Here we go again, rip off the pensioners who have worked all their lives and paid into the system, what an ageist society we live in when the elderly are so undervalued. Give it a few more decades and there will be a large number of pensioners who never or rarely worked or paid in, now I would be all for them not getting anything other than the state pension.
Providing pensioners in England with a bus pass cost just over £1 billion about £100 per bus pass. The bus pass is also widely taken up and used by better off pensioners. According to Department of Transport figures pensioner households with an income of £30,000 or more have 66% take up the free bus pass and use it an average of twice a week.
And where do they get these figures from especially the income, now don't know about you but for the last 5 years whilst my Husband has been using his pass he has never had to prove how much he earns so how would the DOT know?
If they really do then I am going to have a sharp word with the ICO and will be sending the DOT an SAR to find out exactly what info they have on me.
Most likely they sent a questionnaire to about 100 people in a posh area and cobbled together the facts from that
Providing pensioners in England with a bus pass cost just over £1 billion about £100 per bus pass. The bus pass is also widely taken up and used by better off pensioners. According to Department of Transport figures pensioner households with an income of £30,000 or more have 66% take up the free bus pass and use it an average of twice a week.
Twice a week! Shock horror.
The other thing is how the Dept of Transport knows the income of individual pensioner households who take up bus passes or at what point they give up driving.
In reality, better off pensioners are likely to apply for a bus pass 'in case of need' but then, as a general rule, not use it, favouring use of the car as long as they are able to.
Here we go again, rip off the pensioners who have worked all their lives and paid into the system, what an ageist society we live in when the elderly are so undervalued. Give it a few more decades and there will be a large number of pensioners who never or rarely worked or paid in, now I would be all for them not getting anything other than the state pension.
As others have put it the previous generation who served in the war earned it, the current boomer pensioners spent it and the next generation will pay for it. And still the government comes up with endless schemes and initiatives to buy their votes while dumping on the young. Cos if your taxes had paid for it all we wouldn't be trillions in debt.
No other generation in history has been as lucky as today's pensioners and their kids and grandkids will be far worse off and have to pay for it.
Sorry but for the most part that's true! It's just with their expensive houses, final salary pensions and handouts many cannot see it. Of course there are poor pensioners who need help but many are very well off and even in retirement far better off than their kids and grandkids.
I use my pass to travel by bus every day apart from Sunday's, three days a week I make 6 journeys on the other days I make two journeys. At £2. 40p for each journey it would cost me £24.00 a week, I get less than £70 a week state pension, so I would say I need it.
Here we go again, rip off the pensioners who have worked all their lives and paid into the system, what an ageist society we live in when the elderly are so undervalued. Give it a few more decades and there will be a large number of pensioners who never or rarely worked or paid in, now I would be all for them not getting anything other than the state pension.
Bus pass is not a contributions based benefit. If you want pensioners who worked all their lives and paid into the system to benefit you need higher conributions based state pension. The bus pass in England costs £1bn about £100 per bus pass.
As others put it the previous generation who served in the war earned it, the current boomer pensioners spent it and the next generation will pay for it. And still the government comes up with endless schemes and initiatives to buy their votes while dumping on the young. Cos if your taxes had paid for it all we wouldn't be trillions in debt.
No other generation in history has been as lucky as today's pensioners and their kids and grandkids will be far worse off and have to pay for it.
Sorry but for the most part that's true! It's just with their expensive houses, final salary pensions and handouts many cannot see it Of course there are poor pensioners who need help but many are very well off and even in retirement far better off than their kids and grandkids.
And those current 'boomer pensioners' are more likely to be Tory voters than Labour voters.;-)
Bus pass is not a contributions based benefit. If you want pensioners who worked all their lives and paid into the system to benefit you need higher conributions based state pension. The bus pass in England costs £1bn about £100 per bus pass.
In London it's based on residency and is funded from council tax. You could pay council tax in London for forty years and then move across the border to Bucks or Essex at 60 (even still in the tube area) and get nothing. That happened to the parents of my sisters friend when they moved to Loughton (zone 6 on the central line).
Yet a pensioner aged 60 could arrive from Bolton or Bucharest and immediately get a free travel pass worth £3k a year despite never having paid a penny in council tax in London. That's not quite right in my eyes!
Normal bus fares have rocketed since these were introduced. The poorest people in society, the young, are now being priced out of busses. As well as homes and jobs.
The age of these bus passes has now gone up to 68 so young people now will probably not get them unless they live to over 128.
These passes are just a bribe to get away with a low state pension. Would rather a sustainable amount was paid than bribes to try and fool people.
