Pensions and Pensioners

[Kompany Car]

You’ll never be able to convince them because all they hear is you think they had it easy while they remember the sacrifices that they made. So there excuse is that you think it should be easy and that you are unwilling to make sacrifices. The very basic fact that virtually everything is far more expensive in relation to median income is lost on them.

The fact that isn't a fact. As much as I'm loathed to use AI when responding on here, I thought maybe he's got a point lets put the following prompt into the posh version of Gemini...

"Could you produce a detailed list of typical consumer purchases, eg cars, food, clothes, electronic goods, public transport, entertainment, energy etc. Comparing the price in the UK as a percentage of median full time income. The analysis should be presented in a concise manner and in tabular form. The two reference point years should be 2026 and 1986."

This was the output...

From the Office for National Statistics (ONS) data:

• 1986 UK Median Full-Time Annual Income: ~£8,300 (based on a full-time median of ~£159.60 per week)
• 2026 UK Median Full-Time Annual Income: ~£39,039

Using these figures, here is how the relative costs look when compared purely against full-time earnings.

Category Typical Item 1986 Price % of 1986 FT Income 2026 Price % of 2026 FT Income Big Ticket & Fuel Cars New small family car £5,000.00 60.24% £23,000.00 58.91% Energy Annual Household Energy Bill £480.00 5.78% £1,641.00 4.20% Fuel Petrol (1 Litre) £0.38 0.0046% £1.57 0.0040% Electronics Standard Colour TV £250.00 3.01% £350.00 0.90% Everyday Essentials Clothes Pair of branded jeans £25.00 0.30% £90.00 0.23% Entertainment Cinema ticket £1.88 0.023% £8.00 0.021% Public Transport Single local bus fare £0.40 0.0048% £2.00 0.0051% The Shopping Basket Food (Staple) Loaf of white bread £0.43 0.0052% £1.40 0.0036% Dairy Milk (1 Pint) £0.24 0.0029% £0.80 0.0021% Dairy Cheddar Cheese (400g) £1.15 0.0139% £3.20 0.0082% Baking Plain Flour (1.5kg) £0.35 0.0042% £0.85 0.0022% Protein Eggs (Medium, Box of 6) £0.52 0.0063% £1.65 0.0042% Produce Apples (Fruit, 1kg) £0.78 0.0094% £2.40 0.0061% Produce Carrots (Veg, 1kg) £0.32 0.0039% £0.70 0.0018%

Food is quite surprising, if you run the numbers you actually find that the raw essentials are much cheaper today than they were in the 1980s in real terms.

Many of the things people think are expensive are actually no more expensive or cheaper, with a minor exception when it comes to public transport.

 

[BlueRockape]

I actually have said and defended not means testing the state pensions so better off pensioners keep it you half wit.

Maybe the sun has got to your head. Worked long hours have you, wow, you are special. Moaning about someone moaning who wasn't moaning, classic.

Off you pop.

Not a nice person are you so I will just put you on ignore.
Have a nice day twat

 

[hilts]

Not a nice person are you s0 I will just put you on ignore.
Have a nice day twat

Haha

 

[denislawsbackheel]

If you put all of those countries into a list then the UK has the highest housing costs of all of them. Germany is the best comparison as the largest European economy. The average salary to house price there is around 5x, here it's nearly double that! Renting however in Germany is different as landlords aren't allowed to take the piss and their culture is not to buy houses simply for exploitative profit.

Why not then add other measures? What about income equality, health outcomes, university fees or well just name anything that could be judged of benefit.... The UK is rock bottom of the list for most of them.

Tuition fees itself is a good one, obviously many over 50 didn't goto university but how much did it cost for those who did? That's right, nothing. I pay £250pm towards my student loan but I will never ever pay the balance off because the interest accumulates at a faster rate than I'm repaying it. And if I earn more money I will pay even more.

Tuition fees in most countries in Europe are free because well they actually do value young people and their future. If we look at the last 15-20 years of Tory government, what did they do for young people? And who voted for them? lol

So your student loan won’t be written off eventually then.

Unlike everyone else’s…

 

[The Light Was Yellow Sir]

Shame many of the pensioners voted to stop Europeans coming over to work for a few years. They came over, worked, rarely used public services, paid tax and NI and then often went home. Quite a different model to the immigration we’ve ended up with…

 

[mosssideblue]

Shame many of the pensioners voted to stop Europeans coming over to work for a few years. They came over, worked, rarely used public services, paid tax and NI and then often went home. Quite a different model to the immigration we’ve ended up with…

Based on?

