'wealthy pensioners urged to give up benefits'

[mirry2]

How wealthy is wealthy?

The problem is that when the current generation of pensioners (e.g. my parents) became the first people to benefit from the welfare state, (having spent their schooldays singing merry songs in air raid shelters), it was supposed to be cradle to grave, each paying in according to their ability (tax) and receive according to needs (winter fuel allowance, university education, child benefit, dla).

Higher income pensioners also pay higher tax. I don't really begrudge them £300, and I am very happy that OAP's who may not be able to drive safely can get on a bus. The reality is that by the time you take into account the cost of care, home adaptations and increased need for heating, being old is expensive.

(And we should still have universal child benefit and as far as I can see all this messing around with DLA is short sighted and on ideological grounds, not economic.)

I think their benefits should be means tested. Everyone else has their benefits means,tested so why not them too. I think lots of pensioners are sitting on money and do not spend a great deal. Don't see why they should automatically get it if they don't need it. My parents are both pensioners and my mum stopped working when I was 7, so 25 years ago. They get bus passes and barely use them and don't,need them.

We,re in hard times economically and cannot afford this anymore.

If it is means tested, the cut off level will probably be very low and the so called 'wealthy' pensioners probably won't be particularly wealthy but may have been frugal and scrimped and saved. they may have a small pension and own their house.

It will be frustrating for the ones who are just over the threshold and would have been better off not having bothered to save and frittered it away.

Perhaps it is good if they get a free bus pass. you know you get some pensioners who drive who are a liability.

Wealthy pensioners should have their benefits removed. It shouldn't be voluntary.

It's nothing to do with respect or "doing things for the community".
If that's the case then a) why do job seekers / working families have their benefits removed / cut? Do we not respect them?
B) if I'm rich but volunteer why cant I claim benefits if I'm not a pensioner?

Cameron would love to get his grubby paws on a bit of extra loot so he can do favours to his favoured friends, no doubt.

The priority should be getting the big wheeler dealer companies to pay proper rates of tax.

That would bring in some really serious money. Starbucks, Vodaphone, Google et al are salting away far, far more ill gotten gains than are even the most prosperous among the retired population.

sounds like the only way to redress the balance is to get the youth vote out.
Well surely the best way to do that is to present policies that appeal to youthful voters who have born the brunt of the downturn (the youth unemployment rate is horific) I don't blame young people for not voting (Withdrawing in disgust rather than apathy, I'd guess) given that all parties seem to have ignored them, at the expense of the elderly and middle-aged.

Pensioners receive winter fuel benefit because cold weather kills old people.

The fewer benefits tax payers receive the less taxes they are willing to pay. Certainly there are many people in this country who would quite happily have as little to do with the state as possible, funding the education and healthcare of their families privately and never darkening the door of a library or taking a bus - means test as much as possible, reduce benefits to an absolute minimum, leave individuals to sink or swim with as little state 'interference' as possible.

Advocates of wider spread means testing should be careful what they wish for.

When the only people receiving benefits are 'they', 'they' tend to receive very little.

Yes merry but if your earnings are in excess of £50k it is not a case of not being able to afford the heating on. Surely a winter fuel payment is designed to help pensioners for whom it is a case of not being able to eat or heat their homes. Not to pay for my wealthy Uncle to spend on his Spanish villa (where he spends most of his winters) or generate more 'play money' for wealthy pensioners.

Hand cream

I worked right up to having my children,have had 4 and a half years off,I am currently job hunting and will be working up to my 80s.

I have worked all my life(mid 40s).

My period at home facilitated dp to do the job he does and is work imvho.

My fil was an electrical scientist as mentioned on the thread you're referring to.

You seem to enjoy dissecting my life and berating the fact I'm a sahm. Going by your logic anybody who has had a short spell off for whatever reason which will include most pensioners aren't a valid member of society.

I think you are the one with a chip to be frank.

Unfortunately, the trouble with means testing benefits of a certain nature, is simply the cost of administering it and policing it.

If you had to means test certain benefits there would end up being less money in the pot after this was done and it would end up translating into less money being available to those who need in the end!

Its counterintuitive I know, but think about all the paper work that would need to go into each area since each of these benefits are not centralised and run by different groups. In one corner you have tv licensing, in another bus passes, in another energy. And then you corner how much people get for each benefit. It very quickly end up being a money pit.

And if you did decide it would be wise to bring all of these under one umbrella, you would need a massive investment to completely overhaul the entire system.

At which point politely asking people to voluntarily give up their benefits seems, ironically, the most cost effective - and perhaps the only way - to deal with the problem.

Trouble is, people are greedy, and you are fighting a sense of having earned the right to claim many of these if someone has spent their life contributing to the system. I don't really see how you can break that, without making claiming benefits something to be ashamed of (which shouldn't be allowed to happen as this equally ends of disproportionally making the most vulnerable and most needy at the greatest risk).

If someone can come up with a solution that actually isn't going to have these negative problems, I'm sure someone out there would love to hear from you.

*And then you look at how much people get for each benefit

(not corner).

Red people have suggested linking it to pension tax credits.

Why are people having a pop at pensioners? Most have worked all their lives and paid into pension funds.

I don't understand the figure of £50,000 earnings that's being bandied about by some posters. Most pensioners don't earn and just because they may have earned that sum while working doesn't make them wealthy pensioners.

Myorignal post asked what we mean by wealthy. is it a pension of £50000 pa and if so is that £50000 for each person or £50000 for a couple?

Because, as I said before, if you expect 'from each according to their ability', the converse is 'to each according to their need'. If the people giving aren't also the people getting, pretty soon they decide that giving isn't all it's cracked up to be, and then you have a 2 tier society where the rich look after themselves and the poor do very badly. (See American health system).

I believe that all OAPS should get their cataracts done on the NHS and they should all be entitled to the winter fuel allowance.

50k is when CB starts to get cut as DC figures that means you're wealthy so clearly anybody earning 50k prior to retirement are wealthy.

50k is when child benefit starts to taper off - so there's a logic to applying the same logic to 'extra' benefits paid to pensioners.

'Is' and crossed posts.

(That was to composhat btw.)

I would reinstate universal child benefit, for same reason that I believe in universal winter fuel allowance.

I think many people at the top of the Tory party have lived their entire lives with minimal contact with the state and ideologically see it as surplus to requirements.

I agree with you on that one Merry.

Squarepebbles people who earn £50000pa before retirement wont get anywhere near a £50000pa pension

and I agree too Merry.

I think they should greedy buggers

I've started discussion of the day

Did you only just notice?