Are pensioners perceived differently now?

sigh
Nobody said that we didn't work hard for what we have. We worked for it but it was achievable for the average person rather than the exception.

However the routes have changed. A young person today couldnt just do what we did and get the same results we had.

Why are people so reluctant to accept that hard work is only half the story? I worked hard AND I was lucky to start out when I did. I don't find that hard to admit so don't understand others reluctance.

I would NOT want to be starting out today, that is for damn sure.

notanan2 with respect, we had to find opportunities and we did work hard, as did our parents and grandparents.
Please tell me why the young of today should be treated any different?

House prices have gone up but so have wages. Interest rates are at the lowest they have been for years, even after taking into consideration the recent rise.

I think it's time to move away from a "blame" culture.

That would happen naturally once people started to act and help each other.

Younger generations will continue to point out the advantages older generations had for as long as older generations continue to absolve themselves of all responsibility and falsely attribute todays problems to young peoples attitudes rather than the societal restrictions currently in place.

"Im allright jack and you would be too if you just did a days work" will continue to provoke a justified backlash

I think, that, in my poor way, was what I was trying to say.
Each generation deals with the situation as it is.

I think it's time to move away from a "blame" culture.
Each generation is different, has different problems, issues.

Ah I see so it's the fault of the people who point out the realities of the situation and of young people for not keeping their spirits up regardless of how bad things get.
It isn't a quesion of things being "hopeless" but of ideals being lost and then blaming the results not on those who deliberately or accidently lost them but on those who are the result of that loss. So a society founded on greed will have no place for the economically inactive be they pensioners, the homeless or any other persons.

Thanks willa. I do feel that sometimes when I am being constructive some people 'interpret' what I say in a negative way. I think that says more about them than me though.

I feel we should be encouraging them to work hard and teaching them how to be thrifty. We should show them how much they could save by making their own lunch and walking a couple of stops to save on fares. In little ways they could be so much better off.

The message that life is hopeless for young people is making some of them be negative. Understanding is helpful but lots of sympathy can make people give up.

Nonnie, Thank you.....I couldn't have said it better myself!

...and it isn't just the amount of sympathy....it's the passive complacency.....When young people (or anybody else) perceive that they no longer have any options in life, they begin to lose hope and initiative. Running out of options can cause most people to give up if they actually believe that. It's the brand of negative thinking that eventually becomes a self fulfilling prophecy and a sure path to failure.

I'm sorry you feel like that annsixty you are of course wrong.

There seems to be a group of people who cannot see the positives and always look for the negative. Interesting that only one of my points has been taken up (that most properties have windows), no one has commented on any of the 'good' things I have said about giving things away of Freegle or repairing and reusing things. No comments about the things which are cheaper nowadays like school uniforms.

I make no apology for coming from nothing and making something of my and my family's life or for the hard work and frugality which has given my children good lives. I am pretty sure my GC will work hard and have good lives too. No, everyone doesn't have the capacity to do that but many do and all this talk about how tough it is for youngsters is only going to make them feel there is no point trying. They need encouragement not negativity.

It is DEFINITELY harder to be young now!

In relation to setting-up home, which is what most people want to do at some time, I agree 100% with this statement.

Unless they have some sort of inheritance a 20-something on average wage will never be able to buy a whole flat or house (not a shared-ownership scheme) in London. In the late 70s a couple on average wages could buy in all areas of London bar, say Chelsea, Mayfair, etc.

I know of no-one aged 60+ who couldn't have bought a property in their 20s/30s.

Now, even those on £200,000 pa can't do what I did
aged 24 on a nurse's salary in 1978.

Pec's post of yesterday saying a poster comes across as rather smug certainly states a truth to me.
I think many in this thread come across as rather smug.
We are mostly representative of the times we lived and grew up in.
That is what we expected and we got on with it.
Young people today are living in a different world. They will get on with it and will moan to their own children about how hard it was and how easy the younger generation have it ( and how they did it better on less).

