"Living with dignity" in retirement

[spikey]

Further to my last post on page 1, I forgot to say that since The Lady Wife and I discovered that as well as being officially "in relative poverty" and "in food poverty" we're also apparently unable to live with dignity,  we now wonder does this make us undignified?  Indignant?  Indigent?  Whatever, one delight in retirement was hitting 75 after being pestered for decades by TV licencing who refused to believe that we haven't had a television since 1981.  I still have no TV, but I now have a free TV licence on principle!

 

And just to chuck a pebble into the pond - is it right that everyone, irrespective of their financial circumstances, gets a winter fuel payment each year once they hit State Pension age?

[AndrueC]

33 minutes ago, spikey said:

And just to chuck a pebble into the pond - is it right that everyone, irrespective of their financial circumstances, gets a winter fuel payment each year once they hit State Pension age?

Yes. It's not as mad as it sounds though. If the payment were only made to 'those who really need it' time and money would have to be spent working out who needs it and how to assess them then more money would need to be spent administering the system.

 

It costs the public purse less to just give everyone over a certain age a lump sum.

 

It's one of the reasons why a universal income could be a good idea. Do away with all the means testing for multiple benefits which is degrading and expensive to operate. Eliminate the opportunities for fraud by saying that everyone gets it anyway. I think that would still require a bit of administration to vary it by age but basically extend the pension system back to everyone over the age of 18.

Edited June 29, 2023 by AndrueC

[Steamport Southport]

19 minutes ago, spikey said:

And just to chuck a pebble into the pond - is it right that everyone, irrespective of their financial circumstances, gets a winter fuel payment each year once they hit State Pension age?

 

Yes. Haven't those people with money been putting their money in the pot as well?

 

Usually a hell of a lot more money than those that haven't done a tap in their entire lives that seem to get every benefit imaginable. Unfortunately I know quite a few of those people.....

 

The same goes for bus passes, TV licences, etc. It should be free for all once they get to a certain age.

 

 

For clarity I'm nowhere near the higher bracket of pay and not remotely close to retirement age. It'll be something like 70 when I get there!

 

 

Jason

[alastairq]

31 minutes ago, spikey said:

And just to chuck a pebble into the pond - is it right that everyone, irrespective of their financial circumstances, gets a winter fuel payment each year once they hit State Pension age?

 Yes, I believe it's right that everyone should be entitled to receive it.

 

The alternative [forgetting the administrative costs for the moment] is a form of means testing.

 

At least the present way means anyone who might have been ''on the cusp'' of whether or not they qualified to receive it, no longer has that complaint.      

 

Personally I don't care if my MP receives it....That,  is totally irrelevant to me, personally. What matters to me is that I receive it.

 

How I care to utilise this annual windfall is up to me..my business!

 

Like a proper bus service [to the public!].....which should see a bus turn up at every village or hamlet, at regular & frequent intervals,  totally regardless of whether anybody actually uses it, or not!

Then, at least, everybody gets an option...an alternative [in this case, travel?]. 

Then and only then,can local authorities impose restrictions on private car access to towns or cities.

The option must be in place, for everybody, first.

[alastairq]

Incidentally, should we still be referring to our{?} segment of society as 'retired?' Or, worse still, ''the'' retired?

 

Especially when  we no longer can call a spade, a spade?

 

Also, I discovered one cannot actually be 'retired' from one's work.....forcefully. [so to speak]

My last job [as, in a general sense, a civil servant] had no provision for 'retirement'....as such.

 

My State pension kicked in at my 65th year....

 

Yet there was no compulsion to 'retire' in the old sense.

 

Indeed, where-I-worked there were active personnel, doing the same, [or similar] work as myself, at the age of 75 or more..[the observations were, it beat collecting trolleys at Tesco!]..As long as the various medical requirements were met, no-one was at 'retirement ' age.

One had to actually, simply, ''leave!''

 

Hence forward, I referred to myself as a ''not-working'' individual..rather than a 'working' bodd.

'Retirement' gives me the impression of 'giving up'...or 'running down'....

I hate the description ''retiree'' as well, vehemently. 

 

Also I will willingly grab any form of income, from whatever [State?] source...without concern for morality or ethics.  Which are all fine n  dandy, providing one can afford to have them!

