Crunch Time: A crisis that is dividing young and old

vivatifosi

Edale wrote: »

I say this as my 89 year old grandmother has never had any savings, no occupational pension, lives in sheltered HA accomodation and struggles to spend her money.

As I say I want to look after our old folks but can someone explain how a pensioner these days is poor? (honest question)

If you're grandmother is in sheltered HA accommodation she may well be better off than many. Her accommodation is probably appropriate to her needs, whereas that which many pensioners are in is not. It may be damp, draughty, have single glazing, have an old, inefficient heating system, be too big, etc. There are plenty of reasons for fuel poverty. My parent's gas bill, for the last quarter alone, was over £400.

At the end of last year, 5.4m households were considered as living in fuel poverty, of which 2.75m were pensioners. See: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/utilities/2795911/Pensioners-hit-by-fuel-poverty-hits-12-year-high.html

Edale

Jennifer_Jane wrote: »

You don't get free dentistry and that is very expensive, you don't get free eyecare (just free tests). Yes, thanks, we do get the bus thing and swimming, and prescriptions; plus the £200 per annum for fuel. It has to be extremely cold over a 7 day period for someone to get the £25 a week and you have to be on pension credit. Still have to pay for Housing; Council Tax; electricity/gas; water; food, etc.

Jen
x

I thought if you were on the minimum as per my post then you would qualify for Housing Benefit and Council Tax benefit. Not wanting to pick a fight, as I said I just dont understand how any pensioner should not be able to afford to heat or eat. I certainly don't want this to be the case and I appreciate that some houses will be more expensive to run as per vivatifosi's post.

Pobby

Believe me, I really do sympathise with many youngsters right now, but to attack the older folk, like my wife and myself is not the way. I am from a third generation Labour party membership. Grandad was a local counsellor, Dad was a trades union man. I left the party in the mid 80s, an activist, fed up with armchair socialists.

I am sickened by the current government, lies, spin and sleaze. The sort of rubbish that I associate with the conservatives. Nu labour has wasted a lot of chances for real reform in this country. I find it really hard that they didn`t see the real damage that HPI would cause. Imho they have allowed a world of debt for many. Knees Up Gordon Brown promised he wouldn`t let the housing market get of control again, something he could have achieved. perhaps that was more credible than ending boom and bust.

needahome_2

Edale wrote: »

Firstly I think it would be a cruel country that did not look after its old, however I do often wonder when it is quoted about OAPs not being able to pay their heating bills. A single pensioner with no savings and only state pension would have a minimum pension of £130 as a couple it would be £198.45. In addition both would be eligible to housing benefit probably paying the full rent and council tax benefit paying the full CT, then there is the winter fuel payment of £200 (or £300 if over 80), cold weather payments of £25 per week, free national travel pass, free prescriptions, free eyecare etc. I say this as my 89 year old grandmother has never had any savings, no occupational pension, lives in sheltered HA accomodation and struggles to spend her money.

As I say I want to look after our old folks but can someone explain how a pensioner these days is poor? (honest question)

Exactly, and how is it that someone younger on incapacity benefit of about £90 a week is living a life of riley, with plasma screen TV's etc, and yet old people on pension credit of £130 a week are freezing to death every winter ?

If all these pensioners freeze every year on a £130 a week, then surely every year the whole claimant count on JSA of £60 a week would be wiped out.

Edale

Evening Pobby, I certainly don't want to come accross as attacking older folk and appologise if that's how it appears. I was genuinely asking where the poverty lay, with the knowledge of my grandmother I felt that the minimum guarantee plus housing and council tax benefits left every pensioner with enough to live a good basic lifestyle. I can see that some pensioners will have much increased housing costs, where it really becomes interesting is the difference between a pensioner with £20k in the bank and their own home which will need repairing from time to time. They will not receive all the guarantee and yet their costs will be much higher than the person who has lived in a council house all their lives.

I can't get my head around how we protect our old folks from poverty in old age without taking away any incentive for people to save for their retirement. It does seem many many people with very a modest provision for their old age would have been better having nothing at all.

Francesanne

staffie1 wrote: »

What hardship? Are you serious? Do you have any idea what a pittance old people get when they have to rely on state benefits. You should come and visit my parents in their council bungalow and see what it's like. I help them out otherwise they wouldn't eat some weekends. They both worked hard all their lives until they couldn't anymore and all their income went into the house and bringing up a family so we had decent food to eat and clothes to wear and went to school every day. I don't begrudge them a penny of what they claim from the state - they deserve every penny and a lot more.

I really hope you've checked to make sure your parents are claiming every benefit they're entitled to. It's normally older folk who are to proud to claim what they're entitled to.