IN my local area I was told that a short 4 mile bus journey I was planning to take would cost me £7.80!!!
And yet the buses are CHOCCA full of OAP's taking their FREE journeys.
I would say make MEANS TESTED, & the same with TV licences and winter fuel allowance.
Why should a 85 yr old millionaire be entitled to free TV or money off their fuel bills??
To make it fair keep the threshhold relatively high, but dont allow them to all get away from the "cutbacks" all other face simply cos they tend to vote more (& vote Tory). Its purely selfish.
And I dont want to hear this WW2 crap anymore either. IN order to have been able to serve before the end of WW2 in 1945 you'd have had to have been born in 1927 AT THE LATEST- thats 87 years ago!! THere are plenty of pensioners in their 60's, 70's & early 8-0's who never "fought in a world war".
IN my local area I was told that a short 4 mile bus journey I was planning to take would cost me £7.80!!!
And yet the buses are CHOCCA full of OAP's taking their FREE journeys.
I would say make MEANS TESTED, & the same with TV licences and winter fuel allowance.
Why should a 85 yr old millionaire be entitled to free TV or money off their fuel bills??
To make it fair keep the threshhold relatively high, but dont allow them to all get away from the "cutbacks" all other face simply cos they tend to vote more (& vote Tory). Its purely selfish.
And I dont want to hear this WW2 crap anymore either. IN order to have been able to serve before the end of WW2 in 1945 you'd have had to have been born in 1927 AT THE LATEST- thats 87 years ago!! THere are plenty of pensioners in their 60's, 70's & early 8-0's who never "fought in a world war".
If you stop to think for a minute, do you believe that a 70 year old millionaire is likely to travel by bus anywhere? There may be one or two eccentrics who do but more likely they will use their own car or travel by train or taxi.
The rest is a rant about free tv licences and fuel allowances, neither of which is the subject of this thread.
IN my local area I was told that a short 4 mile bus journey I was planning to take would cost me £7.80!!!
And yet the buses are CHOCCA full of OAP's taking their FREE journeys.
I would say make MEANS TESTED, & the same with TV licences and winter fuel allowance.
Why should a 85 yr old millionaire be entitled to free TV or money off their fuel bills??
To make it fair keep the threshhold relatively high, but dont allow them to all get away from the "cutbacks" all other face simply cos they tend to vote more (& vote Tory). Its purely selfish.
And I dont want to hear this WW2 crap anymore either. IN order to have been able to serve before the end of WW2 in 1945 you'd have had to have been born in 1927 AT THE LATEST- thats 87 years ago!! THere are plenty of pensioners in their 60's, 70's & early 8-0's who never "fought in a world war".
If you set it high you will only catch a small number of people but you still have to means test everyone just in case and that may cost more than you save
I get less than £70 a week state pension, so I would say I need it.
You are either omitting to mention other income you receive as an individual or couple, or not claiming all you are entitled to.
Pensioner minimum income guarantee element pension credit
Tops up income to
Single £145.40 a week
Couple £222.05 a week
Winter fuel allowance
£200 once a year
aged 80+ £300 once a year
Free prescriptions if over 60
Free bus pass if over 60
Free TV license if over 75
if in receipt of pension guarntee credit element
cold weather payments £25 per 7 consecutive days below freezing.
warm home discount credit given by energy supplier £140 once a year
and then there is means tested help towards housing costs rent or mortgage and council tax,
Freedom passes are issued on oyster cards. Every journey is recorded so it's very easy to work out the cost which is based on a marginal cost model developed by Transport for London I believe.
Journeys are not all recorded. Mine, on buses and the DLR aren't. The cost of the scheme must be very roughly worked out. There seems to be an assumption that the operators are losing money because of these free journeys but the journeys wouldn't be made in most cases if they had to be paid for.
Journeys are not all recorded. Mine, on buses and the DLR aren't. The cost of the scheme must be very roughly worked out. There seems to be an assumption that the operators are losing money because of these free journeys but the journeys wouldn't be made in most cases if they had to be paid for.
Don't you swipe your card on the reader when you get on a bus? My parents do.
The DLR may be partly estimated but the bus journey counts are very real! It's like big brother cos they always know where you are, where you have been and where you are going!
Not all of today's pensioners! Yesterday's pensioners maybe. There has definitely been a change in the last five or so years. My husband and I have several older friends who retired in their late fifties, got their bus passes at 60 and don't really need or use them that much. Some find it embarrassing because they can afford the fares perfectly well, while others think well, if they're free, they might as well use them.
