The problem with the benefit system
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Plus they should have worked harder in school.
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Whereas people of working age who don't want to work are thoroughly deserving cases who should get more.
"I spent most of my money on birds, booze and fast cars: the rest of it I just squandered." [George Best]0 -
"I spent most of my money on birds, booze and fast cars: the rest of it I just squandered." [George Best]0
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The biggest issue for me was the suggestion of effectively applying it retrospectively to those that haven’t had that opportunity that Rick in particular seemed to be pushing for. FWIW I have no issue with being means tested when I retire and receiving less / no State pension. Hopefully I’ll have enough to live comfortably although it’s incredible how little 40 years of paying into a private scheme is likely to get me compared to the 8 years I paid from a low salary into a public scheme!
As you say it’s no different to suddenly being no longer eligible for CB (although that was annoying as a lot of joint income couples earning more than is still were).
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You can get 193 smackers a week to farm your kid out for somebody else to look after. After all, over half of parents today don't think it's their job to toilet train their kids.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/toilet-training-school-children-parents-b2508133.html
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TBF, that's mainly an incentive to get people back into work, as childcare is so astronomically high (genuinely, go have a guess how much it costs to have a kid in childcare) that having both parents working would otherwise be the reserve of high earners only.
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If it was up to some on here, the only people who could afford to retire would be "people like them".
If people can't afford to retire and had to work til they dropped, it really would be "dead man's shoes" when it came to youngsters seeking employment.
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So you could argue that a reasonable pension is an incentive to allow people to retire to give opportunity to younger generations seeking employment then, no?
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Feel free to offer other ways to pay for it. I mean, working age people already have the highest tax burden since the war. Their disposable incomes have literally shrank over the last 15 years and the retired literally have more disposable income than working age cohorts at the moment.
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The only way to pay for it is via taxation. You can fiddle with the retirement age to reduce the burden. But at the end of the day, if people weren't given a carrot to retire, the people complaining about having to pay via their tax would be in receipt of benefit as they would have no job. I suppose that would be some sort of Nirvana for you, the elderly paying for the young.🤣
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But the current retired will receive more in benefits from the government than they have paid in over their life?
That's already unsustainable.
Why should the cohort with the biggest disposable income have to be supported by the cohort with less?
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Here's the director of the IFS only 3 days ago:
Why should a generation who's spent either their entire working life, or a very large portion of it place in the lowest growth of wages since the Napoleonic era have to support a generation who already has more money to spend after living costs than they do?
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This covers the broader beef I have:
The intergenerational contract works because everyone puts in and everyone takes out. We are happy to support older generations – indeed we feel obligated to do so – because we believe and expect that we will be treated the same when we are old. And we support children as they develop just as we were supported and nourished when we were young. Indeed, we expect that economic growth and continually expanding social opportunities will mean that our children have more than we did – and we welcome that progress.
We celebrate the good times and deal with the nation’s challenges together, across the generations. This feels natural, but that does not mean that we can take the intergenerational contract for granted. Increasingly, there is a sense that it is under threat.
It covers:
Post-crisis employment has been strong, but young adults have experienced incredibly poor pay outcomes
Millennials have lower home ownership rates and higher housing costs than their predecessors
Reforms underway are boosting pension saving, but working-age adults bear risks that their predecessors were protected from
In contrast to older generations, young adults are making no income progress and accumulating much less wealth
It is not just young adults who are being affected by the challenges to a better Britain
and then offers some solutions:
Families are responding to these challenges, but so far the state has failed to adapt
Providing the health and care services that older generations deserve, need and expect in a generationally fair way
Providing immediate housing security while turning around our housing crisis
Reducing risks around younger generations’ pensions
Harnessing the power of assets to boost security and opportunity today and respond to tomorrow’s challenges
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Shirley that’s incorrect because as of yet they haven’t spent their entire working life supporting another generation as they haven’t yet even done a large proportion of their working life.
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They will do soon, which is why you need a reform of the pensions system :)
We've already done away with DB schemes, which in hindsight were utterly ludicrous. This is the next obvious step.
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So it is incorrect.
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The bulk of retired don't need the State Pension?
You are so out of touch with reality.
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Yeah, it's annoying, but it's not really justifiable for a joint income of ~£60k either.
1985 Mercian King of Mercia - work in progress (Hah! Who am I kidding?)
Pinnacle Monzonite
Part of the anti-growth coalition0 -
I saw what you wrote. It's not a matter of tenses, it's a question of looking at data for population groups and mistaking that for data on individuals.
1985 Mercian King of Mercia - work in progress (Hah! Who am I kidding?)
Pinnacle Monzonite
Part of the anti-growth coalition1 -
There are so many people not working that we are having to import several hundred thousand people a year to fill the vacancies. We really don't need to worry about older people keeping the young out of work
1985 Mercian King of Mercia - work in progress (Hah! Who am I kidding?)
Pinnacle Monzonite
Part of the anti-growth coalition0 -
I take your point but isn't the majority of those jobs low skilled, low wages, that the unemployed here simply don't want to do? Whereas a significant number of oldies will be hogging desirable positions. Just maybe, I have no data.
The above may be fact, or fiction, I may be serious, I may be jesting.
I am not sure. You have no chance.Veronese68 wrote:PB is the most sensible person on here.0 -
The issue is common to every Western economy. Are other countries proposing to force old people into smaller homes after retirement at 75 so the Ricks of this world can enjoy the same quality of life to which they consider themselves entitled?
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If the govt or the locals don't want to increase the housing stock, the battle will be over the existing houses.
If the widdowed grannies want to stay in their 5 beds, I'd suggest they start supporting local housebuilders, so we can all live in nice homes, not just them :)
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You can live in a nice home if you want, it’s just up to you whether you are prepared to put yourself out in order to do so.
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I couldn't disagree with your downsizing concept more.
Are your parents still alive? If so let us know how the conversation goes.
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Not sure what you mean but stop focussing on Rick and apply this to the country. People cannot all live in nice homes. There aren't enough of them.
- Genesis Croix de Fer
- Dolan Tuono0 -
He is the one saying the system is unfair which it is but he could get nearer his dream home if he made different choices and in that he is one the fortunate ones.
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What has his personal situation got to do with the system being unfair?
- Genesis Croix de Fer
- Dolan Tuono0
