Older People Have Never Had It So Good

[Gromit]

// Pensioners in their 60s and 70s have seen their incomes rise steadily during the recession years - and now they are less likely to be poor than any other group in society, according to a new report.

A senior Church of England cleric, Bishop of London the Right Reverend Richard Chartres, said the ‘fortunate generation’ in their 60s are soaking up too much taxpayers’ money and that state spending on older people ‘raises questions of intergenerational equity’. //

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2341553/Older-people-good-New-report-says-60s-seen-incomes-rise-recession.html#ixzz2WYp1jtcy

Why are we still paying £billions to them to pay for free travel and winter fuel, which were after all, just Tony Blair's election bribes?

[nannybooby]

listen you young shaver , I and my generation have paid our dues all our lives, we are entitled to these payments .Pittance though they are. Unlike youngsters who have never contributed a penny but still get help .

[chrisgel]

Thanks for making that decision on my behalf but who are you to decide I don't need the money. You don't know my circumstances any more than I know yours. I do have a bus pass as it happens but have never used it. Instead I rely on walking or for longer journeys on a 28 year old motorbike.
I do know pensioners who rely very much on their bus passes and fuel allowances.
Why anyone would put any store in what the Bishop of London has to say on the subject baffles me to be honest. His opinion is about as relevant to me as yours is.

[razza]

As usual someone has either got their sums wrong or I am missing something here,Ive had a bus pass over 8 years,used it twice,never been so poor in all my life and that is the same for most pensioners I know.You will find out when you get there.

[sidkid]

//'A man who finds himself on a bus after the age of 26 can consider himself a failure.'?//
Wasn't she the grocer's daughter who married a rather unattractive multi-millionaire?

[FredPuli43]

Quite right McM. I'm determined to spend all I have got now, to save my heirs the embarrassment of giving 40 per cent of my house's value to the government, when the massive increase in its value has nothing to do with me but everything to do with government economic policy and inflation over the years!

The Daily Mail's readers will be happy with this story. A disproportionate number are pensioners.

[nannybooby]

Now children play nice no name calling it show infantile behaviour and lack of manners

[bazwillrun]

""There is a very simple way to be afford lots of things in Britain today, from Libraries to the Old Age Pension, and we don't even have to have an election to do it.

Cancel the replacement program for Trident. Its as simple as that."

cancel foreign aid its as simple as that ! or at the very least reduce it. see post @ 8:44 today

reduce payments to the eussr around £57million 365 days ayear 1

theres plenty of ways to find the cash to look after our own...if governments really want to.....but obviously they dont

[mikey4444]

Baz...according to Wiki, we could save at least £5bn by cancelling Trident replacement, Considerably more than reducing foreign aid. Got to be worth a try hasn't it ?

[pastafreak]

In an article in this Sundays Times,a former policy advisor and director of Saga said" pensioner inflation is significantly higher than the national average,'' and ''the real value of pensioners income is falling at a faster rate than other groups. Fuel prices,council tax,and other amenities are increasing above inflation,and this is what pensioners spend their income on.
Too many who criticise these 'perks' forget that pensioners live on a permanent state of fixed .income-while everything is rising rapidly. There fore the value of that fixed income is a BH it less every year.

[pastafreak]

'bit less'

[jno]

I welcome the bus pass; it helps older people get out of their homes, and that includes me. I don't really need a winter fuel allowance. That could be better targeted, but I suppose only with some sort of means testing.

[jno]

pensioner inflation

true, pastafreak, I am no longer the slender figure I was.

[Kromovaracun]

Gromit does not actually believe that payments to pensioners are Blair's election bribes, or that pensioners are sponging off the state. I suspect he supports these payments fully.

Gromit is aping the rhetoric that is levelled against immigrants and the unemployed in an attempt to be ironic.

[woofgang]

The big hook with means testing, fairer though it may seem is that the more admin that you add to a payment, the more that the payment costs, and also where you set the level and should there be a geographical moderator, also what about city dweller versus rural pensioner and terrace dweller vs detached home?

[jno]

just so, it is almost certainly cheaper to just give it to everyone than to administer a scheme for finding out who's entitled to it.

[LazyGun]

@ Kromo - And you know Gromits mindset how? I must confess, the signals that they were speaking ironically or sarcastically or sardonically or tongue in cheek completely eluded me....

[LazyGun]

I think someone in another thread made the point that if you made the WFP and free bus passes and free TV licence taxable benefits, you would not have to implement an expensive system of means testing......

That sort of sounds plausible, although I am most definitely no expert in public finances and taxation etc...

[woofgang]

LG if you do that then people have to be able to choose to claim or not claim which further complicates and makes more expensive the taxation process. There are also many people who see claiming a benefit as "charity" and will therefore not claim.

[LazyGun]

@ woofgang - I take your point, as I say, no expert on such issues, and I have heard the claim before that offering a universal benefit is cheaper than offering a means testsd one - Just not sure that I agree :)

And again I am not absolutely sure I understand why making such things a taxable benefit markedly increases the cost of taxation. Allow all such benefits to be claimed exactly as they are now, but for those who have an income of, lets say £40K per annum, those benefits are taxed. How will that increase the cost....

I resort to the fall back position that it should not be beyond the wit of man to devise a fairer and more equitable allocation system :)

[vulcan42]

How the heck are we soaking up the taxpayers money?, we are still paying tax even though we are retired.