Several member of my family though, including my hubby, who are hitting 60 around now, will not be able to afford to retire in the foreseeable future and will not be getting bus passes either for a good few years. Most think they will have to continue working until at least 70. Believe me it is a real bone of contention and, having seen many of their parents' generation retire at 60, and enjoy a relatively comfortable lifestyle including free bus passes, they are feeling very hard done by!
Despite this, both my hubby and I think it would be fairer all round if bus passes were means tested regardless of age. We certainly don't think it's fair that all pensioners, including the well-to-do, get them just because they have reached a certain age.
Because, where I live, they are now being linked with the age when you start getting your state pension I won't be getting one for several years though I am now 60, and I use buses a lot. I would not mind in the slightest not having a bus pass though if it means someone of any age, who can't afford the fare, gets to have one. What does rankle a bit though is having to pay full fare, and often being forced to stand, when others, who are clearly physically mobile and just a few years older, are seated whilst having paid nothing .
1st BIB: There are two sides to this, at least nowadays you cannot be forced to leave when you reach 60, which happened to 2 friends of mine. The Companies they worked for had a retirement policy of 60, even though neither of them wanted to retire. Imagine trying to get another job at 60 years of age!
2nd BiB: Well that really took my breath away! So those with bus passes should stand up and let the payers sit down?? It used to be that good manners dictated that younger people gave up their seat to an older person - regardless of whether or not they had 'paid'. And how do you know that they are 'clearly physically mobile'? Bones & muscles weaken as they age, and although looking at me, I might fall into your category, I would not be able to stand for the hour journey, nor would many older people.
As others have put it the previous generation who served in the war earned it, the current boomer pensioners spent it and the next generation will pay for it. And still the government comes up with endless schemes and initiatives to buy their votes while dumping on the young. Cos if your taxes had paid for it all we wouldn't be trillions in debt.
No other generation in history has been as lucky as today's pensioners and their kids and grandkids will be far worse off and have to pay for it.
Sorry but for the most part that's true! It's just with their expensive houses, final salary pensions and handouts many cannot see it. Of course there are poor pensioners who need help but many are very well off and even in retirement far better off than their kids and grandkids.
How so?? I worked and paid my dues for 50 years.
I don't know any of these 'well off pensioners'. There are those, like myself, who manage to keep their heads above water by managing what they have, well. The advantages of living during the years of shortage both during and after the war turned us into great manages.
IN my local area I was told that a short 4 mile bus journey I was planning to take would cost me £7.80!!!
And yet the buses are CHOCCA full of OAP's taking their FREE journeys.
I would say make MEANS TESTED, & the same with TV licences and winter fuel allowance.
Why should a 85 yr old millionaire be entitled to free TV or money off their fuel bills??
To make it fair keep the threshhold relatively high, but dont allow them to all get away from the "cutbacks" all other face simply cos they tend to vote more (& vote Tory). Its purely selfish.
And I dont want to hear this WW2 crap anymore either. IN order to have been able to serve before the end of WW2 in 1945 you'd have had to have been born in 1927 AT THE LATEST- thats 87 years ago!! THere are plenty of pensioners in their 60's, 70's & early 8-0's who never "fought in a world war".
How about the "too expensive to have means testing" crap? That good enough for you? Spend 5 billion to save 300 million of bus passes. And also have some less used rural routes shut down?
The advantages of living during the years of shortage both during and after the war turned us into great manages.
To have been an adult old enough to leave school 14 when there was rationing in Britian 1954 someone would now be 74+
While to been an adult old enough to fight 18 in second world war 1945 someone would now be 87+
Many pensioners have not known years of shortages.
How about the "too expensive to have means testing" crap? That good enough for you? Spend 5 billion to save 300 million of bus passes. And also have some less used rural routes shut down?
Any more good ideas?
We already means test pension credit and associated benefits. So the additional cost of just giving a bus pass to those already receiving means tested benefits and not giving a bus pass to those who don't would be nill.
Alternatively local authorities do or used to run schemes with travel tokens. So local authorities could run schemes instead. With the added advantage that tokens can be used for taxis and trains as well as buses. Not everyone with mobility problems is able to get to a bus stop or travel by bus.
As for rural areas bus routes why not spend the money on subsidizing bus routes instead of free travel for pensioners regardless of if the pensioners are poor and regardless of where the pensioners live.
We already means test pension credit and associated benefits. So the additional cost of just giving a bus pass to those already receiving means tested benefits and not giving a bus pass to those who don't would be nill.
