Had to do a double take at the Telegraph running an article like this. I immediately checked the comments section next and sure enough, a lot of angry pensioners there.
>- Cancelling my subscription today. This woman is grim.
>- Intergenerational theft? Just wait until it’s your generations turn. Oh, I forgot- you won’t have any equity. Having squandered all ours on net zero you’ll be begging for support. Clogs to Clogs in three generations.
>- For many young people today deprivation seems to equate to not being able to afford the latest mobile ‘phone or have multiple foreign holidays. Goodness knows how they would have coped with the real deprivation many of their grandparents’ generation faced in the late 40’s, 50’s and 60’s.
>- There is the idea that many old people are ‘millionaires’. If they really are, I assume this refers to the notional values of their homes (which may be revised downwards radically over the next few years, of course). The only way to access their ‘millions’ would be to force the sale of their homes. Then what? When all the assets of the older generation are gone, what then? What will we do and who will we blame?
>- Perhaps the young could do what everyone else did, well those of us that don’t work for the public purse, and live within their means in hard times and work hard to accumulate wealth and property or whatever they choose to invest in. The government isn’t there to bail them out. I want very low tax and the choice to spend my money on what my priorities are, and it isn’t the young.
>- Just to point out that we were promised our state pension aged 60 until the rug was pulled. No generation, as you put it, should trust any government’s promises. Times change and young people today do extremely well out of all the things the older generations have fought for along the way. So get over this envy culture, roll up your sleeves and make things better as you live your lives.
>- The woke increasing the parasite population. Correction the now Termite population rotting from within!
>- Typical woke nonsense. As Tebbitt said get on your bike and graft.
If Japan’s most celebrated centenarian Kane Tanaka was still alive, she would have been celebrated and lavished with gifts at next month’s Respect for the Aged Day – a national holiday in Japan which takes place every September to honour elderly citizens.
Known for its veneration of the elderly, Japan has the world’s oldest population and Tanaka, who died in April at the age of 119, having been in relatively good health and enjoying afternoons spent studying maths, would have been the star of the show as the world’s oldest living person.
But when economist Richard Davies travelled to the country to do some research in 2018, he was surprised by what he found. Many young people appeared to actually resent the old, and it was creating serious problems for the economy. Frustrated that they were footing the bill for the elderly and living in a world of rising intergenerational inequality, a new vocabulary had emerged among the young – words like “rojin” for old person had been tweaked to “rojin boke,” senile old person, while some compared the elderly to fallen leaves.
Friction was building. The UK is now at risk of going the same way, Davies tells me. That matters because the state relies on people trusting that the system works in a way that gives them a fair deal throughout their life, he explains. Make some payments today, receive benefits tomorrow. If people start to think that that’s not going to happen for them then the fabric of society starts to erode.
Britain’s ageing society does not get as much air time as other issues, but Davies believes it could create vast problems in a decade or so and deserves much more attention now. If younger Britons feel that they won’t get the same deal as their parents and grandparents, their confidence in the tax system will collapse. After two years of life being put on hold due to Covid shutdowns and now faced with spiraling costs and a recession, resentment among the young is building.
Experts say retirees will largely be sheltered from the cost of living crisis next year as the state pension guarantees them an inflation-matched increase in income, with the state pension set to breach the £200-a-week mark for the first time next April. Official figures also found earlier this year that the number of silver millionaires has nearly quadrupled over the past decade to reach 3.1m.
While millions of older people are of course still living in poverty and in need of help, the general takeaway for many struggling young workers is that while pensioners are getting a boost, they have been lumbered with the biggest tax burden in 70 years at a time when they have had to swallow a real-terms pay cut.
Young families facing a bleak winter will feel that government spending has been unfairly skewed towards their core voters for too long. Research from the Intergenerational Foundation shows that the amount of money the government spends on an older person compared to a child has doubled over the past 19 years, to around £20,800 on each pensioner and only £14,700 on each child in the year before the pandemic.
A study published last week by the IFS Deaton Review of Inequalities found that inequalities in Britain’s education system have barely changed over the last 20 years and could even increase in future as a result of the Covid crisis. The next generation of voters will remember this imbalance. Unless the Tories accept that it’s time to confront wealthy pensioners, it will only be a matter of time before the tensions seen by Davies in Japan are mirrored over here.
But this debate doesn’t need to be about young vs old. After all, an ageing population should be considered a sign of a healthy society rather than a problem. Japan’s obesity rate is tiny, with a diet known for being lean and balanced, and its healthcare system is among the best in the world.
