What Will You Do With 10 Million Frozen Pensioners, Rachel?

In a nutshell, sod all.

maddyfour
MissAdventure

My post meandered.

I've asked GNHQ to remove it - as 'off topic'.

Guys - it’s not off topic to point out what is happening at a basic level in the Uk. Bus use and adequate levels of subsistence matter to some pensioners. I think it’s important to consider where some parts of the Uk are headed. It’s a pretty nasty place here sometimes. It needs calling out.

Back to the point, here’s an initiative happening in Neath Prt Talbot council area to track down and support through the application process people who they identify as being potentially eligible for pension credit. It’s a small start, but shows that where there is a will there’s a way.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c62dj8nk5x8o

My (Labour) MP is running special surgeries with benefit checks for pensioners to ensure that they get everything to which they are entitled. They started immediately after the announcement of the WFP cut. I don’t know if they are open to all, but the push is getting everyone entitled to PC to claim it.

ronib

*growstuff*. I live in a good area but with two problematic senior schools . The problem is known to the Schools as teachers have been used in the past to ensure normal boarding of buses.

If that's the worst you have to worry about in your life, you're very fortunate.

How about discussing the Winter Fuel Allowance?

growstuff sometimes you need to see life in the round.
Okay - so has the chancellor budgeted for the increase in payments to allow newly assessed pensioners claiming pension credit for the first time? And which black hole just deepened?

Ps pensioners used to ride on buses to stay warm.

I've been thinking, I wonder how many pensioners just ,only, above the threshold for Pension Credit, would 68K, for a "personal photographer" help towards their WFA, a hell of a lot. Don't forget this is tax payers money.
They have their priorities, narcissm is up and running in the Labour party.

ronib

growstuff sometimes you need to see life in the round.
Okay - so has the chancellor budgeted for the increase in payments to allow newly assessed pensioners claiming pension credit for the first time? And which black hole just deepened?

I wondered about that, too.

Presumably government departments are given a budget so PC benefit will have been factored into it in the previous accounting year? If so many pensioners, as has been suggested, don't claim their entitlement, then there will be money left in the kitty so to speak. I had the idea, from somewhere, that departments had to spend their budget before the end of the accounting period - or lose it.

Not sure if that's how it works. But if it does - that previously unclaimed pension credit funding will be around somewhere, either still within the department, or back in the Treasury, so presumably one way or another will have been accounted for?

... sometimes you need to see life in the round

It's difficult to know when one has over-stepped the 'meander-mark' as it's not an exact science, and under most topics, one thing leads to another. However, the irritation of other posters will usually put a stop on it and let you know that it's a meander-too-far! I've been suitably chastised and asked for the post to be removed as being off-topic.

Please don’t be offended Dickens, as my question about the thread meandering wasn’t addressed to you in particular, but I’d looked at this thread a couple of times during the day and it was about breakfast clubs in schools if I remember correctly, and then about buses and taxis and so on, and I know threads meander just like conversations do, but we seemed to be a million miles away from the topic, which is a really important topic at the moment.
Apologies if you were offended as I didn’t mean to offend anyone.

So back to the WFA.

Freya5

I've been thinking, I wonder how many pensioners just ,only, above the threshold for Pension Credit, would 68K, for a "personal photographer" help towards their WFA, a hell of a lot. Don't forget this is tax payers money.
They have their priorities, narcissm is up and running in the Labour party.

Thing is, Westminster is a different world to the one pensioners inhabit. So you can't really make those kinds of comparisons sociologically.

However, its not a good 'look' is it when the harbinger of hard times, difficult-decisions, and pain, - who continually reminds us of such - happily accepts freebies that will make his life more comfortable.

He's not breaking any rules, and I do understand the principle of jam tomorrow but you'd think that, after 14 odd years of austerity for so many - he'd have a little more sensitivity?

- or at least stop the doom and gloom messaging, he must know that the media will highlight it - because I think it's already having an effect on the economy.

Freya5

I've been thinking, I wonder how many pensioners just ,only, above the threshold for Pension Credit, would 68K, for a "personal photographer" help towards their WFA, a hell of a lot. Don't forget this is tax payers money.
They have their priorities, narcissm is up and running in the Labour party.