 

[The Light Was Yellow Sir]

Based on?

 

[Kompany Car]

Tuition fees itself is a good one, obviously many over 50 didn't goto university but how much did it cost for those who did? That's right, nothing. I pay £250pm towards my student loan but I will never ever pay the balance off because the interest accumulates at a faster rate than I'm repaying it. And if I earn more money I will pay even more.

Tuition fees in most countries in Europe are free because well they actually do value young people and their future. If we look at the last 15-20 years of Tory government, what did they do for young people? And who voted for them? lol

I do have sympathy around tuition fees and I'm a strong believer in education being free for those who need it.

The fundamental problem was that in the 90s, with the Education, Education, Education spiel from Blair, instead of 10-15% of people who were primarily academic high achievers going to university you suddenly had 30% going, which has now grown to around 50%. Great for the youth unemployment figures, but of questionable benefit in many cases due to the quality and devaluation of having a degree.

Many of the courses were at the places which were previously polytechnics, that had suddenly been granted University status and without wanting to sound condescending had courses that were more akin to HND level than to traditional degree level.

This of course became unaffordable to the taxpayer and the Blair government introduced tution fees which were ratcheted up in 2004 and then again following the financial crisis of 2008.

Whilst some will get the cost written off at a later date, its still a tax that they shouldn't have to bear.

What's done is done, but I personally wouldn't mind paying a bit more to make degree level education free and write off some or all of the education elements of the loan. But in the longer run it should be reigned back in for those of a more academic persuasion, rather than just being a right of passage, which is what it has become.

 

[Bournemouth Blue]

Some of these posts are really insulting. I am in my 70s and was struggling financially, despite being in a professional job until my mid forties. There were no smart phones or foreign holidays, I had a fifteen year old second hand car until I got a company car at the age of 38. In my first marriage we bought a house in East Yorkshire and sold it for a profit of £8k, and then got divorced. It was only when I met my now wife who had all-but paid off the mortgage from her former marriage that we managed to start saving, I moved to the south coast and we managed to contribute to private pensions for about 15 years before retirement. No way could we manage without the State Pension, and we also don’t want to burden the next generation with the free care we gave for ten years to now-deceased parents. We also spent a lot of time and money doing school runs and babysitting 6 grandkids.

It is not our fault that governments have allowed property prices to escalate etc. we have done our bit, paid our taxes, never claimed any benefits and now people want to reduce our pensions, which were paid for by salary sacrifice through national insurance over 40 year when employed.

 

[RobH]

The fact that isn't a fact. As much as I'm loathed to use AI when responding on here, I thought maybe he's got a point lets put the following prompt into the posh version of Gemini...

"Could you produce a detailed list of typical consumer purchases, eg cars, food, clothes, electronic goods, public transport, entertainment, energy etc. Comparing the price in the UK as a percentage of median full time income. The analysis should be presented in a concise manner and in tabular form. The two reference point years should be 2026 and 1986."

This was the output...

From the Office for National Statistics (ONS) data:

• 1986 UK Median Full-Time Annual Income: ~£8,300 (based on a full-time median of ~£159.60 per week)
• 2026 UK Median Full-Time Annual Income: ~£39,039

Using these figures, here is how the relative costs look when compared purely against full-time earnings.

Category Typical Item 1986 Price % of 1986 FT Income 2026 Price % of 2026 FT Income Big Ticket & Fuel Cars New small family car £5,000.00 60.24% £23,000.00 58.91% Energy Annual Household Energy Bill £480.00 5.78% £1,641.00 4.20% Fuel Petrol (1 Litre) £0.38 0.0046% £1.57 0.0040% Electronics Standard Colour TV £250.00 3.01% £350.00 0.90% Everyday Essentials Clothes Pair of branded jeans £25.00 0.30% £90.00 0.23% Entertainment Cinema ticket £1.88 0.023% £8.00 0.021% Public Transport Single local bus fare £0.40 0.0048% £2.00 0.0051% The Shopping Basket Food (Staple) Loaf of white bread £0.43 0.0052% £1.40 0.0036% Dairy Milk (1 Pint) £0.24 0.0029% £0.80 0.0021% Dairy Cheddar Cheese (400g) £1.15 0.0139% £3.20 0.0082% Baking Plain Flour (1.5kg) £0.35 0.0042% £0.85 0.0022% Protein Eggs (Medium, Box of 6) £0.52 0.0063% £1.65 0.0042% Produce Apples (Fruit, 1kg) £0.78 0.0094% £2.40 0.0061% Produce Carrots (Veg, 1kg) £0.32 0.0039% £0.70 0.0018%

Food is quite surprising, if you run the numbers you actually find that the raw essentials are much cheaper today than they were in the 1980s in real terms.