People getting frailer and living for longer is only a burden on the economy if it is managed poorly. In Japan, some smart graduates have spotted an opportunity. Davies says the young are scrambling to come up with “age tech” ideas, such as apps which quickly alert a local GP to health concerns and estate agents that focus on finding flats just for older people, so that they can create businesses which benefit the growing elderly population while also creating jobs and money for themselves.
Students in Japan are saying that when they graduate they want to work on the “ageing problem” because it’s seen as a cool, aspirational thing to do, Davies says, while his students in the UK are much more likely to want to work on environmental issues. Spotting the opportunities in an ageing society could benefit many young British entrepreneurs in future.
Another solution is for businesses and the government to encourage more retirees back into the workplace, a trend which is already starting to play out in the UK. Official figures published last week showed that there has been a record rise in the number of over-65s in employment this quarter. Companies have begun marketing campaigns specifically targeting potential grey-haired workers, aware that the benefits could be enormous.
There are plenty of ways to adapt to an ageing society that do not lead to intergenerational resentment, but the Government needs to acknowledge when it is funneling too much money in one direction.
The inability of (some) pensioners to see or understand how hard the financial situation is for young people today is mind boggling. They are very much the ‘I’m alright Jack’ generation. Let’s not forget these are not the generation wot won the war…that was the previous lot, this lot grew up in much easier times to the generations before them or today.
That’s the Tories’ core vote. Despite the frothing in the comments, I think they all know that something’s gone badly wrong. But they’re not going to break the habit of a lifetime and vote against their own interests now, no chance.
It’s really bleak.
Narrator:
*They don’t*
That will be never
In the Torygraph?! The world really has gone mad…
Unfortunately the young are their own worst enemy. If everyone aged 18-35 bothered to vote there wouldn’t be a Tory government
Hah, that’s all that’s gonna be left of their voter base after they kill off all the poor ones this winter. They’re not gonna confront shit.
Their voting base? Not a chance.
[deleted]
Remember when May tried to scrap the triple lock pension in the campaign for the 2017 election? That lasted less than 48 hours before she had to u-turn in the face of the overwhelming backlash to the idea. If the Tories did confront wealthy pensioners then they would have to do so knowing they would lose all their votes, which is something I just cannot see them doing.
Because disability allowance is much higher than that. If he is genuinely ill and can’t work their is lot more he is entitled to.
Many of the wealthy elderly simply do not understand poverty. That results in a lack of empathy. For them “they made it so why can’t you?” (conveniently forgetting the final salary scheme pension and multi million house bought for £60,000).
I remember when Theresa May confronted pensioners with reality and having to pay for stuff.
She lost a 20 point lead.
Not bloody likely Mad Liz is going to do that.
or tax profits…
The Tories must accept it’s time to throw in the towel general election for the sake of the greater good!
I love the headline, sounds like there’s groups of dodgy OAPs lurking on street corners
It’s divided and conquer. Old hate the young, young hate the old. Tory’s keep doing what the hell they want while the population is infighting instead of focusing on them…….
This 100% sums up my 70 YO rich neighbour. Diehard Tory who voted for brexit and a mega male Karen along with his wife.
You should be eligible for far more, mental counts as a disability claim dws
Retirement pensions began as a permanent disability payment for people who were too knackered to work anymore and who weren’t expected to live for more than a handful of years. Over time they’ve become a Ponzi scheme for able-bodied people who simply don’t wish to work anymore to fund 2-3 decades of entitled leisure, funded not by their own contributions, but by the contributions of those still working. This is as unsustainable as any other Ponzi scheme, and it’s about to collapse. The message that working-age people have for able-bodied retirees is simple – if you want a comfortable life, get off your entitled, grifting arses and get back to work.
This post felt so aggressive to read lol.
Club them all to death and start a revolution
Many pensioners I personally know have a great income. Much more than our working household.
They have all their bills covered, no mortgage, child care costs, transport (don’t need to go anywhere) etc and have good pensions. I’m aware that not all pensioners are in this position obviously, but none of the pensioners in my personal sphere are short of money.
They can afford good windows, doors, cars, Marks and spencers food etc while many of my working age friends are struggling to cover the basics.
I would rather the old age pension be means tested, rather than give more money to a section of people who were lucky enough to get decent pensions.
BUT the real problem is corporations not paying their fair share of tax. And unfortunately that’s something our Government will not address.