I worked it out.

There are approximately 13 million pensioners in the UK. If they all received an equal share of £68k, it would work out to half a penny, which would be difficult because we don't have halfpenny coins any more.

Dickens

ronib

growstuff sometimes you need to see life in the round.
Okay - so has the chancellor budgeted for the increase in payments to allow newly assessed pensioners claiming pension credit for the first time? And which black hole just deepened?

I wondered about that, too.

Presumably government departments are given a budget so PC benefit will have been factored into it in the previous accounting year? If so many pensioners, as has been suggested, don't claim their entitlement, then there will be money left in the kitty so to speak. I had the idea, from somewhere, that departments had to spend their budget before the end of the accounting period - or lose it.

Not sure if that's how it works. But if it does - that previously unclaimed pension credit funding will be around somewhere, either still within the department, or back in the Treasury, so presumably one way or another will have been accounted for?

... sometimes you need to see life in the round

It's difficult to know when one has over-stepped the 'meander-mark' as it's not an exact science, and under most topics, one thing leads to another. However, the irritation of other posters will usually put a stop on it and let you know that it's a meander-too-far! I've been suitably chastised and asked for the post to be removed as being off-topic.

You're correct that budgeting for benefits doesn't work like that. It's done retrospectively because the government just doesn't know in advance how much will be claimed in benefits. In any case, at least the money will be going to those in greatest need, which has to be a good thing.

The WFP has surely been done to death.

It has been withdrawn. Previously, when the Tories were in power, there were numerous posts from people boasting about how they didn't need it.

I realise that the membership of GN shifts, but seeing threads about how people planned to 'protect' their money from taxation in advance of the election, so that posters didn't have to contribute to the welfare of others really doesn't sit well with the constant post-election complaints that those same 'others' will no longer get help with fuel costs. There was so little concern about the poor that people complained bitterly about the possibility of their children being taxed on over a million pounds of unearned income in the form of inheritance. Where do people think that money for the WFP would come from? People can only get benefits if other, richer people pay in the form of the very taxes that posters were openly boasting about finding ways not to pay.

I could understand the indignation at the withdrawal of the WFP if people hadn't been so keen to hang on to their money before it was announced, but not wanting to pay a penny over the odds is not compatible with wanting universal payments.

growstuff

Dickens

ronib

growstuff sometimes you need to see life in the round.
Okay - so has the chancellor budgeted for the increase in payments to allow newly assessed pensioners claiming pension credit for the first time? And which black hole just deepened?

I wondered about that, too.

Presumably government departments are given a budget so PC benefit will have been factored into it in the previous accounting year? If so many pensioners, as has been suggested, don't claim their entitlement, then there will be money left in the kitty so to speak. I had the idea, from somewhere, that departments had to spend their budget before the end of the accounting period - or lose it.

Not sure if that's how it works. But if it does - that previously unclaimed pension credit funding will be around somewhere, either still within the department, or back in the Treasury, so presumably one way or another will have been accounted for?

... sometimes you need to see life in the round

It's difficult to know when one has over-stepped the 'meander-mark' as it's not an exact science, and under most topics, one thing leads to another. However, the irritation of other posters will usually put a stop on it and let you know that it's a meander-too-far! I've been suitably chastised and asked for the post to be removed as being off-topic.

You're correct that budgeting for benefits doesn't work like that. It's done retrospectively because the government just doesn't know in advance how much will be claimed in benefits. In any case, at least the money will be going to those in greatest need, which has to be a good thing.

You're correct that budgeting for benefits doesn't work like that.

Afflicted with lazyitis - I could have looked it up myself!

Anyway - it's all here, detailed data on the welfare spending forecast for 24 / 25.

www.gov.uk/government/publications/benefit-expenditure-and-caseload-tables-information-and-guidance/benefit-expenditure-and-caseload-tables-information-and-guidance#what-are-the-benefit-expenditure-and-caseload-tables

There's a lot to read. See you later.

Doodledog

The WFP has surely been done to death.

It has been withdrawn. Previously, when the Tories were in power, there were numerous posts from people boasting about how they didn't need it.

