Over the previous decade or so there has been increasing talk of intergenerational unfairness, with older people, particularly home owners, seen as hoarding wealth at the expense of younger people. The idea that older people are the problem has even been pushed by people such as former Tory MP David Willetts, a man who cared about young people so much that when he was Universities Minister, tuition fees in England tripled to £9000. But this isn’t just an issue for the right, all too often this rhetoric is taken up by sections of the left.
Here, M Lee looks to debunk this narrative by exploring how pensioners are faring as the cost of living crisis deepens, and looks at how we can build solidarity between generations.
Cover image via UNISON
Pensions
The Intergenerational Foundation was formed in 2011. In a recent report, the group makes many good demands such as building more homes for social rent. But it also calls for the removal of the triple lock on pensions, citing it as a transfer of wealth between young and old.
This is wrong headed. It is certainly true that the state pension of £185.15 per week is generous when compared to working age benefits (single adults aged under 25 on Universal Credit get just £61.23 per week). But the idea that the Tories will invest the money saved by ending the triple lock into young people is fanciful – indeed, around the same time as the suspension of the triple lock was announced, the UK government decided to cut the £20 uplift to Universal Credit.
As this article published in The Guardian argues, the bleak prospects faced by many young people mean it is all the more imperative to protect the value of the state pension – after all, we too will one day come to rely upon it, and unlike some of today’s pensioners, we will not have access to generous final salary pension schemes. We should resist a false dichotomy which pitches generations against one another and views welfare spending as a zero-sum game.
Poverty
Whilst poverty among pensioners is lower than that of working age adults, it remains stubbornly high. Even before the present crisis, the situation was bad for many. A recent report by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation found that pensioner poverty in the UK actually increased by 5% between 2012/13 and 2019/20. Just under a fifth of pensioners now live in poverty and the figures are worse for those who live alone. Although the report states that pensioners are the group least likely to have to use Foodbanks there is anecdotal evidence usage is increasing in some areas.
Now, with the cost of living crisis, things are about to get much worse. Pensioners are disproportionately affected by fuel poverty and with gas and electric prices skyrocketing, Age UK estimates that around 2 million older households will be unable to meet their essential costs this year. Despite inflation of around 9%, the state pension rose by just 3.1% in April.
It is also worth mentioning those who are nearing retirement age but no longer able to work because of declining health, and face having to navigate the nightmare system of working-age benefits whilst waiting to draw their pension.
Housing
Many of the claims of intergenerational unfairness focus on the issue of housing. It is undoubtedly true house prices and rents have dramatically increased in recent decades, and this has had a profound impact on the lives of younger generations. A piece from Novara Media notes home ownership levels have fallen from a high of 70.9% in 2003 to 63.9% in 2018, whilst adults in their late 30s are three times more likely to rent than 20 years ago. The article highlights issues like stagnant wage growth and is rightly dismissive of wealthy media personalities, who opine that young people could buy a house just like them if only they cut back on avocados and expensive coffee. However, with its assertion that boomers have had it “rather easy”, there’s a risk of fueling the culture war narrative of a generational divide which obfuscates the real reasons for the housing crisis.
Instead, the National Convention of Pensioners argues the shortage of housing has not been caused by older people deliberately hoarding properties, but by successive governments who have failed to build enough houses and replenish the stock of socially rented homes. And, as they go on to point out, there is a certain hypocrisy among politicians and commentators who criticise older people for this whilst simultaneously expecting them to use their housing wealth to fund long-term social care.
In any case, the picture is far from straightforward. Although home ownership levels among older people remain higher (around 77% of over 65’s are owner occupiers), the number of older people living in the private rented sector is set to increase from 5% to 12% by 2035. And a statement from Age Cymru points out that pensioners are more likely to live in properties that are older and inefficient, exacerbating fuel poverty. The situation for many older people today is far from rosy, despite what some might have us believe.
Care
Older people have not been spared the ravages of austerity and nowhere is this more obvious than with the issue of social care.
We live in a society in which there is a huge deficit in care and workers in the sector have been leaving in droves due to dire working conditions and poor rates of pay. On one hand, a shortage of carers has led to some older and disabled people being unable to stay in their own homes. On the other hand, low staffing levels have led to care homes restricting admissions. As outsourced providers hand back domiciliary care packages to local authorities, older people are being denied access to the care they need, with friends and family members (many of whom will be older themselves) picking up the slack.
Budget cuts have led to the closure of many day centres throughout the UK and those that remain have been shuttered during the pandemic. Where I live in Powys councillors recently called for a review of day centres for older and disabled people, with the executive director of the council stating that people will likely want something very different going forward.
There have also been changes to sheltered accommodation schemes, and the National Convention of Pensioners estimates that just a quarter now have a full-time warden.
Intergenerational solidarity
Clearly austerity and changes to our economy have had a profound effect on the lives of both young and older people. The question is how can we build intergenerational solidarity to challenge it? The pandemic has been a disaster for older and disabled people, with tens of thousands needlessly dying due to the inaction of both the Senedd and UK government. Despite this, it offers some glimmers of hope as to how we can move forward.
A clear example of intergenerational solidarity exists in the very nature of care work, highlighted in how younger care workers have continued to go out every day to look after older people throughout the pandemic. Campaigns to improve pay and working conditions in the sector also offer an opportunity to build links between generations, as they go hand-in-hand with calls for better care.
One group organising for this is CaSWO! (Care and Support Workers Organise), which was set up by grass-roots trade unionists working in social care set up at the start of the pandemic in response to the shortages of PPE that plagued the sector. CaSWO! campaigns for better working conditions, a care system that is free for all, and an end to the outsourcing that has been so damaging. CaSWO! members have been involved in disputes including the recent Sage Nursing Home Strike in North London.
Another example is the mutual aid groups founded in the early days of the pandemic who transported food and medicines to older and disabled people who were required to shield, and those needing to self-isolate.
Finally, the cost of living crisis makes it imperative to establish new alliances. Pensioners are on a fixed income and spend disportionately on heating. With the state pension failing to keep up with soaring inflation, many who were previously managing will find themselves dragged into fuel poverty. While some will be impacted more than others, this crisis affects large sections of society and we should seek to build a broad coalition to oppose it. Protecting the benefits of today’s pensioners helps to safeguard the futures of younger generations, who will also one day be pensioners.
A phoney war
The National Convention of Pensioners calls talk of intergenerational unfairness a “phoney war”, reminding us that inequalities between classes are far greater than those between generations. As the socialist feminist writer Lynne Segal notes in an interview from 2020, class still operates among the aged, and it is dispiriting to see people uncritically buying into this bogus narrative.
The challenges faced by younger generations today are grave, especially those relating to housing and climate. But we would do well to remember that previous generations faced the existential threat of nuclear conflict (as we do again today), and that communities in Wales were devastated by the deindustrialisation of Thatcherism. And we should also note that the figurehead of so-called Millennial Socialism, Jeremy Corbyn, was the ripe old age of 66 when he became leader of the Labour Party. Talk of a generational divide softens us up for attacks on the living standards of older people, and this is no redress for social injustice. The notion of intergenerational unfairness is a smokescreen for the real issue, namely, an economic system which prioritises profit above all else.
*M Lee is a support worker in Mid Wales. @calon_haf
