An extra hubdred for OAPS?

[RaggedRocks]

The government wants us to keep cash at home for emergencies. Many pensioners are struggling to pay their bills and don't have a spare 100 quid.

AIBU to think that they should add an extra hundred onto the WFA in the budget, so oldies can have some spare cash to keep for the coming emergency. Also consider an extra hundred for UC recipients.

semantics
We are told before the money is paid that we are not entitled to it and that we will have to return it. The clawback is just the method or reclaiming the money.

What £1500? I get around £1000

2 Adults working full-time on minimum wage would be getting over 50k gross, as of tomorrow.

Plus child benefit and maybe a smidgen of UC. Work pays, peeps.

£50k of what?

Wages if working full-time on min wage.

Ah ok. It took a while but we got there in the end.

game of bingo down the british legion ?

Pensioner couples 16%, single pensioners and over 85s 21% compared to 19% of working age adults. Source is Joseph Rowntree Trust.

What a load of nonsense. Why cash ? I can't think of a single emergency situation I've had where anyone ,who could solve that emergency, took cash in exchange for solving it. Nor would £100 have gone anywhere near solving it .

Contribution-based benefits are reduced by other incomes - it's not called means-testing, but it is effectively means testing. It should work both ways - if you have not paid enough contributions, you don't get the full benefits.

Unreasonable logic when half of pensioners who vote would probably be dead soon anyway - not many years left.

Not sure if somebody is already answered this, but if the cash machines/banking systems go down you could still buy food in cash. £100 could last 2 weeks of basic food for my family of 5 if necessary. Lentils, rice and porridge will be doing a lot of heavy lifting.

OAPs and their final salary pensions are doing just fine! It’s the working young families that need help.

We are very close to a point in which ai will be totally possible to infiltrate our banking systems. If that happens, most likely, there will be a complete shutdown with no warning while it is resolved. If no one has cash how would they buy food, or baby milk or fuel?

This is an real possibility. Its also real common sense to always have cash on you when travelling for similar reasons.

Ours is Closed I am afraid . That generation of oldies has gone to the great bingo hall in the sky.

Wrong generation; my Dad's generation had finally salary schemes 1/60th per year, based on average of last 3 years. Often getting a nice promotion just before retirement. These schemes shut down ages ago.

Well it is but might as well not be. That’s why Labour shot themselvesnin the foot with the whole thing. I don’t know the stats but I imagine there isn’t a huge percentage of pensioners with incomes greater than 35k Pa.

Nobody 'just' has the state pension.

If they don't have a private pension and/or sufficient savings, they will have universal credit as well as the winter heating allowance, free public transport and free prescriptions. They will also often get attendance allowance if they are unable to do certain things for themselves due to lack of mobility. And a means tested council tax deduction if eligible.

If that happened £100 wouldn't be a comfort for long.

£100 in cold hard cash will help if banking systems go down and people can't pay by card.

The government are obviously getting concerned about cyber threats from Russia.

Surely in an emergency it’s more beneficial to check elderly people (all vulnerable people) are okay rather than handing out cash?
eg help with shopping
collection of prescriptions
someone to talk to

Nah, there’ll be a pile-on because you’re not providing child care for your grandchildren.

My FIL gets the WFA. He has around £200k sitting in savings accounts and always has a couple of hundred pounds cash in his wallet.

The WFA is based on taxable income not overall wealth.

It is a nice idea in theory, but tbh people that hard up will just use the £100 on something else because they need it.

I am a little concerned too that it's being advertised for people including pensioners to keep cash in the house, burglars dream.