I realise that the membership of GN shifts, but seeing threads about how people planned to 'protect' their money from taxation in advance of the election, so that posters didn't have to contribute to the welfare of others really doesn't sit well with the constant post-election complaints that those same 'others' will no longer get help with fuel costs. There was so little concern about the poor that people complained bitterly about the possibility of their children being taxed on over a million pounds of unearned income in the form of inheritance. Where do people think that money for the WFP would come from? People can only get benefits if other, richer people pay in the form of the very taxes that posters were openly boasting about finding ways not to pay.

I could understand the indignation at the withdrawal of the WFP if people hadn't been so keen to hang on to their money before it was announced, but not wanting to pay a penny over the odds is not compatible with wanting universal payments.

This is a long post, if anyone is easily bored, please just scroll on, I won't be offended!

I realise that the membership of GN shifts, but seeing threads about how people planned to 'protect' their money from taxation in advance of the election, so that posters didn't have to contribute to the welfare of others really doesn't sit well with the constant post-election complaints that those same 'others' will no longer get help with fuel costs.

I've been thinking about that, too.

Like others - many? most? some? - who are just about comfortable, I'm motivated by both self-interest and a desire for a more fair / equitable society. And, under our current economic system, I really do not begrudge losing the WFA if it means that those who are impoverished will get the help they need this winter.

But here's the thing.

We have been encouraged by governments and society in general too, right from the start of our working lives, to be disciplined with our finances. To save - save for a mortgage, save for our old-age. Oh, and to work hard.

During Boris Johnson's tenure, we were even told that "greed is good" - he thinks that self-interest gives society what it needs; like pharma making big profits from vaccines which then benefitted the rest of us - especially (initially) pensioners. Very Ayn Rand. But, ultimately, who pays for these huge profits (Pfizer to witness)? The NHS (+mark up), which means us presumably when we're looking at economic black-holes.

Anyway - so we work hard, buy a house, and save for our old age. Sometimes at a cost to our health. I did not work hard until I saw the error of my ways in my mid 40s and for 20+ years made up for the fecklessness of previous years by working long, long hours, saved and 'went without' in order not to be in penury when I retired at 70. And made myself ill in the process - the effects are still with me today. However, I made my choices, so... and, at least, I had those choices.

So, I can understand why some are reluctant to lose what they may have worked very hard for. And say things like, "what's the point of working hard and saving if at the end the government will come along and take it from you". Particularly if you believe that other - feckless individuals like I was (sort of anyway) - will get given what they need in benefits. And that's how we are encouraged to think, isn't it - divide and rule?

But - going back to 'greed is good' - and pharma - Pfizer in particular.

Pfizer has had an exceptionally good pandemic. Today it announced that its Covid-19 vaccine brought in $37bn billion last year, making it easily the most lucrative medicine in any given year in history. (Nick Dearden - The Guardian - 2022)

No government on earth is going to confront 'big pharma' or vested interests elsewhere in order to achieve a more fair and equitable society. Starmer certainly won't.

Instead, he will target the already impoverished (like those just above the PC cut off point), and the millions who've worked hard for their futures. And we'll continue to talk about those on benefits, and those who we think don't want to work. It happened under Cameron and Osborne, and the last government.

But, what is the real problem - isn't it that too much wealth is in the hands of too few? And if that is the problem, then nothing is going to be done about it. Wealth = power, and those with it want to keep it that way.

Anyway - so we work hard, buy a house, and save for our old age. Sometimes at a cost to our health

Many are suffering from work-related illnesses, not so ill that they are totally incapacitated or able to receive benefits but enough to need to stay warm in winter months or risk a decline in health.

People who don't own houses work hard too, by the way.

Maybe even harderMissA

Definitely, in some cases.

MissAdventure

People who don't own houses work hard too, by the way.

Some of them even work and send their children to breakfast clubs - but still get called shiftless. Same on them!

Oh, you mean those "so called parents"?

Doodledog Good post!

Maybe GNers could contribute to a GoFundMe page, if I set one up. I need to catch them while they're in a phase of caring for the poor rather than castigating them.