Many of the things people think are expensive are actually no more expensive or cheaper, with a minor exception when it comes to public transport.

Yes it’s surprising, however housing isn’t on your chart.

 

[Kompany Car]

Yes it’s surprising, however housing isn’t on your chart.

I said in multiple previous posts regarding housing and my thoughts in response to @We've got Guardiola.

But as the friendly chap I am I'll summarise it -

Is the cost of housing a problem - yes and its by no means a unique problem to the UK as its occurring across Europe.

It was not caused by pensioners, it was caused by a small number of wealthy buy to let landlords and more recently the likes of Blackstone, hoovering up property and then renting it out. Allowing the use of residential property as an investment vehicle is the fundamental issue which should be addressed.

You solve the problem by building more affordable houses in areas with work (not in the middle of nowhere to meet a target), but you have to prevent investors buying them up when they are resold, that legislation still seems to be missing. You also need to limit the profit the developers are making, thats not just in the building of the houses but more importantly the land. Get planning permission on agricultural land and it suddenly becomes 50 to 100 times more valuable.

There needs to be rental caps on properties and a better regulation of them for those who choose not to buy or cannot afford it.

Thatcher selling off the council housing stock and failing to replace it with new houses was the root cause of many of todays issues. Private equity buying up houses started initially around London in the very early 90s after the house price crash and permeated outwards, as wealthy individuals saw it as a way to make money, which was low risk. Even if the house was trashed, the land value in areas like London would always recover from the low.

The increase in property prices was ultimately a side effect of poor legislation from both Conservative and Labour governments not boomers, pensioners, Gen X or any other generation.

The blaming that goes on over this issue is the same as the whole immigration discussion, pitting one group against another to argue over a few tens or hundreds of thousands whilst conveniently masking the hundreds of millions and billions being made by the truly wealthy.

 

[Rory Bluelow]

I do have sympathy around tuition fees and I'm a strong believer in education being free for those who need it.

The fundamental problem was that in the 90s, with the Education, Education, Education spiel from Blair, instead of 10-15% of people who were primarily academic high achievers going to university you suddenly had 30% going, which has now grown to around 50%. Great for the youth unemployment figures, but of questionable benefit in many cases due to the quality and devaluation of having a degree.

Many of the courses were at the places which were previously polytechnics, that had suddenly been granted University status and without wanting to sound condescending had courses that were more akin to HND level than to traditional degree level.

This of course became unaffordable to the taxpayer and the Blair government introduced tution fees which were ratcheted up in 2004 and then again following the financial crisis of 2008.

Whilst some will get the cost written off at a later date, its still a tax that they shouldn't have to bear.

What's done is done, but I personally wouldn't mind paying a bit more to make degree level education free and write off some or all of the education elements of the loan. But in the longer run it should be reigned back in for those of a more academic persuasion, rather than just being a right of passage, which is what it has become.

I do have sympathy around tuition fees and I'm a strong believer in education being free for those who need it.

The fundamental problem was that in the 90s, with the Education, Education, Education spiel from Blair, instead of 10-15% of people who were primarily academic high achievers going to university you suddenly had 30% going, which has now grown to around 50%. Great for the youth unemployment figures, but of questionable benefit in many cases due to the quality and devaluation of having a degree.

Many of the courses were at the places which were previously polytechnics, that had suddenly been granted University status and without wanting to sound condescending had courses that were more akin to HND level than to traditional degree level.

This of course became unaffordable to the taxpayer and the Blair government introduced tution fees which were ratcheted up in 2004 and then again following the financial crisis of 2008.

Whilst some will get the cost written off at a later date, its still a tax that they shouldn't have to bear.

What's done is done, but I personally wouldn't mind paying a bit more to make degree level education free and write off some or all of the education elements of the loan. But in the longer run it should be reigned back in for those of a more academic persuasion, rather than just being a right of passage, which is what it has become.

