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

My point is literally that we should target actual wealth. Which should include the house that a person owns. Every person should be expected to utilise the assets they have if they are living beyond their means before being able to apply for supplementary benefits, including pensioners.

It’s the “including pensioners” bit that always sends MN into a tailspin. I wonder why.

Well said and far better than I could have said it. Like your mother my only extra is a bus pass. In fact her circumstances are very similar to mine. I'm sick of the assumption that we're all living in £1m homes. It's ignorance.

You keep saying that people shouldn't live beyond their means. Fine. Then let's apply that principle consistently.

If someone has savings, they are expected to use them before asking taxpayers to step in. If someone has housing equity, you believe they should use that too. I don't necessarily disagree with you on that. But if the principle really is that people shouldn't expect others to fund a lifestyle they can't afford, then surely that has to apply across the board, regardless of why someone has no money.

Those "undeserving" pensioner homeowners are effectively being expected not only to fund their own care but also to cross subsidise the care of others. If we are following your logic, let's stop doing that. If someone's home has to be sold to pay for their care, the proceeds should be used exclusively for their care and wellbeing. Once those assets are exhausted, they can receive the same level of state support as everyone else.

If, however, your objective is that the value of someone's home should help fund the wider care system, then that's redistribution. It's disingenuous to criticise those homeowners on the basis of personal responsibility when you're advocating for something fundamentally different. There's nothing wrong with arguing for redistribution, but don't pretend it's simply about people paying their own way.

It’s the “including pensioners” bit that always sends MN into a tailspin. I wonder why.

No it's the lazy generalisatons.

Probably because this thread is about pensioners and , in your naivety, you've fallen for the guff about the woman in the OP.

I can’t direct quote sections of your post on the app, but the bit where you say if someone’s home needs to be sold to pay for their care (or indeed anything else, in my view), the proceeds should be used exclusively for them - yes, that’s exactly what I think should happen.

No supplementary benefits until personal assets are used for personal needs. I’m not talking about redistribution at all, I’m talking about personal responsibility. So we appear to be in agreement.

Exactly.

No one is claiming there aren't wealthy pensioners. Of course there are. The problem is the assumption that everyone of a certain age has benefited in the same way or is sitting on significant assets. Like you acknowledged, there are pensioners in £1 million homes, there are also pensioners with modest homes, pensioners who rent, and pensioners living in HMOs with virtually nothing. They are not one homogeneous group.

If the debate is genuinely about wealth, then target true wealth, fairly and consistently (Not the family home). But too often age is weaponised purely to defend raid after raid on one or two sections of the population because it's easier to take and waste, than pursuing policies that grow the economy, create wealth and raise living standards for everyone.

It’s demographic changes that are the problem.

Just to have “paid”’enough tax to fund a state pension you would need career average earnings of 50k which we know is not the norm. And then there are healthcare costs, education costs etc so today’s pensioners haven’t paid enough tax vs what they are taking out of the system. Thats the issue & there aren’t enough young people to support this cost.

We partially agree on one aspect.

But too often age is weaponised purely to defend raid after raid on one or two sections of the population because it's easier to take and waste, than pursuing policies that grow the economy, create wealth and raise living standards for everyone.

What raids are you referring to? Economic policy has tended to favour the old over the young in recent years. Of course we need growth but an ageing population inhibits that which is part of the problem.

The emotive language is just constant on these threads isn’t it? As if we are big, bad wolves for suggesting we’d rather more of taxpayers’ money went to support children than pensioners.

It’s so boring, yet another thread about pensions that could have been an interesting discussion and it descends into this.

It hurt to admit that, didn’t it?

https://www.ft.com/content/3a675f7f-ff46-4b8d-9744-08dfed18d23a?syn-25a6b1a6=1

IHT on unused pensions
IHT thresholds frozen
Tax allowances frozen
House sale funds being used to effectively cross subsidise the care costs of those without a house of savings. What are we paying tax, NI and council tax for?
Proposed council tax changes
Mooted PPT or LVT changes
Mooted changes to retirement ages

Who are the "old" and do they all equally benefit?

Of course we need growth

And yet it does not seem a priory.

No, there was a small overlap.

Emotive language. It's an emotive topic and I am in good company:

"Asset hoarders."

"Those with the broadest shoulders should pay their fair share."

"Working people." (Well, unless they're working people earning more than £39k.)

All courtesy of Labour.

As for the children. Which children? What support? The children whose parents have fallen on hard times through no fault of their own? The children arriving at school with such poor vocabulary they can't access the curriculum? The ones who aren't toilet trained? (Ask any primary school teacher.) Children whose parents are disengaged from their education? Children with serious behavioural problems? Children with SEN who need varying levels of support? Perhaps some of those promised 6,500 new teachers will be able to help. Oh wait...

It'll take a lot more than just handouts to fix those problems. You can advocate for more money if you want. I'd rather see the broken system fixed and people given a hand up rather than just another handout that simply manages poverty instead of helping people escape it. There's plenty of research showing that early intervention can transform children's lives, with benefits lasting well into adulthood.

As for where this discussion has gone... the irony is that you've framed it as though anyone who disagrees with you about pensioners somehow values children less. That's a pretty emotional argument.

That's because you make statements and can't back them up so you get arsey. Yet again you talk about support for pensioners ....SP is the only support for many. Upthread you mentioned supplementary benefits...which are what? You're not being clear enough. Just say what you think should happen to pensioners on retirement if you think they should get no support e.g. SP.

In case people have forgotten. The original point of this thread was that a person was claiming to be living in poverty and unable to have a hot meal while spending £50 a week on petrol to take friends and neighbours on shopping trips. It later turned out that the person is a media regular with a different story every time.

Exactly. She was on Good Morning a few years back. She was called Elsie then. She was filmed stirring a pan of soup and was saying that because she couldn't afford to heat her home she spent all day travelling on buses in the winter. Starmer even talked about it. It was a load of bollox and did no favours to other pensioners and if she's 77 I'll eat my hat.

She is being used by some to put the boot into all pensioners.

Supplementary benefits? Where have you been since the 1970s?

How old do you think she is?

About 10 years older.

I don’t think so, she looks late 70s to me.

IHT on unused pensions: does not affect pensioners, it affects their beneficiaries.

IHT thresholds frozen: as above

Tax allowances frozen: welcome to the world the rest of us inhabit

House sale funds: what do you mean by “effectively”? It either is or it isn’t, where’s your evidence?

Proposed council tax changes: “proposed” is the operative word here, and again, welcome to the world the rest of us inhabit

PPT or LTV: again, “mooted”, and again, that would affect everybody

Retirement ages change: I doubt the current cohort of pensioners need to worry about that, do you?

Is the above literally all you could come up with? Some policies that make absolutely no difference to pensioners, but affect their beneficiaries. Policies that do and will affect us all, and a change in retirement age that will have absolutely no impact on the current cohort of pensioners?

Give me a break. Was perpetual victim hood taught in schools or something?

The only statistical fact that has so far been provided on this thread was by me: only 36% of the cohort born between 1937-1946 were in FT work for more than 75% of their adult lives. That’s it. So all this guff about current pensioners having worked all hours and poured blood, sweat and tears is nonsense. As a cohort, you most certainly didn’t. And seeing as we can’t make policy decisions based on Sally next door, we need to make them based on trends.

Now I appreciate that is difficult to swallow because for some reason so many of today’s pensioners act like they were on the front line or something, but these are the facts.

Agree.

And my point/question was towards those pensioners living as she claimed to be.