Sorry trisher, but my Grandparents owned their own houses, as did my parents, as do I and AC. So why is it the fault of my generation.

Throughout history there have been homeless and displaced people. That doesn't make it ok, nor does it make it this generation of pensioners fault.

Isn't it interesting how when you present an argument that is irrefutable (after all who did create the society where homelessness is on the increase if it wasn't us?) people immediately digress into how difficult their own lives were and how nothing was handed to them on a plate. And then you realise once again that that is what the young see sometimes. People who are stuck in the past, who are incapable of looking at things and admitting they got it wrong, that the property owning society was wrong because it did not provide for those who will never be able to buy and allowed the rental market to be completely unregulated. That houses are not just a commodity to be traded and let for profit but are something we should provide for everyone in a civilised society. Perhaps if we could admit our mistakes and attempt to make amends we would be treat with more respect

I think there is still opportunity for promotion for those who work for it. DS is in a very hard to succeed profession but he has worked harder than some others and been promoted. Another DS decided to change career at the age of 30, went to college and worked so hard he got the prize for the best student. Now, 8 years later he is higher up the 'tree' that others who started straight from uni. Not easy but their hard work has paid off. I'm sure there are plenty more like them. The message that life is hopeless for young people is making some of them be negative. Understanding is helpful but lots of sympathy can make people give up.

If my generation and the generation before me were really blameless, things would look VERY different in this country right now.

We're all to blame. Of course we are. They didn't inherit this society from a vacuum!

My generation bought into the "any property is good property" myth and there was a boom of amateur investment landlords in the early noughties who royally **ed up the rental market and it hasn't recovered! And created a rental system where tenants are just numbers on a sheet.

I didnt buy a buy-to-let at the time (despite strong encouragement from our accountant and financial adviser) but I also wasn't alarmed and didn't campaign for controls before it got out of hand!

Prior to that everyone was buying up council houses. No not everyone, but did the ones who weren't try to stop it?

I bought a property that had long term tenants in it before we bought it. We have all played our part. By how we voted, how we invested etc. I have only recently switched my pension into ethical funds, 20 years ago I saw it as a game, and played for the highest return and didnt even think to care what I was investing in.

Notanan2, not sure where you worked but training in my profession was and still is free and the opportunity to progress is different now but I wuold say no more difficult or easy. Performance related pay is designed to be fair and rewards hard work.

And no, one doesn’t need to feel guilty to have empathy, but many of us can be made to feel this way at times, when newspapers blame our generation for the woes of the young.

In the past things may have been hard but they were on the up. Quality of life improved with every generation, until this one! The first generation statistically worse off than their parents.

Working hard with hope for better is easier done than working hard with no light at the end of the tunnel

You don't need to feel guilty for what you have in order to feel empathy for people in a different position to you.

I worked for what I have. I was also LUCKY to have been able to do that at times when you could work your way up in life more easily than you can now.

Doesn't mean I didn't work hard.
Does mean that someone starting in my field now, working as hard as I did then, wouldn't get what I got.

I think some of the arguements seem one sided. So I will try and give another view.

Our first home was a brand new two bedroomed house, bought for £5000 in 1973, no garage, no central heatng and no appliances. My husbands salary was £1000 per annum

In the midlands a youngster earning £25000 could now buy a nice two bedroomed appartment for £130000 fully fitted out and a lower interest rate.

When I started work at 16, university was only seen as an option for the brightest academic students and the well to do families.

Now university is open to all, and for those that don’t want to end up in debt, there is the option of part time work around their study. ( I did my degree in later life while working full time)

I worked in the civil service. Maximum pay was not reached until 40 years of age. Holiday entitement was two weeks a year. Maternity pay was minimal and childcare was almost non existent.

Now, most people have 4 to 5 weeks holiday entitlement, maternity pay is generous and childcare is abundant and from three onwards all children get free hours.

Yes it was difficult then for some of us but we worked hard and made do. And yes it is difficult for some now but I feel the opportunities are still there.

