AIBU to wonder why a pensioner struggling financially would not use housing equity?

[Powerbungalow]

I'm not being unsympathetic

Theres a lady on the news at the moment, saying how times are tough and shes only cooking one meal a week - imagine she's eating cold food.

One thing that stood out though "I own my own house and it costs in maintenance" Depending on where she is, would you not get a life time mortgage or sell and rent? She has a big asset, why not use it to have a better life? I know I would.

She may be holding on to it for inheritance, but she didn't say - if so, then can her family help. It just seems totally crazy

Don't be silly. No one would consider a few hours delivering papers as a teenager comparable with an adult working to put food on the table. You're just labouring your point.

Does your mum receive pension credit? Because if yes then she is exempt from the bedroom tax anyway.

The irony.

100%

No she does not claim PC.
The bedroom "tax" is not a tax anyway... it is just a reduction in HB, and she does not get HB anyway.

I’m labouring the point because nobody seems to be prepared to answer the question: what is the difference?

Because I know plenty of current pensioners who were economically inactive for many years of their “working” lives but I’m expected to feel sorry for them, so what is the threshold above which you consider a job to be “proper”?

Stats I have provided earlier on in this thread from the DWP shows that of the 1937-1946 cohort of people in the UK, only 36% of them were in FT work for more than 75% of the time. So who are all these people working from dusk til dawn from the age of 15-65?

That would be for the government to decide.

Don't confuse them with facts and the truth. Google trumps lived experience.

Longitudinal research and statistics do trump anecdotes, yes.

Calling older people who have lived through very different times, liars, isn’t a good way to get a point across. Lived experience, whether you like it or not, is important when looking at history.

But it is not happening anyway, so....

Did I call anyone a liar?

Not yet, but never say never.

You didn’t but the poster I initially replied to did.

I can not imagine a government that would consider the home someone lives in as an asset. Yes, it happens now with people going into care homes, because they are leaving those homes and not going back.
It is nonsense to say to someone that the home they live in is worth too much (which is often through no action of the person living there... mine has gone up in value because of the market, and nothing I have done) and they have to downsize or move somewhere cheaper or not be able to claim any UC, so therefore not able to eat or pay bills.

Oh I see, thank you for the context.

They're times some of us lived through and experienced Calling them anecdotal doesn't make them less true.

Statistics and longitudinal studies are very good at telling us about trends at a population level, but less good at telling us about outcomes for individuals. So we dont need fight - theres space for both.

A house is an asset.
No one is saying they must sell, they can use equity release.

So someone on UC on their 30s must use equity release on the home they own... until what point? They run out of equity and then have to claim more UC to rent? It makes no sense.

People who own their home cost less in UC because they are not claiming the housing element.

You cannot do equity release below a certain age and the % you can go up to is very age dependent too .

I don't know much about. But a PP says that the home you live in should be counted for means-tested benefits, and you can do equity release for the funds. It seems not.

The thread is about pensioners.

Yes, and PP said that any means tested benefit should take your house into account.
Pensions are not means tested.

Pension credit however is