If you’re retired give back your benefits if you don’t need them?

Savings JarBeing at the retired age now and being attacked at the same time must be hard. We hear Ian Duncan Smith saying “if you don’t need your benefits hand them back.”

Now knowing my Grandad and his generation, they are quite stubborn but now he feels guilty and targeted Winter Fuelbecause he has a bus pass or he gets a winter fuel allowance of around £300. Now something tells me if this certain industry wasn’t privatised then we wouldn’t be asking for donations back off the older generation and they would be able to afford their own bills.

That simple bus pass is a life-line to my grandad. He has worked all his life but couldn’t afford to run and maintain a car. Bus PassThe government are being quite clever with this tactic and causing a divide between the older generation and the youth of today. The older generation have paid their way all through Thatcher’s era and all their taxes but are still left to struggle. The government are attacking the older generation knowing the majority of them don’t have the strength to fight and will have to accept it and live the rest of their life feeling awkward and guilty for using their bus pass or claiming their winter allowance.

Why do the older generation need these benefits?

I think it is quite simple: there are cuts going on all around us but we do not realise their impact until we need the things that have been taken away. .

Doctors surgeryThe cuts in the community mean that there are fewer hospitals, which means longer journeys, and (with greatly reduced non-emergency hospital transport) it is harder to get to them. So my grandad has to use his bus pass to get to hospital or doctor’s appointments in a way he never thought he would have to.

What should we be doing as the youth of society?

In my view, we should be standing up for the older generation as it’s our future they are attacking. Right now they are attacking this generation – our generation – from all different angles. If it’s not university fees it’s the opposite end of our lives but they’re doing it in a clever way by trying to turn us against the older generation and causing a rift between us. But let’s not forget that’s our benefit they are attacking. And later in life we will be relying on this benefit more than any other generation before us thanks to zero hour contracts and a part time culture and no jobs. We will be relying on these benefits so don’t let the media or the current government get in to our minds and let us attack our own benefits in later life. It’s a clever trick, but it mustn’t be allowed to work.