Your faith in Govt administration is both touching and woefully misplaced,
Alternatively local authorities do or used to run schemes with travel tokens. So local authorities could run schemes instead. With the added advantage that tokens can be used for taxis and trains as well as busses. Not everyone with mobility problems is able to get to a bus stop or travel by bus.
As for rural areas bus routes why not spend the money on subsidizing bus routes instead of free travel for pensioners regardless of if the pensioners are poor and regardless of where the pensioners live.
I would have said it's better to subsidise it by having extra people use the service instead of subsidising directly with cash a lesser used service.
Your faith in Govt administration is both touching and woefully misplaced.
We have a cold weather payments system that pays out every 7 consecutive days below freezing in the claimant's postcode and a warm homes discount system where the claimant's energy supplier credits their account once a year. Both of those systems work and both are based off the penison credit. Every year claimants receive notification via letter of benefit rate changes, enclosing a bus pass in the letter or having claimants use the letter as proof to pick up a bus pass hardly seems a difficult task.
I would have said it's better to subsidise it by having extra people use the service instead of subsidising directly with cash a lesser used service.
I would say it is better to target money at routes that need subsidizing and that it is better if the subsidy reduces the bus fare for all passengers. Giving money to non poor pensioners to use busy bus routes is poorly targetting government money as a freebee for pensioners regardless of need and bus companies regardless of need.
To have been an adult old enough to leave school 14 when there was rationing in Britian 1954 someone would now be 74+
While to been an adult old enough to fight 18 in second world war 1945 someone would now be 87+
Many pensioners have not known years of shortages.
Even my Husband who is a brand new pensioner (65 yesterday) was bought up in poverty and went without due to shortages caused by the war
IN my local area I was told that a short 4 mile bus journey I was planning to take would cost me £7.80!!! And yet the buses are CHOCCA full of OAP's taking their FREE journeys.
I would say make MEANS TESTED, & the same with TV licences and winter fuel allowance.
Why should a 85 yr old millionaire be entitled to free TV or money off their fuel bills??
To make it fair keep the threshhold relatively high, but dont allow them to all get away from the "cutbacks" all other face simply cos they tend to vote more (& vote Tory). Its purely selfish.
And I dont want to hear this WW2 crap anymore either.IN order to have been able to serve before the end of WW2 in 1945 you'd have had to have been born in 1927 AT THE LATEST- thats 87 years ago!! THere are plenty of pensioners in their 60's, 70's & early 8-0's who never "fought in a world war".
Actually, you don't know that. I didn't apply for my bus pass until I retired at 66. I took the attitude that for as long I was working and receiving a wage, I would pay my way, and i am not alone in that way of thinking.
Why are pensioners being villified here? They are not the ones who created free bus passes.
We have a cold weather payments system that pays out every 7 consecutive days below freezing in the claimant's postcode and a warm homes discount system where the claimant's energy supplier credits their account once a year. Both of those systems work and both are based off the penison credit. Every year claimants receive notification via letter of benefit rate changes, enclosing a bus pass in the letter or having claimants use the letter as proof to pick up a bus pass hardly seems a difficult task.
I would say it is better to target money at routes that need subsidizing and that it is better if the subsidy reduces the bus fare for all passengers. Giving money to non poor pensioners to use busy bus routes is poorly targetting government money as a freebee for pensioners regardless of need and bus companies regardless of need.
But are wealthy pensioners really going to leave their car at home just because they can catch a bus free, i dont think so.
Comments
And where do they get these figures from especially the income, now don't know about you but for the last 5 years whilst my Husband has been using his pass he has never had to prove how much he earns so how would the DOT know?
If they really do then I am going to have a sharp word with the ICO and will be sending the DOT an SAR to find out exactly what info they have on me.
Most likely they sent a questionnaire to about 100 people in a posh area and cobbled together the facts from that
Twice a week! Shock horror.
The other thing is how the Dept of Transport knows the income of individual pensioner households who take up bus passes or at what point they give up driving.
In reality, better off pensioners are likely to apply for a bus pass 'in case of need' but then, as a general rule, not use it, favouring use of the car as long as they are able to.
As others have put it the previous generation who served in the war earned it, the current boomer pensioners spent it and the next generation will pay for it. And still the government comes up with endless schemes and initiatives to buy their votes while dumping on the young. Cos if your taxes had paid for it all we wouldn't be trillions in debt.
No other generation in history has been as lucky as today's pensioners and their kids and grandkids will be far worse off and have to pay for it.
Sorry but for the most part that's true! It's just with their expensive houses, final salary pensions and handouts many cannot see it. Of course there are poor pensioners who need help but many are very well off and even in retirement far better off than their kids and grandkids.