Degree level education really should be free. And it should be of a consistently high quality for potential elites and high achievers. Many conveniently forget tuition fees were a product of the 1998 - 2010 Labour Government - as was the commoditisation and commercialisation of University degrees. I despair for some young people I know, piled up with debt for degrees in “Design” or even “criminology” and having little or no idea how they can ever deliver value in terms of employment.
Blair and his cronies had a lot to answer for - quite interesting that Blair’s son has made tens of £millions pushing Apprenticeships !

 

[Rory Bluelow]

I said in multiple previous posts regarding housing and my thoughts in response to @We've got Guardiola.

But as the friendly chap I am I'll summarise it -

Is the cost of housing a problem - yes and its by no means a unique problem to the UK as its occurring across Europe.

It was not caused by pensioners, it was caused by a small number of wealthy buy to let landlords and more recently the likes of Blackstone, hoovering up property and then renting it out. Allowing the use of residential property as an investment vehicle is the fundamental issue which should be addressed.

You solve the problem by building more affordable houses in areas with work (not in the middle of nowhere to meet a target), but you have to prevent investors buying them up when they are resold, that legislation still seems to be missing. You also need to limit the profit the developers are making, thats not just in the building of the houses but more importantly the land. Get planning permission on agricultural land and it suddenly becomes 50 to 100 times more valuable.

There needs to be rental caps on properties and a better regulation of them for those who choose not to buy or cannot afford it.

Thatcher selling off the council housing stock and failing to replace it with new houses was the root cause of many of todays issues. Private equity buying up houses started initially around London in the very early 90s after the house price crash and permeated outwards, as wealthy individuals saw it as a way to make money, which was low risk. Even if the house was trashed, the land value in areas like London would always recover from the low.

The increase in property prices was ultimately a side effect of poor legislation from both Conservative and Labour governments not boomers, pensioners, Gen X or any other generation.

The blaming that goes on over this issue is the same as the whole immigration discussion, pitting one group against another to argue over a few tens or hundreds of thousands whilst conveniently masking the hundreds of millions and billions being made by the truly wealthy.

Thatcher’s creation in the 1980’s of the right to buy (which carried on under various successor Governments) has produced a pool of relatively affordable owner-occupied property. Ex-council properties being quite sought after due to generous gardens and decent build quality. We must also factor-in that in 1985 our population stood at 55,000,000 and our current number is around 69,000,000 a hike of 25% since the mid-80’s. This increased demand from a consistently growing population has not been matched by new builds and must have put upward pressure on prices. Beyond simply housing, the national infrastructure has not been expanded/improved to deal with 25% more people either, in terms of new reservoirs, sewers, roads etc - as is plainly evident from the appalling and inadequate state/extent of these assets. A total failure to adequately plan and respond by our political class of all hues.

 

[The Light Was Yellow Sir]

I do have sympathy around tuition fees and I'm a strong believer in education being free for those who need it.

The fundamental problem was that in the 90s, with the Education, Education, Education spiel from Blair, instead of 10-15% of people who were primarily academic high achievers going to university you suddenly had 30% going, which has now grown to around 50%. Great for the youth unemployment figures, but of questionable benefit in many cases due to the quality and devaluation of having a degree.

Many of the courses were at the places which were previously polytechnics, that had suddenly been granted University status and without wanting to sound condescending had courses that were more akin to HND level than to traditional degree level.

This of course became unaffordable to the taxpayer and the Blair government introduced tution fees which were ratcheted up in 2004 and then again following the financial crisis of 2008.

Whilst some will get the cost written off at a later date, its still a tax that they shouldn't have to bear.

What's done is done, but I personally wouldn't mind paying a bit more to make degree level education free and write off some or all of the education elements of the loan. But in the longer run it should be reigned back in for those of a more academic persuasion, rather than just being a right of passage, which is what it has become.

And yet, by 2035, more than 11 million extra graduates, in addition to the 15.3 million graduates currently in the UK workforce will be needed to fill UK jobs. 88% of new jobs, by 2035, will be at graduate level.

So, we either increase our own graduate numbers or we import them, which is impossible given how much we despise foreigners!

