they will never get. I really wish people would stop pretending that everyone had it super hard in.the 70s and 80s. We didn't. In fact I can remember a couple of times when I was ill and my parents called the GP. Who came to.our house. In the night! Imagine getting that now? And free university. Honestly. Please stop pretending.

Yes, the GP attended patients at home, even at night if they were ill enough. Until Tony Blair wrote them a contract that let them out of all those responsibilities. It was idiocy even at the time.

Free university and a grant, yes it is true and a competent GP- home visit.

I was born in 1956. I went to France the first time because we sailed across the Channel in a tiny boat. I was 23 before I went on a plane, to emigrate!

Yanbu op but they will always go for the grey vote.
Lol at some of these comments. I’d love a holiday to Cornwall. I grew up in these times in quite a deprived area. The dads all had low skilled jobs and some of mums worked but not all. Everyone had a car, even if it was older, owned their home ( other than a couple of single mums who had affordable council houses) and the vast majority had a holiday once a year. The dads also went on the pub or working men’s club most nights and we’d often have lunch out on a Sunday.
My mum tells everyone she went without to buy a house when we were little but she absolutely did not lol, she just likes to remember it that way

In the 1970s less than one in ten school leavers went to university. Now it's nearer four in then.

Someone would have needed to be on their arse to call the doctor for a home visit in the 1970s. I can't imagine that would be the case now.

But you didn't NEED a degree to get a decent job! I dont have a degree and I work in a job that I wouldn't be hired for now f i was starting out, without a degree. And to get a degree (which I would.need!) These days would set me back about £40k in debt.
And the people who use the doctors most now are pensioners (which is fair enough btw but dont try and say its the youngsters)

A family member had a nebuliser and home visit back then. This was pre Blair and the population was much smaller.

I was raised in a big council estate in the 1970s and there was real poverty there. My dad was the local swimming teacher and used to buy swim suits for some kids otherwise they would never has been able to learn to swim.

Everyone's experience is different, but the truth is that poverty then and poverty now is always a limit on people and society especially the most vulnerable eldest and youngest people.

I couldn't go to university, I couldn't even stay on for A levels, I had to leave school at 16 to work because my parents wanted my board money, there was no way I could stay on at school. This was quite common in the 70s

You're not wrong @Sexentric . I was just pointing out how different things were then and how needs, funding and expectations have changed.

The older generation weren’t afraid of hard work, we started working at 15 , and did so for a further 50 years. The younger generation leave school at 18, then uni then a masters then a gap year then start to look for work at about 23/24 years of age, except a lower paid job is beneath them!!
our first home was almost uninhabitable but we brought it as it was what we could afford with only a wicker conservatory chair to sit on ( not a fully furnished new build).
guess what, we spent every spare penny on the house sold for a profit, did this several times to become mortgage free .
my point stop bashing the pensioners maybe listen to them, they just might have some life learnt advice to help you on this path of lifr

Later on too, I was in the same position as you.

I totally agree there was real deprivation and benefits were not generous but the vast majority of poor families then in my experience were non working households. Back then, most people who worked full time could afford a decent standard of living where I grew up