I use my pass to travel by bus every day apart from Sunday's, three days a week I make 6 journeys on the other days I make two journeys. At £2. 40p for each journey it would cost me £24.00 a week, I get less than £70 a week state pension, so I would say I need it.
And those current 'boomer pensioners' are more likely to be Tory voters than Labour voters.;-)
In London it's based on residency and is funded from council tax. You could pay council tax in London for forty years and then move across the border to Bucks or Essex at 60 (even still in the tube area) and get nothing. That happened to the parents of my sisters friend when they moved to Loughton (zone 6 on the central line).
Yet a pensioner aged 60 could arrive from Bolton or Bucharest and immediately get a free travel pass worth £3k a year despite never having paid a penny in council tax in London. That's not quite right in my eyes!
IN my local area I was told that a short 4 mile bus journey I was planning to take would cost me £7.80!!!
And yet the buses are CHOCCA full of OAP's taking their FREE journeys.
I would say make MEANS TESTED, & the same with TV licences and winter fuel allowance.
Why should a 85 yr old millionaire be entitled to free TV or money off their fuel bills??
To make it fair keep the threshhold relatively high, but dont allow them to all get away from the "cutbacks" all other face simply cos they tend to vote more (& vote Tory). Its purely selfish.
And I dont want to hear this WW2 crap anymore either. IN order to have been able to serve before the end of WW2 in 1945 you'd have had to have been born in 1927 AT THE LATEST- thats 87 years ago!! THere are plenty of pensioners in their 60's, 70's & early 8-0's who never "fought in a world war".
If you stop to think for a minute, do you believe that a 70 year old millionaire is likely to travel by bus anywhere? There may be one or two eccentrics who do but more likely they will use their own car or travel by train or taxi.
The rest is a rant about free tv licences and fuel allowances, neither of which is the subject of this thread.
If you set it high you will only catch a small number of people but you still have to means test everyone just in case and that may cost more than you save
Eh ? Where did you read that ?
Pensioner minimum income guarantee element pension credit
Tops up income to
Single £145.40 a week
Couple £222.05 a week
Winter fuel allowance
£200 once a year
aged 80+ £300 once a year
Free prescriptions if over 60
Free bus pass if over 60
Free TV license if over 75
if in receipt of pension guarntee credit element
cold weather payments £25 per 7 consecutive days below freezing.
warm home discount credit given by energy supplier £140 once a year
and then there is means tested help towards housing costs rent or mortgage and council tax,
Journeys are not all recorded. Mine, on buses and the DLR aren't. The cost of the scheme must be very roughly worked out. There seems to be an assumption that the operators are losing money because of these free journeys but the journeys wouldn't be made in most cases if they had to be paid for.
I bet it was a good deal too!
Don't you swipe your card on the reader when you get on a bus? My parents do.
The DLR may be partly estimated but the bus journey counts are very real! It's like big brother cos they always know where you are, where you have been and where you are going!
2nd BiB: Well that really took my breath away! So those with bus passes should stand up and let the payers sit down??
How so?? I worked and paid my dues for 50 years.
I don't know any of these 'well off pensioners'. There are those, like myself, who manage to keep their heads above water by managing what they have, well. The advantages of living during the years of shortage both during and after the war turned us into great manages.
How about the "too expensive to have means testing" crap? That good enough for you? Spend 5 billion to save 300 million of bus passes. And also have some less used rural routes shut down?
Any more good ideas?
While to been an adult old enough to fight 18 in second world war 1945 someone would now be 87+
Many pensioners have not known years of shortages.
Alternatively local authorities do or used to run schemes with travel tokens. So local authorities could run schemes instead. With the added advantage that tokens can be used for taxis and trains as well as buses. Not everyone with mobility problems is able to get to a bus stop or travel by bus.
As for rural areas bus routes why not spend the money on subsidizing bus routes instead of free travel for pensioners regardless of if the pensioners are poor and regardless of where the pensioners live.
I would say it is better to target money at routes that need subsidizing and that it is better if the subsidy reduces the bus fare for all passengers. Giving money to non poor pensioners to use busy bus routes is poorly targetting government money as a freebee for pensioners regardless of need and bus companies regardless of need.
Even my Husband who is a brand new pensioner (65 yesterday) was bought up in poverty and went without due to shortages caused by the war
Actually, you don't know that. I didn't apply for my bus pass until I retired at 66. I took the attitude that for as long I was working and receiving a wage, I would pay my way, and i am not alone in that way of thinking.
Why are pensioners being villified here? They are not the ones who created free bus passes.