Seniors don't want to give up money for younger gen: poll

mentalfloss

Prickly Curmudgeon Smiter
Jun 28, 2010
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Seniors don't want to give up money for younger gen: poll

VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) - More evidence that generational tensions are high; a poll finds seniors aren't keen to relinquish publicly-funded services in order to help the struggling younger generations.

Seventy per cent of seniors asked felt they should be a top priority when it comes to doling out government cash.

UBC's Paul Kershaw is surprised most of them say they know families are struggling. "Even so, 80 per cent of Canadians 55-plus say they have earned their fair share of the wealth produced by Canada's economy and therefore deserve to enjoy the benefits."

He believes the older generation might want to think about their kids a little more because they're the ones who will deal with the consequences of actions we take today.

"As the baby boomers in particular approach retirement, they're leaving larger government debts and an environmental record that isn't that great. It's going to be their kids and grandchildren who need to pay for it," he says.

Kershaw notes the result is especially surprising, considering things like housing values and lower poverty rates have made it much easier to retire.

He adds Statistics Canada data show poverty among seniors has declined from 29 per cent in 1976 to less than five per cent in 2009. The poverty rate for families with kids under the age of six is 15 per cent.

The poll also shows 65 per cent of 18-44 year olds believe "a greater share of wealth produced in Canada should be invested in the next generation
of families and children."

Seniors don't want to give up money for younger gen: poll - News1130
 

Cannuck

Time Out
Feb 2, 2006
30,245
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. "Even so, 80 per cent of Canadians 55-plus say they have earned their fair share of the wealth produced by Canada's economy and therefore deserve to enjoy the benefits."http://www.news1130.com/news/local/...-t-want-to-give-up-money-for-younger-gen-poll

They are entitled to their entitlements. They are the most selfish generation in Canadian history. Let's be thankful that the generation behind them has not been so selfish and has managed to halt the slide. We will dig ourselves out of this hole eventually.
 

petros

The Central Scrutinizer
Nov 21, 2008
108,907
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Low Earth Orbit
10 years 3 years....not much difference. Either they get OAS in 3 or we keep giving their working children sweet tax credits.
 

Cannuck

Time Out
Feb 2, 2006
30,245
99
48
Alberta
Probably the most embarrassing thing is how seniors love to whine about others getting their entitlements.
 

mentalfloss

Prickly Curmudgeon Smiter
Jun 28, 2010
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Probably the most embarrassing thing is how seniors love to whine about others getting their entitlements.

That's because seniors grew up in a time where it was ethical to lie as long as you make money.

The shining example of ethics still exists today, but will gradually lessen the more we get findings such as these.
 

wulfie68

Council Member
Mar 29, 2009
2,014
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Calgary, AB
I am proud to say that if my parents had been polled, they would not have been with the majority. Dad is 71, Mom is 66, and they saw, decades ago, that the gov't was not going to be able to afford to keep the level of seniors' benefits as high as it has been in the past, where they have gotten much more than they have put into the system if they lived past the age of 72 (on average). Their mindset has been to look after themselves AND their children because the gov't was not and increasingly is not capable of doing so.

If you all are crying about this.....Wonder what you would have sait if Bill C428 had gone through....

All the seniors you are crying about have paid into the system.

The Dhalla bill was a bad joke, by an MP who has tons of sex appeal but showed very little politcal acumen in drafting this.

As for the seniors "paying into the system", a) they are expecting more than they have contributed, and b) their choices of governments and their priorities for those governments have played a large part in the creation of the mess the country is sliding into, so they are culpable (in my mind) on multiple fronts.
 

#juan

Hall of Fame Member
Aug 30, 2005
18,326
119
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I am seventy two years old. That means I have been a senior for about seven years.
Over the years I've heard people complain that seniors should retire so that younger
Canadians could have the jobs, and that seniors working past sixty five are just selfish
bastards.
My wife and I went without things so we could save for our retirement. We educated
our children. Both my wife and I come from large families so we didn't inherit the
family home, but our kids will.
If anyone wants me to feel guilty about what I've worked hard for, they should take note of
the mistletoe on my coat tails.
 

BruSan

Electoral Member
Jul 5, 2011
416
0
16
Oh boy; another thread attacking seniors as the "boogymen" under your bed! Grow a pair and start taking an interest in your own future rather than depending on the one that your parents crafted for you with your precious little phones and tv's in your nicely decorated bedrooms, use of the car and laundry done for you.

Now you're out there on your own, it's a whole other story isn't it. Whattsa-matta; can't duplicate that wonderful lifestyle you had while going through the school system, well boo-hoo.

I'm retired since the age of 57 on my investments that I, and only I, crafted and took responsibility for when I was in my twenties and fresh out of the navy. Didn't drive the latest thing, didn't have a big house, didn't get married til I could afford it, didn't go skiing at Whistler every winter or spring break in Florida.

Didn't insist on performing the equivilant to driving around yakking on my cel-phone about inane things like "what do you want to do tonight"?-- "I dunno, what do you wanna do?" while navigating your latest greatest little Mustang you're leasing using minutes of a cel plan you can't afford but absolutely must have in your "remain connected at whatever price" silly meaningless little existance.