Pensioner here. Probably guilty of unwittingly benefitting from the growth and optimism of the 70s, what should have been a world cruising time of life has been compromised by the purchase of votes by the theft and gift of publicly paid for housing into the free market with replacement controlled rentable accomadation forbidden, all which explains why I have had to effectively give my private pension savings to my kids who cannot possibly get one toe onto the fabled property ladder and who need help now, not just when I’m dead. Luckily I can more or less survive on my ordinary state pension which I have from an EU state which is several times larger than a UK one so again, luckily I worked in the EU however, my life is now compromised by the lying sh*ts who propagandised Brexit into being. Not all pensioners are evil.
The article is behind a pay wall. Has the DT planted this on Reddit to generate new subscriptions?
How about we confront the billionaires?
Is there any reason why pensions aren’t means tested? Yes yes they have paid into the system but so what? I have paid into the system for nearly 20 years but I wouldn’t be entitled to any benefits because I have too many savings, why can’t the same be said about pensions?
These pensioners went through 3 big recessions 80’s 90’s and 08 the governments need to stop the bankers from robbing the country and moving the billions to the Cayman Islands etc and make them pay tax also close the loop holes for billionaires who set up tax deductible foundations
Lol, also the tories should bite the hand that feeds them.
I’m not saying this article is wrong just that certain people act in inherently selfish ways….you know….tories
Link to non paywall version?
And yes, it’s available to all of us in the uk if you can be bothered that is 🙄.
I had to go on to Universal Credit for 6 months while I was having treatment for cancer.
I was made to attend an interview at the job centre directly from a 3 days hospital stay having chemo.
I could barely keep my eyes open and stay awake. No lift, no assistance. All for 70 quid a week which barely covered my fares to and from hospital.
Dont get me wrong, I’m very very grateful for any help and support. I’m back on my feet now and last year I paid £13k in income tax and national insurance.
Hopefully they can afford to put in a fucking lift by the time it comes back!!
Honest to god. Divide & Conquer.
Look wherever you like, young & old, black & white, rich & poor, Brexiteer & remainer, gay and straight, man or woman. It’s all divisorsy politics to keep people running around and bickering like headless chickens.
Our country is a shit show and it’s not because one generation robbed another or the rich robbed the poor.
It’s because our government/s is/are fucking us all with their incompetence and god awful policies.
34 comments
Had to do a double take at the Telegraph running an article like this. I immediately checked the comments section next and sure enough, a lot of angry pensioners there.
>- Cancelling my subscription today. This woman is grim.
>- Intergenerational theft? Just wait until it’s your generations turn. Oh, I forgot- you won’t have any equity. Having squandered all ours on net zero you’ll be begging for support. Clogs to Clogs in three generations.
>- For many young people today deprivation seems to equate to not being able to afford the latest mobile ‘phone or have multiple foreign holidays. Goodness knows how they would have coped with the real deprivation many of their grandparents’ generation faced in the late 40’s, 50’s and 60’s.
>- There is the idea that many old people are ‘millionaires’. If they really are, I assume this refers to the notional values of their homes (which may be revised downwards radically over the next few years, of course). The only way to access their ‘millions’ would be to force the sale of their homes. Then what? When all the assets of the older generation are gone, what then? What will we do and who will we blame?
>- Perhaps the young could do what everyone else did, well those of us that don’t work for the public purse, and live within their means in hard times and work hard to accumulate wealth and property or whatever they choose to invest in. The government isn’t there to bail them out. I want very low tax and the choice to spend my money on what my priorities are, and it isn’t the young.
>- Just to point out that we were promised our state pension aged 60 until the rug was pulled. No generation, as you put it, should trust any government’s promises. Times change and young people today do extremely well out of all the things the older generations have fought for along the way. So get over this envy culture, roll up your sleeves and make things better as you live your lives.
>- The woke increasing the parasite population. Correction the now Termite population rotting from within!
>- Typical woke nonsense. As Tebbitt said get on your bike and graft.
If Japan’s most celebrated centenarian Kane Tanaka was still alive, she would have been celebrated and lavished with gifts at next month’s Respect for the Aged Day – a national holiday in Japan which takes place every September to honour elderly citizens.
Known for its veneration of the elderly, Japan has the world’s oldest population and Tanaka, who died in April at the age of 119, having been in relatively good health and enjoying afternoons spent studying maths, would have been the star of the show as the world’s oldest living person.
