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This is Somerset --
The UK's pensioners get a bad press these days. Seventy-five per cent of us own our own homes and over 50 per cent of welfare payments go to us. On top of our state pensions we get winter fuel payments, a Christmas bonus, and a free bus pass; and if we're aged over 75 we even get a free TV licence. We have been untouched by austerity measures and we are blocking welfare payments and jobs for the young. We are blocking hospital beds when we are sick and housing stocks when we are at home. We are the golden age baby boomers and our children will be poorer than us due to our selfish behaviour.
Well, let's look at all this. Of the total £160bn welfare bill £82bn per year is spent on the state retirement pension (£72bn) and state pension credit (£8bn). So pensioners receive 51.25 per cent of welfare benefits. But hold on. I spent 46 years working and every month a National Insurance payment was deducted from my pay. This was supposed to fund my pension. When I retired, I only needed 30 years contributions to qualify for a full state pension, so for 16 years I was subsidising the system.
Owning our own homes? Well, this may come as a surprise but as long as I can remember young people in general didn't own houses. I rented when I first started working and when I was in a position to buy I got a mortgage. I moved jobs and home several times over the years, sometimes making money and sometimes losing. I finally paid off my mortgage the day after I retired.
Bus passes, winter fuel payments etc. The only reason we get these is because the British State Pension is the second lowest in Europe. We used to be lowest, but Greece took that honour last year.
Personally, I would be happy to lose all these benefits if the pension itself was anything like enough. The basic state pension is worth up to £110.15 a week. Married couples and civil partners receive a joint pension worth up to £176.15 a week if only one of them qualifies for the full basic state pension. The poverty level is £180 a week, and this excludes all housing costs.
The Government has proposed capping Housing Benefit at £26,000 a year (this benefit is free from tax). This is five times the state pension – which is taxable. Although the full state pension is £110.15 a week (£145 with pension credit), the average actually payable is less than £100 a week, and about a third of the pensioners who are entitled don't claim pension credit. Twenty-five per cent of pensioners have to choose between paying for food or heat. Every winter a British pensioner dies of cold every seven minutes.
For years the British Government justified a poor state pension by saying that we had a healthy private pension sector. For the same reason, Britain's trade unions didn't pay a great deal of attention to state pensions. All this began to change in 1997 when Gordon Brown (aged 46) and Ed Balls (aged 36) decided to tax dividends paid to pension funds.
Today there remains a huge chasm between pensions in the private sector and those in the public sector. The average pension in the public sector is £7,000, hardly riches, although double the typical £3,700 private sector pension. The people who will pay for this are current taxpayers. Younger people will have to work longer for less.
In a desperate attempt to make us pay for their mistakes, politicians are increasing the retirement age. At the same time they are trying to set the old against the young by saying we elderly are blocking jobs. I think it's fair to say that 99 per cent of 65-year-olds won't want to carry on working, but like everyone else we have to pay our bills.
And is any of this the fault of my generation? Well, the bankers and speculators who contributed to the collapse of the economy in 2008 generally seemed to be young dudes in red Porches. The politicians who presided over the debacle? The average age of an MP in the UK is 50, and has been so for the last 30 years. I was born at the end of a war which had devastated the British economy and that of much the world – my generation was not born into a land of milk and honey. We had rationing until 1954.
Although the opinions expressed in this letter are my own, I would also like to mention that I am Chair of the Devon branch of the National Pensioners Convention, the only national organisation run by and for pensioners. We are extremely concerned about the targeting of pensioners by the press and politicians and even more so by the attempts to drive a wedge between the old and the young; divide and conquer has been used by the unscrupulous since Roman times – the reason it has lasted so long is because it works.
They say the only two certainties are death and taxes, but for most of us aging can be added to that list. I look forward to the economy recovering and for the standard of living to rise for everyone. Reported by This is 13 hours ago.
Clik here to view.
This is Somerset --The UK's pensioners get a bad press these days. Seventy-five per cent of us own our own homes and over 50 per cent of welfare payments go to us. On top of our state pensions we get winter fuel payments, a Christmas bonus, and a free bus pass; and if we're aged over 75 we even get a free TV licence. We have been untouched by austerity measures and we are blocking welfare payments and jobs for the young. We are blocking hospital beds when we are sick and housing stocks when we are at home. We are the golden age baby boomers and our children will be poorer than us due to our selfish behaviour.
Well, let's look at all this. Of the total £160bn welfare bill £82bn per year is spent on the state retirement pension (£72bn) and state pension credit (£8bn). So pensioners receive 51.25 per cent of welfare benefits. But hold on. I spent 46 years working and every month a National Insurance payment was deducted from my pay. This was supposed to fund my pension. When I retired, I only needed 30 years contributions to qualify for a full state pension, so for 16 years I was subsidising the system.
Owning our own homes? Well, this may come as a surprise but as long as I can remember young people in general didn't own houses. I rented when I first started working and when I was in a position to buy I got a mortgage. I moved jobs and home several times over the years, sometimes making money and sometimes losing. I finally paid off my mortgage the day after I retired.
Bus passes, winter fuel payments etc. The only reason we get these is because the British State Pension is the second lowest in Europe. We used to be lowest, but Greece took that honour last year.
Personally, I would be happy to lose all these benefits if the pension itself was anything like enough. The basic state pension is worth up to £110.15 a week. Married couples and civil partners receive a joint pension worth up to £176.15 a week if only one of them qualifies for the full basic state pension. The poverty level is £180 a week, and this excludes all housing costs.
The Government has proposed capping Housing Benefit at £26,000 a year (this benefit is free from tax). This is five times the state pension – which is taxable. Although the full state pension is £110.15 a week (£145 with pension credit), the average actually payable is less than £100 a week, and about a third of the pensioners who are entitled don't claim pension credit. Twenty-five per cent of pensioners have to choose between paying for food or heat. Every winter a British pensioner dies of cold every seven minutes.
For years the British Government justified a poor state pension by saying that we had a healthy private pension sector. For the same reason, Britain's trade unions didn't pay a great deal of attention to state pensions. All this began to change in 1997 when Gordon Brown (aged 46) and Ed Balls (aged 36) decided to tax dividends paid to pension funds.
Today there remains a huge chasm between pensions in the private sector and those in the public sector. The average pension in the public sector is £7,000, hardly riches, although double the typical £3,700 private sector pension. The people who will pay for this are current taxpayers. Younger people will have to work longer for less.
In a desperate attempt to make us pay for their mistakes, politicians are increasing the retirement age. At the same time they are trying to set the old against the young by saying we elderly are blocking jobs. I think it's fair to say that 99 per cent of 65-year-olds won't want to carry on working, but like everyone else we have to pay our bills.
And is any of this the fault of my generation? Well, the bankers and speculators who contributed to the collapse of the economy in 2008 generally seemed to be young dudes in red Porches. The politicians who presided over the debacle? The average age of an MP in the UK is 50, and has been so for the last 30 years. I was born at the end of a war which had devastated the British economy and that of much the world – my generation was not born into a land of milk and honey. We had rationing until 1954.
Although the opinions expressed in this letter are my own, I would also like to mention that I am Chair of the Devon branch of the National Pensioners Convention, the only national organisation run by and for pensioners. We are extremely concerned about the targeting of pensioners by the press and politicians and even more so by the attempts to drive a wedge between the old and the young; divide and conquer has been used by the unscrupulous since Roman times – the reason it has lasted so long is because it works.
They say the only two certainties are death and taxes, but for most of us aging can be added to that list. I look forward to the economy recovering and for the standard of living to rise for everyone. Reported by This is 13 hours ago.