In this country we are fortunate and we should appreciate the freedom and lifestyle we enjoy. There are less fortunate people everywhere let’s help if we can but not feel guilty for living a lifestyle we have worked hard for.

Interest rates are often the counter arguments on here but lets quantify that. You can't compare rates unless you also account for prices

In the 90s a 2 bed house I know of sold for £40,000. It recently sold for £300,000

In the 90s the starting salary in my field was only about 3k less than it is now, and you could work your way up (basically walk in from the street, now you need a degree for the same job, self funded)

2% sounds pretty low right? Rates are very low at the moment, BUT, 2% of what? That's what matters.

£40,000 @ 10% for 25yrs = monthly repayments of £351.40
Just under half of the take home pay for the starting salary in my field at the time.

£300,000 @ 2% for 25yrs = £1,268/month. That is the ENTIRE take home pay for starting salaries in my field.

It is DEFINITELY harder to be young now!

Its easier to "slum it" when it is a means to an end and you can see yourself working upwards.

I did it. Shared a HMO where the rain ran down the INSIDE of windows and the bathroom was in an uninsulated unheated probably illegal extension. My "bedroom" was the dining room as we we crammed in.

I didnt moan because:
- it allowed me to save, I had money left over after rent (rents were half what they are for a HMO room now and savings interest rates were better)
-I was in a job that was funding me to get qualifications that people in the same field now have to pay for themselves.
-I KNEW IT WASN'T FOREVER!!!!: promotions in my field were easier got back then, training to enable progression was free (its not now). And moving up the property ladder was an achievable goal
- it was fun BECAUSE it was temporary. We were all there to save/train/access work experience. And we were young and there was nobody over 25 in your average HMO back then!

A TOTALLY different experience to your average HMO nowadays which now house families and older people who are stuck in that situation indefinitely.

Back when I shared a grotty HMO there were no families or older people there so we felt confident that we wouldnt still be in that situation in our 30s/60s. It wasn't the depressing hopeless state of affairs it is now.

HMOs were a starting point and a leg up not peoples final destination

Over coffee this morning DH and I were discussing this. Lots of reminiscing. Before we married I shared a bedsit with a friend, we cooked on 2 gas rings with a grill, we shared a bathroom with the couple below. It was very small and cramped and we didn't even have a radio. One small wardrobe between us. The point is that it didn't damage me for life, I have not given it any thought for years. It was while I was living there that we had a really bad winter and I walked 6 miles in the snow to work.

DH and I had a rented flat when we first married until we were able to buy our first house. There have always and always will be people who cannot afford to buy their own homes but it isn't fair to castigate others because they do.

We moved for job promotions, not everyone wants to do that. We worked long hours for no extra money, not everyone wants to do that. We made our choices, others make different choices. We have seen others in similar situations to us and to our children who have made choices which mean they are not in a position to buy a home.

To state that 'young people cannot afford to buy homes' is wrong. Someone is buying them, they are not left empty and they are not all owned by pensioners.

We should do all we can to help the disadvantaged but should also encourage people to do what they can for themselves and not sit back think that 'someone should do something'. I agree that some young people feel 'entitled'

PECS it is of course up to you to think what you like about my posts but I often think that when someone interprets others' posts says a lot about them and rather less about what they have decided another meant.

I was looking at this and rereading and started to think about housing. When I grew up the aim was that everyone should have a home of a decent standard, so yes there were standards for council housing, and regulations about rehousing families so that siblings of the opposite sex didn't share rooms after a certain age. There were still slum houses with no bathrooms and outside toilets but those were going to be updated or replaced. This was the philosophy we inherited and which was in operation. Today we have changed all that, housing is now a commodity which is there to make a profit from. In the course of doing that my generation have created families living in B&B accommodation and working people living on the street because they can't afford the rents being charged. No new council housing is being built because let's face it if you make more affordable rental property available you knock the bottom out the market and prices will fall. So the legacy we leave is unaffordable housing and more people homeless, and if the younger generation are only concerned with themselves, or alternatively despise us because we have no principles, who can blame them?