But when economist Richard Davies travelled to the country to do some research in 2018, he was surprised by what he found. Many young people appeared to actually resent the old, and it was creating serious problems for the economy. Frustrated that they were footing the bill for the elderly and living in a world of rising intergenerational inequality, a new vocabulary had emerged among the young – words like “rojin” for old person had been tweaked to “rojin boke,” senile old person, while some compared the elderly to fallen leaves.
Friction was building. The UK is now at risk of going the same way, Davies tells me. That matters because the state relies on people trusting that the system works in a way that gives them a fair deal throughout their life, he explains. Make some payments today, receive benefits tomorrow. If people start to think that that’s not going to happen for them then the fabric of society starts to erode.
Britain’s ageing society does not get as much air time as other issues, but Davies believes it could create vast problems in a decade or so and deserves much more attention now. If younger Britons feel that they won’t get the same deal as their parents and grandparents, their confidence in the tax system will collapse. After two years of life being put on hold due to Covid shutdowns and now faced with spiraling costs and a recession, resentment among the young is building.
Experts say retirees will largely be sheltered from the cost of living crisis next year as the state pension guarantees them an inflation-matched increase in income, with the state pension set to breach the £200-a-week mark for the first time next April. Official figures also found earlier this year that the number of silver millionaires has nearly quadrupled over the past decade to reach 3.1m.
While millions of older people are of course still living in poverty and in need of help, the general takeaway for many struggling young workers is that while pensioners are getting a boost, they have been lumbered with the biggest tax burden in 70 years at a time when they have had to swallow a real-terms pay cut.
Young families facing a bleak winter will feel that government spending has been unfairly skewed towards their core voters for too long. Research from the Intergenerational Foundation shows that the amount of money the government spends on an older person compared to a child has doubled over the past 19 years, to around £20,800 on each pensioner and only £14,700 on each child in the year before the pandemic.
A study published last week by the IFS Deaton Review of Inequalities found that inequalities in Britain’s education system have barely changed over the last 20 years and could even increase in future as a result of the Covid crisis. The next generation of voters will remember this imbalance. Unless the Tories accept that it’s time to confront wealthy pensioners, it will only be a matter of time before the tensions seen by Davies in Japan are mirrored over here.
But this debate doesn’t need to be about young vs old. After all, an ageing population should be considered a sign of a healthy society rather than a problem. Japan’s obesity rate is tiny, with a diet known for being lean and balanced, and its healthcare system is among the best in the world.
People getting frailer and living for longer is only a burden on the economy if it is managed poorly. In Japan, some smart graduates have spotted an opportunity. Davies says the young are scrambling to come up with “age tech” ideas, such as apps which quickly alert a local GP to health concerns and estate agents that focus on finding flats just for older people, so that they can create businesses which benefit the growing elderly population while also creating jobs and money for themselves.
Students in Japan are saying that when they graduate they want to work on the “ageing problem” because it’s seen as a cool, aspirational thing to do, Davies says, while his students in the UK are much more likely to want to work on environmental issues. Spotting the opportunities in an ageing society could benefit many young British entrepreneurs in future.
Another solution is for businesses and the government to encourage more retirees back into the workplace, a trend which is already starting to play out in the UK. Official figures published last week showed that there has been a record rise in the number of over-65s in employment this quarter. Companies have begun marketing campaigns specifically targeting potential grey-haired workers, aware that the benefits could be enormous.
There are plenty of ways to adapt to an ageing society that do not lead to intergenerational resentment, but the Government needs to acknowledge when it is funneling too much money in one direction.
The inability of (some) pensioners to see or understand how hard the financial situation is for young people today is mind boggling. They are very much the ‘I’m alright Jack’ generation. Let’s not forget these are not the generation wot won the war…that was the previous lot, this lot grew up in much easier times to the generations before them or today.
That’s the Tories’ core vote. Despite the frothing in the comments, I think they all know that something’s gone badly wrong. But they’re not going to break the habit of a lifetime and vote against their own interests now, no chance.
It’s really bleak.
Narrator:
*They don’t*
That will be never
In the Torygraph?! The world really has gone mad…
Unfortunately the young are their own worst enemy. If everyone aged 18-35 bothered to vote there wouldn’t be a Tory government
Hah, that’s all that’s gonna be left of their voter base after they kill off all the poor ones this winter. They’re not gonna confront shit.
Their voting base? Not a chance.
[deleted]
Remember when May tried to scrap the triple lock pension in the campaign for the 2017 election? That lasted less than 48 hours before she had to u-turn in the face of the overwhelming backlash to the idea. If the Tories did confront wealthy pensioners then they would have to do so knowing they would lose all their votes, which is something I just cannot see them doing.
