Stop blaming Pensioners

Well we could join all those first time buyers queuing to buy one and two bedroom properties, but I am not sure that would help much - just drive up the price of smaller properties.

What about all those younger single people in family properties? DD currently lives alone in a three bedroomed house. She has always been single so chose to buy and live in a house with three bedrooms.

She is currently looking at a 5 bedroomed 3 storey house. The idea being that the two bedrooms on the living room floor will be come a home office, she works from home a lot, and a craft room. She is an inveterate crafter. Kirsty Allsopp is a mere beginner compared with her.

I do not hear anyone from the Intergenerational Foundation fulminating against younger single people living in family sized accommodation.

Well, I got two official letters on the same day. One from DWP telling me I am getting £500 for Winter Fuel Payment, the other from HRMC telling me I owe them £498 in underpaid tax! Easy come, easy go!

The Intergenerational Foundation was set up by co-founders Ashley Seager, Ed Howker, Shiv Malik and Angus Hanton in 2011.
They claim their mission is to promote intergenerational fairness and protect the interests of younger and future generations across all areas of policy

Since they were formed, there seems to be an increase in bitterness between the generations.
Coincidence? Perhaps

But Angus Hanton has come across as someone who resents retired people staying in their empty-nest homes (his own parents' house is worth a couple of million£ but he seems to have no suggestions about where these older people might move to.

Yes, that’s what I was getting at upthread.

The 'intergenerational war' is simply Tory propaganda to divert us from what they haven't been doing to improve the lot of everyone, old and young alike - the NHS, cost of living, energy bills, house prices, lack of Council houses, etc.

Also, those in the 'established' middle class (ie with ancestors who have had professional jobs going back three or more generations) will still be better off than most other groups because of inheritance, contacts and cultural capital.

A simple comparison of house prices against salaries is too simplistic.

I agree that the complainers (some of them, anyway) have often benefited from the things they accuse 'boomers' of getting unfairly. If their parents/grandparents had a house in a nicer place with a comparatively lower mortgage, this will have freed up money for them to be brought up with a higher standard of living than they would have had in a grotty place with no spare money to take them on holidays abroad, or buy the private tuition that helped them get the exam grades to take them to a 'good' university. Similarly, if their parents were from families which could only afford for them to go to university because it was free, the AC will have benefited from having parents in professional jobs and with a generally positive attitude to education.

They are comparing themselves with 'boomers' at their stage of life, but not taking into account that their parents/grandparents are unlikely to have had as comfortable a childhood as they did, and that it is because of the rise in social mobility in the 60s that their parents/grandparents had grammar schools and were able to get degrees. Would they rather that hadn't happened, and that they had been born into traditional working class families (as most of their parents would have been) with the privations that they will have suffered?

There is a lot of cognitive dissonance, and a lack of the perspective needed to realise that resenting the generation that had an 'easier' time than their own is pointless, as it is largely because of that 'privilege' that they are now comparing themselves against a middle class that they probably would never had joined had their parents (or maybe grandparents) not had those advantages.

Exactly LovesBach My AS moved back home to live with me and sometimes brings up this subject, which is annoying, I try to change the subject quickly. Must point out next time what you've said, as he will be inheriting from me along with his sister, so he has benefited from the profits of house price rises, through me.

If I thought for one moment that my DC were complainers, I'd downsize to a small flat, go on a world cruise or three and start choosing a luxurious care home.
Thankfully, they aren't.
But we still might have to spend all our wealth 🤔 on a care home. Who knows what the future holds?

As another poster has commented, who will benefit from the super houses that evidently we all live in, as pensioners? Not us, unless we downsize dramatically, pay a staggering amount of tax and costs to do so, and then spend the balance. It will be the generation of complainers who get the proceeds. My current home is worth fifty times the cost of the house we bought when we married - but we have never benefitted from increasing prices, just sold and bought within the current range of house prices at the time.

Delila

I think the point Doodledog is making is that government policy should address the inequalities in society, and not encourage division based on envy between generations, among other things, in order to divert attention from the government’s inaction.

Ours is a divided society and as long as we all blame each other for our problems the government is off the hook.

I agree. And it's a valid point.

However, there will always be those who pay more interest on homes as rates change, have fewer or more children, receive legacies, attend better uni, etc. What helps level, fairly to all?

I think the point Doodledog is making is that government policy should address the inequalities in society, and not encourage division based on envy between generations, among other things, in order to divert attention from the government’s inaction.

Ours is a divided society and as long as we all blame each other for our problems the government is off the hook.

Wow! So well put.
I worked before and after school Saturday in a shop and Sunday paper round. Started work the week after o level exams. Husband started apprenticeship at 16 on a pittance. We saved bought a house and when children came along he worked all hours God sent. I've worked full time since kids at school, fostered for 16 years and not for a wage, that didn't exist then. We did it for love for caring. Worked the last 26 years full time to be told at 60 I wasn't getting my pension or my bus pass. Husband has an autoimmune disease and still works several days a week manually. We had no fancy holidays but our children were well fed dressed clean played with warm and most importantly loved.
Youngsters are at school till 18 then university and a lot have everything they need and expect.
Cut off date for fuel allowance 25th Sept ,guess what my birthdays after that,so once again lose out.
I'm not going to feel guilty when I eventually get the allowance. Watch this space they will probably cancel it before my 67th birthday.
So once again well said

Well said Doodledog.

Things work put - what over choice is there? But there are resentments. I don't go in for it myself as there is no point, but different generations do have different experiences.

