Should automatic benefits be cut for those who "don't need them"?

N1AK

Loanranger wrote: »

Yet am begrudged a bus pass and a fuel allowance to which I am entitled!

And they say it is the young today who have an entitlement complex. Fred Goodwin was 'entitled' to a sizable pension but he got considerable flack for it.

Loanranger wrote: »

May I suggest that younger folk who are envious of my position in society take on my aches and pains, my insomnia, my husband's painful hip and deafness and then decide who they'd rather be?

Those young people will still be old one day so that's a pretty pointless paragraph. The people who 'begrudge' the elderly the benefits they currently receive would likely say that insufficient tax upon, or over-spending on services for, them has become a massive liability that young and future generations have been lumbered with.


I think the short answer to Graham's original point is pretty short and pretty obvious: Turkey's don't vote for Christmas. The elderly are a large voting block and any party that materially decreases the benefits they receive won't be part of the government.

N1AK

McKneff wrote: »

@Thats because everything has dried up and we cant have children to enable us to have council houses and tax credits and benefits and child benefit and anything else that is thrown at the younger generation who have a mind set that the benefit system owes them big time.

I'm 27. Based on government spending more of the tax/NI I pay went on paying for pensions than anything else. I paid £2,500 to fund pensions last year, it'll be even more this year. That's isn't my own pension, that's the pensions currently being claimed. My second biggest cost is healthcare, which the elderly make considerably more than average use of. Welfare is a very distant third.

I don't mind that I lose over £10,000 a year in tax and NI. I would however like to see the money spent effectively and fairly

macaque_2

Graham_Devon wrote: »

One way to bring down the pace at which we add to the debt pile is to stop paying benefits to people who don't need them.

A letter in the papers today suggested that the government should introduce a Summer Heating Allowance.

CLAPTON

N1AK wrote: »

I'm 27. Based on government spending more of the tax/NI I pay went on paying for pensions than anything else. I paid £2,500 to fund pensions last year, it'll be even more this year. That's isn't my own pension, that's the pensions currently being claimed. My second biggest cost is healthcare, which the elderly make considerably more than average use of. Welfare is a very distant third.

I don't mind that I lose over £10,000 a year in tax and NI. I would however like to see the money spent effectively and fairly

why do you think that your taxes are not spent effectively and fairly by funding pensions and healthcare?

N1AK

CLAPTON wrote: »

why do you think that your taxes are not spent effectively and fairly by funding pensions and healthcare?

Calm down and learn to keep your assumptions and what's been said seperately . In one paragraph I pointed out that what I spend on services for the elderly is considerably more than on welfare (to counter the previous posters nonsense about benefit scrounging youngsters). In the second I said I am happy to pay that much tax but want it to be spent well, surely most people do?

I do have issues with how various benefits including pensions operate. However the entire debate is largely pointless. The elderly won't accept a decrease in their benefits, if they won't accept it then no party will bring it in due to their voting power.

N1AK

macaque wrote: »

A letter in the papers today suggested that the government should introduce a Summer Heating Allowance.

Don't forget a summer tea allowance or autumn coat allowance either :rotfl:

For the love of god, if we are going to do this can't we just set a minimum acceptable income and give them that rather thank giving all these nonsense allowances.

What I find particularily !!!!!! about these heating allowances is that they encourage the elderly to stay in houses that are now far too large for them. This is neither good for them or for the parents looking for family sized homes who can't get them because they're owned by 2 pensioners who haven't seen the top floor in 6 months It'd be funny if that wasn't exactly the situation with both my own and my partners grandparents.

A._Badger

N1AK wrote: »

What I find particularily !!!!!! about these heating allowances is that they encourage the elderly to stay in houses that are now far too large for them. .

Are you seriously suggesting that people stay in their houses because they get a payment of £200?

Let me put another suggestion to you. People stay in their houses because they are their homes and they like them.

Jennifer_Jane

N1AK wrote: »

Don't forget a summer tea allowance or autumn coat allowance either :rotfl:

For the love of god, if we are going to do this can't we just set a minimum acceptable income and give them that rather thank giving all these nonsense allowances.

What I find particularily !!!!!! about these heating allowances is that they encourage the elderly to stay in houses that are now far too large for them. This is neither good for them or for the parents looking for family sized homes who can't get them because they're owned by 2 pensioners who haven't seen the top floor in 6 months It'd be funny if that wasn't exactly the situation with both my own and my partners grandparents.

A point to consider about setting a minimum acceptable income is that many people do not receive the full Basic State Pension, but because of savings or a slightly too high other income, they don't qualify for the Pension credit, so don't qualify for additional benefits. This means that the WFA gives a disproportionately high 'bonus' to the middle ground people like that. They are not comfortably off and are grateful for the tax-free amount.

Regarding pensioners being in houses too large for them: what constitutes 'too large'? What would you like to do about it? Would you offer some incentive for pensioners to sell? As you get older it gets more difficult to change, to move away from your area, away from family and friends. You've acquired so much that the idea of moving is just too much hard work and energy.

People stay inside because they are either too poor to go anywhere, not mobile enough (and believe me you get colder as you get older, and I am very mobile, I swim a mile almost every day), and as said above, people like their homes. £200 a year just isn't the thing keeping people inside.

(I came back from overseas only 14 years ago with a tin trunk and a suitcase - I now find I have a 3-bedroomed house which is brim full of furniture and 'things'. Some inherited when my mother died, but mostly just things you need to live. 14 years ago I had practically nothing, now I have 'clutter'. It happens.)

chewmylegoff

ukcarper wrote: »

Wouldn’t have though it would cost the Tories many votes if they removed bus passes and winter fue lallowance from higher rate tax paying pensioners but I wouldn’tthink it would save them much money.

who do you think those higher tax rate paying pensioners would switch their vote to? labour or lib dems? doubt it. they'd keep voting tory because they wouldn't want a labour govt.

A._Badger

chewmylegoff wrote: »

I would like to see an end to all universal benefit payments regardless of the age of the recipient. Benefits should be based on financial need, not on age.

Can you explain to me why a millionaire should receive benefits payments just because they are old?

I think you'll find I was agreeing with you.

What I have been trying to establish, however, is whether that sort of rigorous attitude to state benefits is shared by the 20-somethings complaining about the WFA and bus passes. Or whether, as I suspect, the motivation is really envy dressed-up as a refreshing concern about tax policy.