Oddly enough, India has 43 million students but their fees are nothing like ours, so we could afford it but we’d rather not because we can put student ‘debt’ on the other side of the balance sheet, making it look like we’re taking back a lot more than we ever do.
Like almost everything in this country, it’s just a scam…

 

[We've got Guardiola]

Some of these posts are really insulting. I am in my 70s and was struggling financially, despite being in a professional job until my mid forties. There were no smart phones or foreign holidays, I had a fifteen year old second hand car until I got a company car at the age of 38. In my first marriage we bought a house in East Yorkshire and sold it for a profit of £8k, and then got divorced. It was only when I met my now wife who had all-but paid off the mortgage from her former marriage that we managed to start saving, I moved to the south coast and we managed to contribute to private pensions for about 15 years before retirement. No way could we manage without the State Pension, and we also don’t want to burden the next generation with the free care we gave for ten years to now-deceased parents. We also spent a lot of time and money doing school runs and babysitting 6 grandkids.

It is not our fault that governments have allowed property prices to escalate etc. we have done our bit, paid our taxes, never claimed any benefits and now people want to reduce our pensions, which were paid for by salary sacrifice through national insurance over 40 year when employed.

This might be a reference to my posts, apologies if I offended. I maybe did go in too hot on things but it is however a big frustration of mine. Of course everyone has had it difficult at somepoint and I don't want to reduce that.

I however just don't think that young people get the attention that they deserve in politics. The fact is they get literally nothing, far less than any other generation. For that they're scoffed at and told to shutup and stop buying froffy coffees because that must be the prime reason to not afford a £20,000 house deposit....

Life is both difficult and grim for them, there's no other way to say it. That's because they will be the ones to pay for decades of greed, wars, viruses, mismanagement and economic failure.... And this isn't a blip, it's permanent and it's only going to continue to get worse.

 

[heslops barnet]

And the lips......

Fat arses

 

[Ho Chi Man City]

This is 100% wrong. At present the SP is not taxable as it is below the threshold. It will be from next year, which IS wrong and Reeves needs to bite the bullet and increase the threshold to keep it above the SP.

We e had this before, my SP is now 13.546 so I’ve potentially got a tax bill for that of 192 pa. It’s my only income as I’m currently subsidising my life style from savings and investments whilst my SIPP continues to grow.

 

[Ho Chi Man City]

This might be a reference to my posts, apologies if I offended. I maybe did go in too hot on things but it is however a big frustration of mine. Of course everyone has had it difficult at somepoint and I don't want to reduce that.

I however just don't think that young people get the attention that they deserve in politics. The fact is they get literally nothing, far less than any other generation. For that they're scoffed at and told to shutup and stop buying froffy coffees because that must be the prime reason to not afford a £20,000 house deposit....

Life is both difficult and grim for them, there's no other way to say it. That's because they will be the ones to pay for decades of greed, wars, viruses, mismanagement and economic failure.... And this isn't a blip, it's permanent and it's only going to continue to get worse.

There’s plenty of non working people receiving benefits and not looking for a job, they and the increasing cost of taking illegal immigrants in is contributing to a tough time for the youngsters who are working but struggling. If we don’t do something soon it’ll get even worse.

I make no apologies for mentioning immigrants but will not interact with anyone who wants to take me to task on the subject.

 

[mosssideblue]

We e had this before, my SP is now 13.546 so I’ve potentially got a tax bill for that of 192 pa. It’s my only income as I’m currently subsidising my life style from savings and investments whilst my SIPP continues to grow.

max uk state pension £12.5k? How do you get more

 

[Ho Chi Man City]

It's an average of everyone in the UK now, not an average of 18 year-olds on minimum wage though. Only around 10% of people smoke now, so sure, those people are spending a lot more than 2% on smoking, but averaged out over the entire country, it's 2% because for 90% of people it's zero. The average British household spend around £15 a week on alcohol, tobacco and drugs according to this, and if you're under 30, that drops to £5 a week. That works out at £780 a year, which is 2% of a £39,000 household income. Again, there are a lot of people (20%) who drink nothing, and another decent number who might drink rarely. I don't live in the UK any more, but I reckon I'm reasonably typical of this group. I don't usually have alcohol in the house, and I might go out for a few beers once a month or so even though I eat out more than once a week (I live in a much cheaper country). Drugs are a real minority interest. Most people aren't regularly using them and even most of those who are are only doing so rarely. Honestly, I think a lot of these things are so expensive nowadays that increasing numbers of people are simply not bothering. Hence why all the pubs are closing.

There’s plenty that don’t drink or smoke but the proliferation of take away and fast food apps must take up a fair proportion of some people’s disposable income. Ubers and the like are also doing pretty well these days as people have become lazier and less active.