Because disability allowance is much higher than that. If he is genuinely ill and can’t work their is lot more he is entitled to.
Many of the wealthy elderly simply do not understand poverty. That results in a lack of empathy. For them “they made it so why can’t you?” (conveniently forgetting the final salary scheme pension and multi million house bought for £60,000).
I remember when Theresa May confronted pensioners with reality and having to pay for stuff.
She lost a 20 point lead.
Not bloody likely Mad Liz is going to do that.
or tax profits…
The Tories must accept it’s time to throw in the towel general election for the sake of the greater good!
I love the headline, sounds like there’s groups of dodgy OAPs lurking on street corners
It’s divided and conquer. Old hate the young, young hate the old. Tory’s keep doing what the hell they want while the population is infighting instead of focusing on them…….
This 100% sums up my 70 YO rich neighbour. Diehard Tory who voted for brexit and a mega male Karen along with his wife.
You should be eligible for far more, mental counts as a disability claim dws
Retirement pensions began as a permanent disability payment for people who were too knackered to work anymore and who weren’t expected to live for more than a handful of years. Over time they’ve become a Ponzi scheme for able-bodied people who simply don’t wish to work anymore to fund 2-3 decades of entitled leisure, funded not by their own contributions, but by the contributions of those still working. This is as unsustainable as any other Ponzi scheme, and it’s about to collapse. The message that working-age people have for able-bodied retirees is simple – if you want a comfortable life, get off your entitled, grifting arses and get back to work.
This post felt so aggressive to read lol.
Club them all to death and start a revolution
Many pensioners I personally know have a great income. Much more than our working household.
They have all their bills covered, no mortgage, child care costs, transport (don’t need to go anywhere) etc and have good pensions. I’m aware that not all pensioners are in this position obviously, but none of the pensioners in my personal sphere are short of money.
They can afford good windows, doors, cars, Marks and spencers food etc while many of my working age friends are struggling to cover the basics.
I would rather the old age pension be means tested, rather than give more money to a section of people who were lucky enough to get decent pensions.
BUT the real problem is corporations not paying their fair share of tax. And unfortunately that’s something our Government will not address.
Pensioner here. Probably guilty of unwittingly benefitting from the growth and optimism of the 70s, what should have been a world cruising time of life has been compromised by the purchase of votes by the theft and gift of publicly paid for housing into the free market with replacement controlled rentable accomadation forbidden, all which explains why I have had to effectively give my private pension savings to my kids who cannot possibly get one toe onto the fabled property ladder and who need help now, not just when I’m dead. Luckily I can more or less survive on my ordinary state pension which I have from an EU state which is several times larger than a UK one so again, luckily I worked in the EU however, my life is now compromised by the lying sh*ts who propagandised Brexit into being. Not all pensioners are evil.
The article is behind a pay wall. Has the DT planted this on Reddit to generate new subscriptions?
How about we confront the billionaires?
Is there any reason why pensions aren’t means tested? Yes yes they have paid into the system but so what? I have paid into the system for nearly 20 years but I wouldn’t be entitled to any benefits because I have too many savings, why can’t the same be said about pensions?
These pensioners went through 3 big recessions 80’s 90’s and 08 the governments need to stop the bankers from robbing the country and moving the billions to the Cayman Islands etc and make them pay tax also close the loop holes for billionaires who set up tax deductible foundations
Lol, also the tories should bite the hand that feeds them.
I’m not saying this article is wrong just that certain people act in inherently selfish ways….you know….tories
Link to non paywall version?
And yes, it’s available to all of us in the uk if you can be bothered that is 🙄.
I had to go on to Universal Credit for 6 months while I was having treatment for cancer.
I was made to attend an interview at the job centre directly from a 3 days hospital stay having chemo.
I could barely keep my eyes open and stay awake. No lift, no assistance. All for 70 quid a week which barely covered my fares to and from hospital.
Dont get me wrong, I’m very very grateful for any help and support. I’m back on my feet now and last year I paid £13k in income tax and national insurance.
Hopefully they can afford to put in a fucking lift by the time it comes back!!
Honest to god. Divide & Conquer.
Look wherever you like, young & old, black & white, rich & poor, Brexiteer & remainer, gay and straight, man or woman. It’s all divisorsy politics to keep people running around and bickering like headless chickens.
Our country is a shit show and it’s not because one generation robbed another or the rich robbed the poor.
It’s because our government/s is/are fucking us all with their incompetence and god awful policies.