 

Like electric cars, or 'saving the planet'...

[The Johnster]

2 hours ago, alastairq said:

My only loss of dignity occurs for around 5 minutes after climbing out of my motor....

 

I feel your pain, alastairq.

 

About twenty years ago, on a long weekend band jolly with the band during which we self-catered in Borth (highly recommended, brilliant place, friendly, good pubs especially the muso-friendly 'Friendship') and, despite it being winter but considering it was a good clear sunny day, some of us decided to 'do' Cadair Idris.  Now, Cadair is a proper mountain to be treated with respect, as all the walking routes start from quite low elevations and there is a lot of climbing and descending to be done, more than on some higher Welsh mountains, and it's pretty unrelentingly steep.  Started early, took our time, had a marvellous day out, the weather was hazy but the views were spectacular, but we had to come home the following day.  I could, in those days, go up anything so long as I could stop for breath, but coming down destroyed my calf and thigh muscles!  I am not going to claim that I was in peak condition and neither was my friend Tina, who I was giving a lift home to...

 

Tina had never been over the Abergwesyn Pass, so we decided to go home that way.  Both a bit stiff and aching, the plan was to stop off and have a pub lunch at Tregaron, which is about a 40-minute drive from Borth.  This was enough for us both to lock up solid in the car, and we caused much Sunday lunchtime amusement among the churchgoers going home (or over the pub) in Tregaron as we hobbled bent double across the square from car to pub, about ten minutes for a journey of about forty feet!  Poor old things!  I made sure to make frequent legstretcher stops the rest of the way, about every 15 minutes for the circumnavigation of a Fiat Punto which took about five minutes (!), we'd got it down to a minute towards the end of the journey, which actually made for a rather pleasant, if slow, journey...  Took about a week for the stiffness to subside and it was the last of my big mountain walks!

 

It was really spectacular on Cadair, though, and one of the best days I ever had hillwalking; worth the pain.  I don't do hill walks or even coastal paths any more, keep it short distance and level, poor old man that I am, it would be just too risky and whilst I like riding in helicopters, I don't want to clot my botty book by riding in that one!

[spikey]

1 hour ago, AndrueC said:

... l the means testing for multiple benefits which is degrading ...

 

Can you help me to understand that?  As one who is on a means-tested benefit, I simply fail to see what the problem is.  

[The Johnster]

4 hours ago, Steamport Southport said:

 

 

 

When I was involved in the music industry I knew musicians who virtually lived in hotels, tour buses and recording studios. No point having a house as they were never home!

 

Or you could do it the Charlotte Church way.  She buys flats in places she regularly visits to stay in as pied a terres, leading to her having acquiring a substantial property profile as a pension plan for when the ciggies wrecked the voice of an angel.  Sensible girl, and she was very young and considered somewhat reckless and irresponsible when she started doing this.

 

Musos have traditionally occupied an itinerant niche, as have actors.  I have certainly heard of them saying that tours merge into a sort of amorphous hotel room in an amorphous city in an amorphous country or state, and describing the disassociation and surreality of the existence that leads to this.  No wonder so many of them succumb to substance abuse.

[tomparryharry]

I

56 minutes ago, spikey said:

 

Can you help me to understand that?  As one who is on a means-tested benefit, I simply fail to see what the problem is.  

 Means testing can be extremely degrading. Some people can cope with the interviews, but a lot of people can't. I know; I'm one of those people. 

[TheQ]

Used to vaguely know a very ancient gentleman  a former company director, who had lost all his family, he just drove from hotel to hotel for a month at a time, he had an immaculate Rover P5. He used to spend December in St Andrews to play golf when it was easy to get onto the old course.

The hotel staff were always worried one morning he wouldn't come downstairs...

 

I retired at Christmas, a year early, I'd had enough of the ever increasing bureaucracy, the ever increasing meetings, all the while reducing time to do your actual job.

 

This year we'll make a loss, as we only have two small pensions at the moment, but for me the biggest becomes available in September, the state and the smallest become available in December.

Then we'll be around the living in dignity, a final top up will be SWMBO's state pension a year later.

 

As for what to do ,

SWMBO has her art group and her weaving group https://www.worsteadweavers.org.uk/ for half a day each week, plus of course both can be carried on at home.