I've noticed one thing about your generation kiddies; you don't have a pot to piss in or a window to throw it out of, but you've all got those cel-phones and I-pods glued to your heads like false antlers and driving a car on a lease program you can't use as a business write-off; how retarded is that?

Entitlements; hmmm, interesting that one; I was there when CPP was invented and contributed the max from that day forward and am now collecting the early applied 70% reduced version with instructions to RevCan to pre-tax it by $150. I ain't claiming that one as a lottery win folks. Gotta live a looong time to be a net winner there. OAS I became eligible for last year and am fully clawed back on that one. UI and the silly reverse named EI, I contributed to all my working life with never having to collect it. OHIP I'm eligible for but my defined benefit pension plan I joined back when I was in my twenties and contributed to since then provides me with medical top-up of travel insurance anywhere in the world, along with eyeglasses and hearing aids.

You whimps aren't paying for any of this so go have another latte and simmer down.My responsibility was only mine to shoulder and not the prior generations so that pension plan along with my RSSP's (dumb investment by the way) and other investments mean that my income taxes paid are in the 50% bracket and probably more than you whiners on here are making.

Go back to school buffoons and hunt worldwide for your employment niche. You're the ones who bought into the free trade bullcrap so make the most of it and sacrifice like we did for a bunch of years before whining about how you're missing your teddy-bear. You also accepted those idiotic 'one year of teacher's college guidance counsellors' all herding you into the wrong programs for the future and buying their bullcrap about blue collar jobs being an anethma. Gotta be a "certified, bonafied white collar University grad or you're a failure" nonsense you listened to with complete rapture even though 80% of you have the attention span of a gnat and would never see the inside of any institution of higher learning.

So whiners; I'm still a net contributor to YOUR system and all that tax money is going to support you and your programs of entitlement. They aren't around when you're ready to use 'em, well; YOU obviously haven't been paying enough into them, have you?
 
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mentalfloss

Prickly Curmudgeon Smiter
Jun 28, 2010
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Baby boomers living good life while their children hit blockade

EDMONTON - We’ve heard it so often. In this wealthy province, there’s prosperity for all. Right?

Take another look, says Paul Kershaw. Alberta has a bad case of “generation squeeze,” just like every other province, even though the years of oil booms have given higher incomes to Albertans.

The growing gap between rich and poor in Canada gained recent attention with the Occupy Movement and, last week, an Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development study that confirmed inequality is rising in Canada.

But Kershaw, an associate professor in the Human Early Learning Partnership at the University of British Columbia, has a different take. While most analysts talk about a wage gap, Kershaw, who spoke recently in Edmonton, sees a generation gap. Aging boomers are facing retirement on the best incomes ever seen while their children are raising families on incomes that stalled in the 1970s.

It’s an approach critics say plays one generation against another. Kershaw is not blaming boomers.

“I’m just shining light on these trends so Canadians can see whether they like them,” says Kershaw, a professor of public policy in UBC’s College for Interdisciplinary studies, and expert on family policy.

He examined household incomes in 1976 and compared them with incomes of young couples today, and adjusted for inflation. In Canada, young couples today have household incomes only slightly higher — five per cent — than young couples in 1976. Median household income in 2010 was $68,580 up $3,000 from $65,360 in 1976.

Even that small increase isn’t because wages went up, but because women went into the workforce, he says. Wages actually stalled.

Meanwhile, housing costs rose an average 76 per cent and daycare costs these days are like a second mortgage — when you can find it.


Now, look at the baby boomers who are about to retire, Kershaw says.

At ages 55-64 in Alberta, they have incomes 33-per-cent higher than those in the same age group facing retirement in 1976. (Across Canada, that increase is 18 per cent over those facing retirement in 1970s).


In addition, boomers’ houses today are worth much more than houses in the 1970s, a factor that adds to the generational imbalance.

“This is about an entire generation raising children and falling behind. Basically, your standard of living depends on when you were born, and the boomers won the lottery on that front,” he says. “They were working when real wages were higher and housing was cheaper.”

“While the boomers retire richer than any generation before, their grandchildren are growing up in families that are poorer than they were.”

It’s not just about income, the younger generation is poorer also because it has less time at home with the family, he says. That time squeeze undermines a basic Canadian value – that time with family is fundamental, he says.

People age 24-45 work longer hours than any other age group “so you can’t blame a lazy generation” for the income decline, he says.

What Canada needs is to do is give time back to these parents, and Kershaw has a plan for that.

Wendy Armstrong, a health policy analyst with expertise in elder care, agrees that work and life stress has grown as two-income families became a requirement to maintain a middle-class lifestyle. These families also take on more debt, adding to stress, she notes.

But it’s not all roses for boomers when they move on to take their pensions, she says.

“While the pre-retirement income of many Albertans may be high, fewer retirees have private pensions in Alberta and investment income is limited,” says Armstrong.

Also, elder care is growing more costly, in fact many young families have to help provide for their aging parents, she says. “There’s no real trade off here. The real culprit is the dramatic drop in revenue to fund programs originally designed to support citizens through all stages of life,” Armstrong.

“We’re all going to be young parents and then get old. We need policy that works for everyone.”

That’s true, says Kershaw, but social policy needs some tweaking to level the generational playing field.

That might not be easy to accomplish.

Baby boomers living good life while their children hit blockade