I agree with you, it really annoys me and to be honest, it's seems such a soft target, if you look at a woman loosing the pension payment between the age of 60 and 65 it's something in the region of £30,000, you would think there would be uproar? I was born in 54 and haven't heard that I have to wait another year past 65 but I'm not holding my breath!
Like Nichola said, you follow the advice of successive governments, invest in pensions and expect certain returns and now you find those same governments dismantling your hard earned financial plan.
Lets just set aside this word 'benefit', as far as Im concerned, I've paid for my bus pass, my winter fuel allowance, and paid all the contributions required to earn my old age pension, so I don't see how something bought and paid for becomes a benefit? But of course it suits the government to classify these as benefits, which implies they are giving you something for nothing at their discretion.
I don't have a problem with a benefits system that acts as a short term safety net for people who find themselves with an unexpected change of circumstances or a system that supports the genuinely disabled, but we have something a million miles away from that, how on earth can we accept that we are now allowing a third generation to make benefits their lifestyle choice and live off the back of the tax payer.
Maybe I'm just becoming far too cynical in my old age or maybe it's because many of my friends and family have worked directly for, or been directly linked through their employment to various benefit and social agencies and I've heard at first hand too many stories of blatant abuse and downright fraud. Let me give you an example, earlier this week I'm listening to a discussion on the radio about the so called bedroom tax. A worker from a one stop shop called in to say that when a person reaches 18, a small proportion of that households benefit is removed to make a contribution to rent and council tax, they went on to explain that more often than not, these 18 year olds mysteriously disappear from the home which avoids the benefit reduction. Apparently, over the past weeks these people have suddenly turned up in their droves living back in the family home, it seems that small rent and tax contribution is much less that the housing benefit reduction that will be imposed for spare bedrooms!
As far as I'm concerned, if the government want to carry on supporting these dodgers then that's fine, if they want to provide benefits, healthcare, housing and schooling to all of those that have never paid a brass farthing into the system, then that's perfectly fine as well, but don't do it at my expense after working for 42 years without drawing a penny in benefit and still paying tax each month into a system where I'm not even afforded basic healthcare.
Rant, also over !