Davesnave

You can spit out as much bile as you like , but I seem to remember that in the 'good old days' when, according to you, everything was a lot easier, things were, in fact, much the same.

Then, most of the rich and the very poor tended to be older people, and many of the young struggled too, especially the ones in dead end jobs. Just like today, there were choices to be made. Some of my mates who lived at home in relatively poor conditions, chose to buy a car on HP rather than save. Others, perhaps the ones you'd like to kick in the teeth, put something away until they could afford the deposit on a house.

Me? I was 'lucky' and went to university. After I graduated, I spent 7 months in a factory doing nothing but shift work & overtime to clear my debts. Sound familiar?

ceridwen

I do sympathise with the younger generation - with the way that University grants no longer exist and they even have to pay fees to go to University. My sympathies there lie with the ones who go to University to do "genuine" degrees - ie the type my generation had. The problem there is that the Government would appear to be trying to spend the same amount of money as they ever did on Universities - but there are a lot more people going to University than there were in my day (hence the cake is cut a lot more thinly and people having to pay their own way). Final salary pensions having vanished to a large extent - again - I sympathise - with anyone of any age who doesnt get/wont get these (but do bear in mind that for those on lower salaries that extra from their final salary pension may give them little - if any - more money than they would get on Pension Credit instead anyway). Many lower-earners will have achieved no more than paying their own Pension Credit for themselves. Pretty much the only advantage to a lower earner on a final salary pension is that some of them (but not many!) will be able to retire before the current State Pension Age (because of the job pension starting up sooner than that) - BUT they've most probably had to start work sooner than 21/22 years old (which is when many of the younger generation started work) - so thats in the nature of a "trade-off" you could say. I never wanted to work - still dont - but needs must - and I had to start work sooner than that myself.

I must admit it did give me pause for thought the other day when someone commented that house prices had started shooting up at about the time that both partners in a marriage started expecting to continue working after marriage. That could well have an element of truth though - but obviously it wasnt fair for women to continue to be sacked on marriage (as happened to many women of my mothers generation). I would certainly have expected to continue working if I had got married - and would have taken great exception if my employer had tried to sack me. And..yes...I was on the receiving end of those "shooting" house prices - struggling to buy a house on my own on a womans wage...and both furious and very upset that it took me so long because of this fact (but determined to hold out and not get married to the wrong person - just to have my house at the correct time!).

On the non-material front - I think the younger generation does have some things to thank us for.

- They take for granted that they can get effective contraception and abortion as required - we were the generation that had to fight for that right.
- They take for granted that there is no pressure on them to get married - believe me there was pressure on a non-career woman like myself to get married and I had to be very strongwilled to refuse to marry a wrong man. It is independently-minded women like me who fought for our right to remain single if we chose.
- They take for granted that they can live together before (or even without) marriage. My generation would have had a fallout Big Time with our parents if we had done so - so few of us did.
- It was my generation that can report a lot of incidents of sexual discrimination against us at work. It still happens - but probably a lot less than it did for my generation. We were the ones who fought for the right to equal pay and equal treatment to men.

So - yes....things are worse materially-speaking in many ways for younger people - but blame the Government for that - not us (and I'm at an age where that had already started - so my State Pension and OAP Tax Allowance are both going to start later than I had bargained on!!:mad::mad:). But - do bear in mind that many middle-aged people will also feel the brunt of some of this (because it started in our era) and do bear in mind that its not our fault - and we do sympathise. And a little bit of thanks for all the ways we have fought so that your life is better in the non-material sense (ie more freedom than we had) would be nice:cool:

Jennifer_Jane

Edale wrote: »

I thought if you were on the minimum as per my post then you would qualify for Housing Benefit and Council Tax benefit. Not wanting to pick a fight, as I said I just dont understand how any pensioner should not be able to afford to heat or eat. I certainly don't want this to be the case and I appreciate that some houses will be more expensive to run as per vivatifosi's post.

Yes, of course if you qualify for Pension Credit and can get housing association, then its much easier. When I retire I will be just above the pension credit entitlement. I'll let you know how it goes! But I do know that my fears are for the things that keep increasing above inflation that you have no choice about - ie council tax (yes I have been trying to downsize), heating and food are a choice, you can always live a little bit cheaper, but you can do nothing about council tax. Dentistry is hugely expensive, eye-care also (glasses) is expensive.

I know you are not fighting with anyone, but nevertheless, the figures quoted above by someone should be taken seriously. And yes, I don't know how people on benefits manage to live, I certainly can't afford a plasma TV and out drinking every night. Perhaps they don't worry about their teeth and so on.

Jen
x

Jennifer_Jane

Brilliant post, ceridwen!