Right Brain Ronnie
Well-known member
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[Politics] Labour Party meltdown incoming.......
- Thread starter nevergoagain
- Start date
It was covered earlier in the thread that Age UK get a fair amount of contributions from people getting WFP who don't need it and donate it to them instead.
- Oct 17, 2008
- 14,359
I just wanted to make a point about hypocrisy with regards to voter ID and pension credits.
The big stink about voter ID was that younger people don’t have ID, and older people do, so it benefits the Tories to introduce it. An extra hurdle to prevent young people voting for their (almost certainly not Conservative) candidate.
Yet, the same people are defending the winter fuel allowance cut by saying pensioners can apply for pension credits if they are below the threshold.
Applying for pension credits is complicated. It is means tested and requires several forms and proof of income, bank statements, ID to verify identity. Plus even acquiring the forms requires either the internet (which a huge number of pensioners don’t/can’t use), a visit to a government office or the post office(?), or a telephone call to a number they don’t readily have.
How is it that it’s so unfair that young people were being discouraged from voting because of the need for ID, yet less well off elderly people are expected to jump through hoops just to have a warm home in wintertime?
This is a very poor decision in my view.
The big stink about voter ID was that younger people don’t have ID, and older people do, so it benefits the Tories to introduce it. An extra hurdle to prevent young people voting for their (almost certainly not Conservative) candidate.
Yet, the same people are defending the winter fuel allowance cut by saying pensioners can apply for pension credits if they are below the threshold.
Applying for pension credits is complicated. It is means tested and requires several forms and proof of income, bank statements, ID to verify identity. Plus even acquiring the forms requires either the internet (which a huge number of pensioners don’t/can’t use), a visit to a government office or the post office(?), or a telephone call to a number they don’t readily have.
How is it that it’s so unfair that young people were being discouraged from voting because of the need for ID, yet less well off elderly people are expected to jump through hoops just to have a warm home in wintertime?
This is a very poor decision in my view.
Expect the U Turns to end all U Turns in the next week
Machiavelli
Well-known member
Thanks, and apologies for my late reply: I've been trying to do work all day, and have achieved very little.
I think you should carry on posting on the political threads, but not if it generates regret.
There's a political naivety about the WFP issue that stands out, because they seem so in control with everything else (for now). For me, they want to control the narrative (which I kind of get, given that it's rare for the Labour Party to achieve that given the print media) and want to project a narrative arc where everything is broken (it pretty much is IMO) and that KS will make 'tough decisions' and RR will be an Iron Chancellor, and slowly but surely things will start to repair is the parliamentary term develops. They've been too big on the doom and gloom, and this WFP withdrawal fits into that: now we've found a £22bn black hole and this is the tough decision we'll have to make.
They've seriously miscalculated, given the furore its generated -- there are a couple of polls released today that illustrate this. A lot of pain for a small sum of c£1.5bn. While I wish they were more radical, I think they've done OK beyond this. All we can hope is that they learn from it, but it'd be even better if they did U-turn but, even if they did, the damage has been done.
Actually, it wasn’t. It was that the pensioner equivalent of the same ID was deemed valid but wasn’t for younger people.
Unless there’s a universally available benefit handed out to non-pensioners which is not being means-tested but still being doled out to everyone else then it’s not really the same thing.
If you want to talk about hypocrisy, where was this level of fury and noise when the PIP assessment was introduced to effectively means-test disability benefits and caused immense suffering and hardship amongst disabled people? I don’t mean on here, as I can’t comment, but in the wider media landscape.
Pensioners are, on average, by far and away the wealthiest demographic in the UK, and have been largely shielded from the austerity of the last 14 years while everyone else was told they needed to suffer because “we’re all in this together”. That was never going to continue, especially with a government elected largely by a younger demographic, because it couldn’t.
BTW, I am firmly of the opinion that pension credits should be far easier to claim.
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So if you defend it you’re a hypocrite and if you don’t you’ve gone missing.
Feels kind of no win.
Weststander
Well-known member
I think means testing for several million more applicants is hard. For applicants the online form is and has to be incredibly extensive.
Then the government agency have to check all that data to several databases. Because of independent taxation, much of it isn’t held on a household basis.
Weststander
Well-known member
It is true, the over 65 demographic is, on average, wealthier than any other (helped in large parts by higher home ownership percentage, much of which is mortgage free). That’s not to say there isn’t poverty within the demographic, some of it extreme, but in most measures they are better off than any other age demographic.
Which is why it’s important that the pension credit system is made easier, so those who genuinely need the WFA can claim it and we’re not handing taxpayers money to Michael Caine to keep his Californian houses warm.
Weststander
Well-known member
LamieRobertson
Not awoke
Too right!
Weststander
Well-known member
Can’t imagine any of those members of NSC that you are criticising for being ‘myopic’ because they support one party to the exclusion of another would say ‘My side got this one wrong’, if they actually don’t believe that were so. On any issue.
Seems just as myopic imo, to adopt a political position that blinds one to the possibility that Starmer could be ‘right’ to end fuel payments unless one’s income is so low one qualifies for means tested benefits.
