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?

[emmie]

who he??

[Svejk]

Lol@jomilfi. I thought it was funny, anyway.

[New Judge]

"...not all pensioners get free prescriptions, "

Everybody aged 60 and over gets free prescriptions, em:

http://www.nhs.uk/NHSEngland/Healthcosts/Pages/Prescriptioncosts.aspx

[Gromit]

Em10

If you friend get no benefits, it must mean they have savings (I think the threshold is about £20,000). You can argue that that is penalising people who have saved for their old age. But it could also be argued, why should we pay for rents and council tax for someone with lots of money in the bank. When you were paying your contributions £40 years ago, you understood the contract would be you got an old age pension when you retired. You never dreamed that the state would be paying for your travel, and fuel and television licence and in many cases rent and rates.

[emmie]

she doesn't, she said so the last time met up. has to pay for glasses, and all sorts. i wouldn't presume to ask what the pension is, how much, but i am going on what i was told.

[emmie]

nor would i have expected that all the money i paid in tax and insurance would go to people who have paid nothing at all, either home grown or those who came here from abroad and paid nothing into the pot, - is that fair.

[emmie]

her money was her husbands pension, as i already mentioned. I haven't a clue what else she has, but i do know that the system seems to punish those who have tuppence in the bank, as opposed to those who haven't a pot to pee in.

[Old_Geezer]

Everybody aged 0 and over should get free prescriptions.

[razza]

having read these replies,I can only conclude that gromit lives in cloud cuckoo land,all the payments for everything he mentions would indeed make us pensioners well off,if only we got them.Same as I mentioned previously,he will find out when he gets there.

[Gromit]

Razza,

Did you read the Institute of Fiscal Studies report? It is what the Mail story in the OP and my post is about. It is very short. Here is the link again.

http://www.ifs.org.uk/conferences/Income_longrun2013.pdf

The IFS is rather well respected. Do you not believe it? Are they living in cloud cuckooland?

[razza]

The simple answer to that is yes.You obviously believe everything you see printed in black and white,well my friend as most of the replies on this thread confirm that is not so.

[Svejk]

^ ^ ^
Do you mean the replies printed in black & white here, razza? ;)

[jno]

razza may be drawing unfounded conclusions from anecdotal evidence offered by a comparatively small, self-selected sample here.

[Svejk]

Self interested, as well. :))

[craft1948]

Rollocks, I never had it so good about 10 years ago before I was forced to become a pensioner. Why do people think that because you aren't working you should be happy to enjoy an inferior standard of living?

[Svejk]

They reckon 9% of the 'working' population work in manufacturing and 1% in agriculture. If we say 50% of the population work that'll be 5% supporting the other 95%.
I'd love it if everybody could have everything they want but I'm afraid they can't.