Boomers Pension Gravy Train Finally To Be Derailed

antrobus

hildosaver wrote: »

Everybody realises that the vast majority of pensioners (at least the older generation of pensioners) are living in poverty. Right?

Presumably a rhetorical question.

A vast majority? No. Apparently 1.6 million "live in poverty" (as defined) and another 1.2 million pensioners have incomes "just above the poverty line", according to AgeUK.

http://www.ageuk.org.uk/professional-resources-home/policy/money-matters/poverty-and-inequality/

There are about 13 million in receipt of the state pension. But not all of them are UK resident. So the most you could say would be that about 1 in 4. There were more in the 1990s.

steampowered

hildosaver wrote: »

Everybody realises that the vast majority of pensioners (at least the older generation of pensioners) are living in poverty. Right?

I disagree with that. Age UK think 1 in 7 pensioners live in poverty. This uses a definition of poverty as 60% of median income after housing costs, which is a pretty generous measure.

In fact, people who are working seem more likely to be in for a tough time. Pensioners now have a higher average income than the average working population. I find this absolutely astonishing, it can't be sustainable.

I suppose it used to be the case that a lot of pensioners lived in poverty, but the situation has changed drastically since the 90s:

"Young couples and families in the UK are £900 a year worse off
compared with a decade ago, while recent retirees’ incomes have increased by more than £5,500 over the same period"

"Rise in pensioner income outstrips younger generations' earnings as it soars 170% over two decades"

Rinoa

steampowered wrote: »

I disagree with that. Age UK think 1 in 7 pensioners live in poverty. This uses a definition of poverty as 60% of median income after housing costs, which is a pretty generous measure.

In fact, people who are working seem more likely to be in for a tough time. Pensioners now have a higher average income than the average working population. I find this absolutely astonishing, it can't be sustainable.

I suppose it used to be the case that a lot of pensioners lived in poverty, but the situation has changed drastically since the 90s:

"Young couples and families in the UK are £900 a year worse off
compared with a decade ago, while recent retirees’ incomes have increased by more than £5,500 over the same period"

"Rise in pensioner income outstrips younger generations' earnings as it soars 170% over two decades"

Those quotes refer to 'disposable' income. Pensioners who own their house don't have a mortgage, young families do.

It will always be that way.

Maz

Just curious, how old are you toastie?

ukcarper

Rinoa wrote: »

Those quotes refer to 'disposable' income. Pensioners who own their house don't have a mortgage, young families do.

It will always be that way.

Not sure how accurate they are here are ONS figures for household median disposable household income

BobQ

PasturesNew wrote: »

When you really look at it, it's a smoke/mirrors thing, again.

It's not really pensioners -v- millennials.... it's richer people filling their troughs. Not all pensioners live the lifestyle projected by the article, not all millennials are eating gruel.[/QUOTE]

Very true.

It seems reasonable to protect the state pension from inflation. There are many who rely on the state pension as their sole income and many then need to rely on means tested benefits. Not all pensioners feel that privileged to live of £155 a week Does rugged have any view on whether they are filling their troughs?

But at the other extreme there are also some who retired with large occupational pension ( I mean pensions like £60K+ per annum) and they probably regard their state pension ( which might be about £115 less 40% tax) is a little more than beer money at the golf club. Now are they filling their troughs? When they get to keep about £4K of something they have paid into all their working lives?

There are of course those in between with a modest occupational pension say £15K for whom an extra £6K makes a bigger difference after 25% tax

BobQ

DiggerUK wrote: »

There were many in my generation who waged a political struggle to get what we worked for, paid for, and put by for.

My pension entitlements, savings and house weren't given to me. It's time this apolitical wingeing bunch of milenials got off their backsides and took up the cudgels of politics.

Then you could get back what working people are entitled to..._

Its more jealousy than anything

I have a lot more sympathy with those who are around 20 than those millennials now in their 30s and 40s. The latter had opportunities to object to many things, the abolition of their pensions, working rights loss of manufacturing, rise in low paid services and the like. They either chose not to or assumed it was other people that would do that for them.

Many people of this age attack unionisation but the correlation between workers benefits and union membership is noticeable.

The irony, both here and in the US, is that the people most affected put their faith in the likes of Farage and Trump who are not interested in their problems, just in telling them who to blame (immigrants and er immigrants)

steampowered

Rinoa wrote: »

Those quotes refer to 'disposable' income. Pensioners who own their house don't have a mortgage, young families do.

It will always be that way.

I agree that most of those quotes refer to disposable income. Disposable income is key when looking at people's living standards.

However I strongly disagree that 'it will always be that way'. As the following graph from the Daily Telegraph demonstrates, pensioner's disposable income has shot up from about 60% to more than 100% of that of non-pensioners. The pattern is the same whether you take account of housing/mortgage costs or not.

There is no getting around the fact that pensioner income has shot up drastically over the past few years (as has the amount of state money being spent on pensioners, far in excess of what pensioners paid in tax during their working lives). I really don't see how this is sustainable in the long term.

hildosaver

I think it's largely down to people's incomes being squeezed and their outgoings increasing leaving most with much less disposable income vs pensioners who have much less outgoings generally. So it looks like pensioners are much better off but really they have basically just stayed still while everybody else has been squeezed.


Is that the pensioners fault? I certainly do not think so.

ruggedtoast

Maz wrote: »

Just curious, how old are you toastie?

Old enough to know better.