As I said above, personally, I think we should be redistributing the windfall tax on the billions of ££s in profits made by the fuel industry to subsidise consumer costs but that’s another plan for another day.
Another plan for another day would be to make State Pension means-tested (obviously not at the same low thresholds as unemployment benefits - but rather based on a higher level of income and incentives to accrue personal savings throughout one’s working life that could be insulated against any means-tested calculation.
A start at least would be to stop paying millionaires a State Pension:
“Of the 12.6 million people in the UK who receive the state pension, 1.1 million have a private pension pot over £1m, according to the most recent Wealth and Assets Survey from the Office for National Statistics. The least wealthy people in this group will have enough to retire at 65 and be paid £60,000 a year for the rest of their lives. I think it’s highly likely that most people in this group will have no rent or mortgage to pay and most would have other investments. Why should a large group of people, all of whom are guaranteed nearly twice the median income for life, be subsidised in their retirement by current workers? …
it would make sense to have a system that recognised how unequal retirement is: the top two deciles hold 84 per cent of all pension wealth, while the bottom half relies almost entirely on the state pension. If we are to keep uprating the state pension (which we should, to avoid a return to pensioner poverty), we need to make it more affordable for the rest of us.”
It's time for elderly millionaires to taste austerity
For higher earners, retirement contributions are fantastic value, mostly thanks to the munificence of the state.www.newstatesman.com
Removing WFPs stinks from a PR point of view but if pensioners really can’t afford an extra £4 per week from their pension (even with the triple lock increase) then they probably should be seeking housing benefit or applying for pension credit.
It’s the income category above those 880,000 which is the main cause of this debate.
LamieRobertson
Not awoke
Nail on head
- Oct 20, 2022
- 6,829
are you agreeing me or disagreeing - I can’t make it out?
Are you saying you don’t think millionaire pensioners should receive a State Pension or they should?
(I haven’t really been following the thread so you will have to expand on your comment and how it relates to what I was saying please)
I guess the main problem with means-testing pensions would again be where the cut-off point is. And it could lead to a drop in paying into private / work pensions - as why would people pay into them if all it means is a reduction in the amount of state pension they receive?Can’t imagine any of those members of NSC that you are criticising for being ‘myopic’ because they support one party to the exclusion of another would say ‘My side got this one wrong’, if they actually don’t believe that were so. On any issue.
Seems just as myopic imo, to adopt a political position that blinds one to the possibility that Starmer could be ‘right’ to end fuel payments unless one’s income is so low one qualifies for means tested benefits.
As I said above, personally, I think we should be redistributing the windfall tax on the billions of ££s in profits made by the fuel industry to subsidise consumer costs but that’s another plan for another day.
Another plan for another day would be to make State Pension means-tested (obviously not at the same low thresholds as unemployment benefits - but rather based on a higher level of income and incentives to accrue personal savings throughout one’s working life that could be insulated against any means-tested calculation.
A start at least would be to stop paying millionaires a State Pension:
“Of the 12.6 million people in the UK who receive the state pension, 1.1 million have a private pension pot over £1m, according to the most recent Wealth and Assets Survey from the Office for National Statistics. The least wealthy people in this group will have enough to retire at 65 and be paid £60,000 a year for the rest of their lives. I think it’s highly likely that most people in this group will have no rent or mortgage to pay and most would have other investments. Why should a large group of people, all of whom are guaranteed nearly twice the median income for life, be subsidised in their retirement by current workers? …
it would make sense to have a system that recognised how unequal retirement is: the top two deciles hold 84 per cent of all pension wealth, while the bottom half relies almost entirely on the state pension. If we are to keep uprating the state pension (which we should, to avoid a return to pensioner poverty), we need to make it more affordable for the rest of us.”
It's time for elderly millionaires to taste austerity
For higher earners, retirement contributions are fantastic value, mostly thanks to the munificence of the state.
Removing WFPs stinks from a PR point of view but if pensioners really can’t afford an extra £4 per week from their pension (even with the triple lock increase) then they probably should be seeking housing benefit or applying for pension credit.
It’s not perfect but unfortunately there’s not an ideal way of doing it. Unless we dumb everything down to the lowest point and give everyone everything, which clearly wouldn’t be sustainable.
- Oct 20, 2022
- 6,829
Well as I said, it would need to be higher than the usual cut off for benefits and not disincentivise
- maybe there’s a need for there to be some form compulsory pension contribution scheme - people insure their houses and cars, why not insure yourself for the future?
Personally, I think National Insurance contributions should be compulsory for everyone - too many people leave NI payment gaps throughout their working life then get the benefit of pension credits - unfairly (imo) rewarding people that don’t save or ‘live life for today’.
Again, as I said, taking the one million millionaire pensioners off the list would be a start!
(thresholds should always be a sliding scale, not have a ‘cut off‘ (like more than £16,000 savings then you don’t qualify)
Weststander
Well-known member
Agreeing on the 880k.
Disagreeing on the income bracket above that who do not qualify for any means tested benefits.