 

I have sailing one day a week , with odd two dayers and of course regatta week 29th July to 4th  August this year. https://youtu.be/GGCZ_AeyB3M

Then of course there is the MRC for three hours each two evenings , plus what I can do at home. 

And I volunteer at https://www.radarmuseum.co.uk/ one day a week.

 

Added to this we have an acre and a half of garden jungle. That needs maintenance..

 

Our problem is not enough time to do everything...

 

 

 

 

 

Edited June 29, 2023 by TheQ

[Neil]

Universal benefits are fair or perhaps I should say can be made fair. It's a bit like the NHS, everybody gets free treatment but we all chip in depending on our ability to pay, those earning a pittance don't pay but get the benefit, those on moderate incomes pay a moderate amount and the properly wealth pay a greater amount. The sang is that this doesn't always work, the wealthy always seem to find a loophole (sometimes the loophole is deliberately left by particular governments) so the principle is degraded.

 

In essence though universality is an excellent idea, everyone gets the benefit but you pay according to your ability to pay.

 

[alastairq]

The issue I currently have with the likes of Universal credit, etc etc...and means testing  as a whole is.....successive UK Governments have insisted on putting the running of these systems out to private contract.

It is the 'private contractor' thing that I object the most to...Especially when they seem to regularly prove to be inadequate for the job?

 

Also, when I was young {er} nobody dreamt of warning me about the other thing old age brings about......Pain!

[spikey]

1 hour ago, tomparryharry said:

Means testing can be extremely degrading.  

 

Personally I've never allowed myself to feel degraded by it.  AFAIC if it's necessary in order for me to gain an improvement in my circumstances, I'm fine with that 🙂

[Bernard Lamb]

38 minutes ago, spikey said:

 

Personally I've never allowed myself to feel degraded by it.  AFAIC if it's necessary in order for me to gain an improvement in my circumstances, I'm fine with that 🙂

Quite right. If I need to grovel to get more money then I will grovel to an olympic standard.

When I had a spot of bother in respect of finances I was given the chance to apply to a special hardship fund. When I asked about the conditions I was told to do a good sob story and was also told that I should not have any difficulty in doing that. I laid it on thick and received a very nice lump sum, tax free of course, much to the annoyance of Gordon Brown who was very much against me and others in the same situation (loss of pension) getting any extra.

Bernard

[TT-Pete]

A very interesting topic for discussion!

 

Retirement is an increasignly discussed topic in our household and just about everybody I talk to in the 55-60 age bracket seems to be fed up with the world of work and the changes of the past 10-15 years or so (or is that just a symptom of becoming a crusty old git?) and counting down the days (but then I remember my Dad being like that too back in the 90's).

 

We've been through planning with an IFA and the planets align in 3 1/2 years time with the youngest having finished Uni, the mortgage paid off (thank god we got a 7 years fixed for the last leg) and the first of Madame's pensions maturing (she has a few years on me), so we have a choice of either going part-time, or putting up with a few lean years (quite happy to cut our coat to suit our cloth) until everything else kicks in (fingers crossed that the economy isn't in a Venezuelan condition by then).

 

Personally I have a stockpile of flat kits and projects in the cupboard big enough to last me until about age 110, but I do worry about Madame whose main interest outside work is watching property programmes on telly, but art classes have been mooted once or twice.

 

Having seen health and circumstances with friends and family we are increasingly of the view that life is just too precious and that you have to make the most of it whilst you still can...

 

Edited June 29, 2023 by TT-Pete

[Enterprisingwestern]

3 hours ago, The Johnster said:

 

 my friend Tina, who I was giving a lift home to...we'd got it down to a minute towards the end of the journey, which actually made for a rather pleasant, if slow, journey...  Took about a week for the stiffness to subside

 

 

 

Selective editing, who, moi??

 

Mike.

[AndrueC]

3 hours ago, spikey said:

 

Can you help me to understand that?  As one who is on a means-tested benefit, I simply fail to see what the problem is.  

Depends on the individual. A lot of people hate having to beg the government for money or justify their circumstances. It's thankfully something I've not have to do since I got my first job many decades ago but I'm pretty sure there aren't many people who love the DWP or their experience of dealing with them.