All the same, a rich person will always have a better life than a poor one, whenever they live, and IMO this is what people should focus on - resent the inequality we have now, regardless of whether the people who came before or after you appear to have an easier time of it. Obviously, that's not what the government wants us to do, of course.

I may be mistaken, but I believe it was Cummings' 'nudge unit' which came up with the concept of generational inequality'. People love having someone to blame, so of course it caught on, and his involvement says it all, I think.

Jaxjacky

As someone has said, different times and different expectations. I just let any comments bemoaning the ‘better off’, whether that’s pensioners or any other group, wash over me.

Indeed.

No worry one way or other - given time things work out, imo.

Doodledog

I have to say I don't understand why someone should work 18 hours and get their money made up with credits. It seems a slap in the face to those who put in the hours and do a full time job, but I do think the system encourages people to do it.

Agreed. A flawed system.

Work or don't, but credits for able body non-workers is not a proper answer, imo. I've never worked outside our home, and certainly never expected credits to provide for us and our family.

As someone has said, different times and different expectations. I just let any comments bemoaning the ‘better off’, whether that’s pensioners or any other group, wash over me.

I don’t understand how the over 50s are hammered by the taxman - they are taxed at the same rate as everyone else.

I agree with the rest of your post though - I know a hospital doctor who has cut her hours for tax reasons and a friend’s daughter who won’t work extra hours because she would lose universal credit. Both have young children - I confess that I don’t know whether that’s relevant to their situation (other than that their calculations take childcare costs into account).

It seems madness to me that people working full time are no better off than part-timers doing the same job. No wonder there is resentment.

People dont want to work longer hours or do overtime because it will "mess up their universal credit". At the same time the unfairness of the tax system leads to highly qualified people like doctors and consultants dropping down to part time work. Or the over 50s (whom the government wants to encourage back to work) being unwilling to get hammered by the tax man.

In other words the system encourages people to duck and dive rather than be a 40% tax payer. There are people who make a good living teaching people how to manipulate the system.

There was none of that when we were working. If your full time job didnt pay enough for your needs you took a second job evenings and/or weekends. Been there, done it, got the t-shirt. None of these tax credits or other hand outs.

I worked in London during the Blitz and dodged machine bullets in The Battle of Britain. Served in the WAAF. Husband was in DDay landings where wounded and once recovered was posted to Palestine when barely recovered. When demobbed could only find a small attic room from which evicted when baby was born. No NHS so had to pay hospital bill. Had to leave baby with mother in law until manage to get a smalltop floor flat. No hot water no detergent..two lots of nappies to wash by hand.no bathroom.Everything was rationed, food, clothing until 1954. We lived there for ten years until managed to save deposit for house and only managed to get mortgage because husband knew his wartime officer was an estate agent.
Nowin my old age, widowed, husband never really recovered from wartime wounds, I think I need a little help and comfort.

I have to say I don't understand why someone should work 18 hours and get their money made up with credits. It seems a slap in the face to those who put in the hours and do a full time job, but I do think the system encourages people to do it.

Many working class men were reluctant to allow their wives to work during the 1950s/1960s era. They felt that it reflected badly on their position as head of the household and provider. My father certainly had that attitude. It was only with the greatest reluctance that he "permitted" my mother to get a part time job once I was 14. I was then deemed old enough to look after my sister from the time she finished school until our mother got home from wotk. Many families struggled on one income for similar reasons. None of this being subbed out by the taxpayer because the job paid s**t money or you only wanted to work 18 hours a week.

Something that frequently occurs to me.
Many younger people will inherit those large expensive houses which they complain about some of us living in.
Both my parents lived through two world wars and a depression. One born 1900 and one 1904.

They both came from working class families.
My father died in 1949 when I was eleven.
No welfare state, my mother struggled most of her life.
My H and I never inherited a penny from either family.
We worked hard and hopefully, eventually, my two C will inherit a nice house.
I see this all the time among my younger than me friends.
Parents die and they move onto bigger and better houses.
The ones complaining should remember that many of them will reap the benefits of “our luck”

Primrose53

Callistemon21

Primrose53

I don’t think a lot of younger people realise how we struggled to bring up our children when there were no tax credits, top ups, free school meals for early years, free nursery places etc.
And a mortgage interest rate of 17%!!

We had to pay for everything. If you couldn’t pay you didn’t go. I remember being first in queue at PO on family allowance day.

I hear young Mums talking about all the things they do like spa days, afternoon teas, girly meals out and I could never have afforded those. These are not Mums in high paid jobs either, just the hairdresser, beautician etc.

I had a 😲 moment when I was watching the news the other day and a young mother at a baby sensory group said that with the cost of living crisis she'd had to cut down on classes for the baby; they only did baby sensory classes and swimming classes now each week.
The baby looked to be about three months old.

Baby sensory seemed to consist of babies lying on their backs with mothers shaking things in front of their eyes, showing them shiny objects, peering into their face singing to them, giving them tummy time etc, at a tenner a session.

How did ours manage to be stimulated without attending these large groups?
Wish I'd thought of starting groups like that, I could be a millionaire by now.

That made me laugh! Do they think shaking mirrors, feeling textures etc makes the kid super bright? Some of the very brightest kids I ever met came from big families where they were loved but there wasn’t much time for individual stimulation.

I wonder if that is why DS is a genius? He constantly had his 2½ year old sister shaking rattles, singing to him and keeping him entertained. 😁 He did sleep a lot, perhaps he was exhausted from all the stimulation.