[The Johnster]

4 hours ago, spikey said:

 

Can you help me to understand that?  As one who is on a means-tested benefit, I simply fail to see what the problem is.  

 

Non-means tested benefits and allowances to which everybody is entitled have been around for years, the earliest TTBOMK but I'd be delighted to be proved wrong being the old Family Allowance, the first benefit paid to women who were not the breadwinners of the family, and a major social improvement for them as they had for the first time an income that their husbands &c didn't have access to or control over.  Even the old Queen got paid this!

[The Johnster]

1 hour ago, Enterprisingwestern said:

 

Selective editing, who, moi??

 

Mike.

 

Indeed, it felt as if the stiffness could have been relieved by appropriate lubrication...

 

You are a very bad person, Mike, and I thoroughly approve of you!

[The Johnster]

33 minutes ago, AndrueC said:

Depends on the individual. A lot of people hate having to beg the government for money or justify their circumstances. It's thankfully something I've not have to do since I got my first job many decades ago but I'm pretty sure there aren't many people who love the DWP or their experience of dealing with them.

 

Dignity?

 

Having suffered much humiliation at the hands of the system (the DWP, their predecessors the DHSS, and the council HB desk) in the years before I was able to claim State Pension (rarely, it most be said, at the hands of the front line counter staff who have often been very helpful and sympathetic, but powerless), I am a big fan of universal non-means-tested benefits paid to all, and a standard basic income sufficient to support a reasonable but basic lifestyle.  You would then have the option of going out to work if you wanted more than this basic lifestyle, which most people would, and employers would have to pay market wages.

 

Dignity?

 

Since it's inception in 1947, the Welfare State has been hobbled by a pernicious aspect of public opinion, that it is paid to people who do not want to work and are fundamentally scroungers.  A number are, indubitably, but it is a small number.  All the same, the system is set up to prevent fraud as far as possible, on the basis that all claimants are by definition trying it on, in the name of protecting public funds.  Fair enough you may say, and you are entitled to your view, but you may not know that the amount of publicly funded benefits that are lost to fraud is (and has been since 1947) around one-seventh of the amount that is not paid out because of DWP inefficiency, failure to inform claimants of their entitlements, and claim processing delays. 

 

Dignity?

 

Another aspect, and one in my view that is absolutely inconsistent with treating human beings with even the most basic level of dignity and common respect, is the default by which, should the computer detect any query regarding your benefit payment, the payment is stopped forthwith until the matter is resolved.  Most of the time, the point at which the claimant becomes aware of this is when the benefit inexplicably does not arrive in the bank account.  It can take weeks or months for the problem to be resolved, nearly always to the effect that benefit is fully restored with back pay as the DWP or Council HB dept. is satisfied with your explanation or the information you have had to provide for them, but during which time genuine hardship is caused, services cut off, and rent unpaid; people have lost their homes over this, and on one occasion I would have were it not for an understanding landlord who was familiar with the issue, and would have been entirely justified in getting a posession order!  Not much dignity in evidence here, and were I in a position to do so it would be one of the first matters I'd address; enquire into problems the computer highlights as much as you like, but keep paying benefits until it has been established that the claimant is not entitled to them, having informed him/her that the problem has arisen.

 

Dignity?

 

It is, I am sure, not a coincidence that there is constant change in benefit regulations and entitlements 'to ensure the correct people are being paid the correct benefits more efficiently in a targeted way'.  I think that's rubbish, frankly, come off it; the changes are constantly rung in order to disrupt the system once it begins to settle into whatever the last regime was, in order to provide reasons for stopping peoples' benefits.  This smoke and mirrors allows many millions of £££s to be available to the government while the problems are being sorted out, and it can be banked or invested to provide an income for the Treasury.  I'd like to see a system whereby money witheld in this way is backpaid with interest at a sufficient level to make it costly to the DWP; that would stop the re-organisations and disruption overnight!

 

Dignity?

 

I am now in my seventh year of State Pensionhood, am significantly less stressed in consequence, with a degree of dignity now available to me!  At least I can be reasonably sure the State Pension will appear in my bank account on time, and indeed it has for the period I've been entitled to it, whereas benefits were always a bit unreliable and if they didn't turn up you were immediately in a panic in case they'd been stopped, though they were sometimes simply delayed in the system. 

 

Surely, it would be better if a basic income was paid to all citizens on the understanding that once you've spent it there is no more until next pay day, and that you are individually responsible for your bills and taxes.  There would be much less administration as an overhead, no fraud, and more public money would be available; moreover, as any wages you earned would be over and above the basic allowance, wage bills to employers would fall.  It would be paid for by society on a 'from each according to his/her ability' basis; works for the NHS!  The effect should be a fairer and more equable distribution of wealth in society (which is becoming more divided over time along wealth lines; what we are doing now isn't working!) as a holistic whole, socialist principles in a capitalist economy but the electorate prefer to have an underclass of people that they can feel superior to and rather like that some people are kept in uneccessary poverty with little oportunity to escape it on sink estates and in bedsit jungles, so no political party will ever be interested in such a concept as it would be electoral suicide.

 

Rant over.

[TheSignalEngineer]

Retired? I finished early, worked one day per week as doing more rapidly put me into a higher tax bracket. Gave that up when I reached 66 as I was spending too much time and effort arguing with HMRC et al about how much they thought I owed them or what I was entitled to claim for. My project list is now so big I could do with working 16 hours per day at it. House maintenance, gardening, bike maintenance, tennis restrings for Mrs SE, daughter, SiL, and two grandsons. Railway modelling, making videos from old cine films and camcorder tapes, the list goes on and on.

[Nearholmer]

34 minutes ago, The Johnster said:

Surely, it would be better if a basic income was paid to all citizens

At long last, there is a trial of universal basic income taking place in England, and I have an inkling that a trial has been underway in Wales for a few months already. 

 

 

[Andy Hayter]

7 hours ago, spikey said:

 

 

And just to chuck a pebble into the pond - is it right that everyone, irrespective of their financial circumstances, gets a winter fuel payment each year once they hit State Pension age?

 

But everyone does not get WFA.

 

Around 10 years ago the government decided that WFA should only go to pensioners living in countries that were at least as cold as the UK.  Those that lived in warmer winter climes had WFA removed.  

 

That all sounds very reasonable doesn't it?

 

However there seems to have been a bit of skulduggery.  Those UK pensioners living in Italy do get WFA but those in France don't.  All very strange until you dig and find that the UK government included all of the French overseas territories.  So the winter temperature calculation includes places such as Martinique (where very few UK pensioners live) and French Guyana (where almost none live).   DWP claim they cannot separate out the territories which is strange because the French meteorological service do it every day.   Mainland France is significantly colder than much of the UK during the winter.  Although I live as far south as Bordeaux we regularly get overnight temperatures in the minus teens during winter.  

 

I can live without WFA but I know of some who struggled as a result of its withdrawal.

 

As for it being a universal payment, it is worth remembering that it came in originally as a sop to pensioners because the then government did not increase the pension that year but instead gave the WFA.  

 

 

[Nearholmer]

32 minutes ago, TheSignalEngineer said:

Retired? I finished early, worked one day per week

Sounds very similar to my process, which has involved progressively reducing work, now down to one day a week, aiming to switch that off when I reach 65 (or maybe 66). My way of avoiding arguments with HMRC has been simple, and seems to have worked so far: work only under PAYE as an employee, which also avoids the need to take out individual  professional indemnity insurance, which becomes prohibitively expensive  when set against a low number of hours worked. Staying strictly PAYE has possibly cost me money, but it has saved a lot of worry/hassle.

[Steamport Southport]

23 minutes ago, The Johnster said:

 

Dignity?

 

Having suffered much humiliation at the hands of the system (the DWP, their predecessors the DHSS, and the council HB desk) in the years before I was able to claim State Pension (rarely, it most be said, at the hands of the front line counter staff who have often been very helpful and sympathetic, but powerless), I am a big fan of universal non-means-tested benefits paid to all, and a standard basic income sufficient to support a reasonable but basic lifestyle.  You would then have the option of going out to work if you wanted more than this basic lifestyle, which most people would, and employers would have to pay market wages.

 

Dignity?

 

Since it's inception in 1947, the Welfare State has been hobbled by a pernicious aspect of public opinion, that it is paid to people who do not want to work and are fundamentally scroungers.  A number are, indubitably, but it is a small number.  All the same, the system is set up to prevent fraud as far as possible, on the basis that all claimants are by definition trying it on, in the name of protecting public funds.  Fair enough you may say, and you are entitled to your view, but you may not know that the amount of publicly funded benefits that are lost to fraud is (and has been since 1947) around one-seventh of the amount that is not paid out because of DWP inefficiency, failure to inform claimants of their entitlements, and claim processing delays. 

 

Dignity?

 

Another aspect, and one in my view that is absolutely inconsistent with treating human beings with even the most basic level of dignity and common respect, is the default by which, should the computer detect any query regarding your benefit payment, the payment is stopped forthwith until the matter is resolved.  Most of the time, the point at which the claimant becomes aware of this is when the benefit inexplicably does not arrive in the bank account.  It can take weeks or months for the problem to be resolved, nearly always to the effect that benefit is fully restored with back pay as the DWP or Council HB dept. is satisfied with your explanation or the information you have had to provide for them, but during which time genuine hardship is caused, services cut off, and rent unpaid; people have lost their homes over this, and on one occasion I would have were it not for an understanding landlord who was familiar with the issue, and would have been entirely justified in getting a posession order!  Not much dignity in evidence here, and were I in a position to do so it would be one of the first matters I'd address; enquire into problems the computer highlights as much as you like, but keep paying benefits until it has been established that the claimant is not entitled to them, having informed him/her that the problem has arisen.

 

Dignity?

 

It is, I am sure, not a coincidence that there is constant change in benefit regulations and entitlements 'to ensure the correct people are being paid the correct benefits more efficiently in a targeted way'.  I think that's rubbish, frankly, come off it; the changes are constantly rung in order to disrupt the system once it begins to settle into whatever the last regime was, in order to provide reasons for stopping peoples' benefits.  This smoke and mirrors allows many millions of £££s to be available to the government while the problems are being sorted out, and it can be banked or invested to provide an income for the Treasury.  I'd like to see a system whereby money witheld in this way is backpaid with interest at a sufficient level to make it costly to the DWP; that would stop the re-organisations and disruption overnight!

 

Dignity?

 

I am now in my seventh year of State Pensionhood, am significantly less stressed in consequence, with a degree of dignity now available to me!  At least I can be reasonably sure the State Pension will appear in my bank account on time, and indeed it has for the period I've been entitled to it, whereas benefits were always a bit unreliable and if they didn't turn up you were immediately in a panic in case they'd been stopped, though they were sometimes simply delayed in the system. 

 

Surely, it would be better if a basic income was paid to all citizens on the understanding that once you've spent it there is no more until next pay day, and that you are individually responsible for your bills and taxes.  There would be much less administration as an overhead, no fraud, and more public money would be available; moreover, as any wages you earned would be over and above the basic allowance, wage bills to employers would fall.  It would be paid for by society on a 'from each according to his/her ability' basis; works for the NHS!  The effect should be a fairer and more equable distribution of wealth in society (which is becoming more divided over time along wealth lines; what we are doing now isn't working!) as a holistic whole, socialist principles in a capitalist economy but the electorate prefer to have an underclass of people that they can feel superior to and rather like that some people are kept in uneccessary poverty with little oportunity to escape it on sink estates and in bedsit jungles, so no political party will ever be interested in such a concept as it would be electoral suicide.

 

Rant over.

 

Well before 1947. I'm afraid the Labour Party had absolutely nothing to do with it, despite their claims. They didn't have more than a handful of MPs when it was introduced.

 

This was the make up of the government of the time.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/December_1910_United_Kingdom_general_election

 

 

National Insurance Act 1911 and brought in under a Liberal government and overwhelmingly backed by the Tories in the House Of Commons.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Insurance_Act_1911

 

Then there was the Unemployment Insurance Act 1921 where it was extended to women and under 18s. Again under a Liberal/Tory coalition.

 

 

Old Age Pensions Act 1908 brought in by the Liberals and supported by the Tories.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Age_Pensions_Act_1908

 

 

Sorry for getting slightly into politics, but sometimes you need to look at actual facts. Some of us studied History unlike some that want to abolish it to teach the kids "finance" as was suggested earlier in the thread!

 

Henry VIII did quite a lot for the poor as well. He got rid of the tithes that they had to pay to the monasteries for starters.

 

🤓

 

 

Jason