Ageism should we tolerate it?

[Hagar]

Age is a protected characteristic though, which I think is what Haggisman is getting at.

Age is a protected characteristic, if it is used to deny someone's rights. Nobody argues with minimum age restrictions as being ageist, or travel pass age restrictions. This quibble over Icelands arbitrary age limit for a shopping offer denys nobody their right under law. It may give a person over 60 an additional right above the general population but even that can easily be avoided by carting your aged P to Iceland on your family shopping trip and 'we are just shopping for Granny'.

 

[dowie]

Age is a protected characteristic, if it is used to deny someone's rights. Nobody argues with minimum age restrictions as being ageist, or travel pass age restrictions. This quibble over Icelands arbitrary age limit for a shopping offer denys nobody their right under law. It may give a person over 60 an additional right above the general population but even that can easily be avoided by carting your aged P to Iceland on your family shopping trip and 'we are just shopping for Granny'.

That doesn’t address his point to be fair. Equally you could say “just bring your white friend”. Etc..

 

[Freefaller]

Well you can, because you can sell a property.
Add to that private pension wealth the state pension and the average pensioner earns more than the average working person.
Get a grip, learn maths. We're not confused, you're just not very clever.

So if your parents had to sell their property to survive would you be happy with that? Having worked 50+ years, spent 10s of thousands on bringing you up and supporting you, you'd be happy for them to sell their property, and create financial insecurity until their last days?

I sort of "get" your point that the older generation have more wealth, but wealth != cash.

 

[Hagar]

Like I said, this in itself doesn't really bother me, but why is giving all over 60s a discount OK, but giving all straight white men wouldn't be? It's either a protected characteristic or it isn't.

For all practical purposes stating that "Iceland are increasing prices for all under 60s" would have the same effect, but I bet people wouldn't be happy about that!

It is a discretionary offer, it is not parliament making a law. Your second point is obtuse as why would they? It is a way to gain business from one of its demographics, not lose it.

 

[Haggisman]

It is a discretionary offer, it is not parliament making a law. Your second point is obtuse as why would they? It is a way to gain business from one of its demographics, not lose it.

it's a discretionary offer which discriminates based on a protected characteristic.

Not sure why you're saying "why would they?" to my second point - this is exactly what they are doing.

I'll ask again, why do you think it's OK to give a discount to over 60s but not straight white men? I'm sure they'd get plenty of support from certain demographics if they were to do that.

 

[Hagar]

Maybe they stock up with all the good stuff on a Wednesday when they have cleared the shelves of all the nearly out of date goods to the oldies on a Tuesday for a measly 10% discount. I do not know, I am sure that it not a machievellian plot and that it is probably legal and unlikely to bunch many people's underwear in the process. Just good old capitalism.

If it was all day every day and across all shops, I could see the argument.

PS I do not shop at Iceland even though I am 69.

 

[Freakbro]

it's a discretionary offer which discriminates based on a protected characteristic.

Hasn't dowie already covered that point with his post that quoted this

Age discrimination - when discrimination is allowed in the provision of goods or services

Situations which don't count as unlawful age discrimination when buying goods or accessing services, when a trader or service provider is allowed to treat some people differently because of their age.

www.citizensadvice.org.uk

 

[Haggisman]

Hasn't dowie already covered that point with his post that quoted this

Age discrimination - when discrimination is allowed in the provision of goods or services

Situations which don't count as unlawful age discrimination when buying goods or accessing services, when a trader or service provider is allowed to treat some people differently because of their age.

www.citizensadvice.org.uk

I saw that, but I couldn't find where in the legislation that exemption was actually mentioned (to be fair I did just skim it, it's not the most engaging read ). If that's actually the case then by all means crack on!

 

[Terminal_Boy]

I'd be fine with it if they made this only apply during normal 9-5 working hours.

So when people with jobs who have no other choice but to go shopping on the weekend don't find the isles clogged up with ******* coffin dodgers having a social.

Here speaks a man who’s tried to use a Post Office at lunchtime on Giro day.

 

[Dis86]

Did you declare the source of the data quoted? A quick reread of the thread and I cannot see it.

I don't see any column that looks like average  income.

What is financial wealth in that table?

@LabR@t is correctr tax is paid on any income above the allowance.

Again...the figures are net. As I've stated already the source is the ONS.

Figures are broken down here however including additional stats.

Average Household Savings & Wealth UK 2023

Wondering how much people save each year on average? Here are UK savings stats across income levels, household sizes, education, gender and other factors.

www.nimblefins.co.uk

Additionally have a look at articles like this, now 5 years old and things have only grown

Pensioners '£20 a week better off' on average than workers

Property, private pensions and higher benefits have pushed incomes of retirees above working families for first time

www.theguardian.com

Pensioners 'earning more than the average worker'

Generation gap getting wider all the time, reports the Institute for Fiscal Studies

www.independent.co.uk

 

[soundb0y]

I doubt the wealthy ones shop in iceland.

Wealthy old people are some of the tightest people in existence.

 

[200sols]

Wealthy old people are some of the tightest people in existence.

They will go to Aldi or Lidl then, Tbh whenever I walk past the Iceland in town its never old people in there, usually lots of really fat people though.

 

[builder22]

I’m imagining all the under agers hanging about Iceland on a Tuesday asking random OAPs on the street to go in and get them 20 burgers

 

[Cyber-Mav]

easiest way to sort this is send your parents shopping for you with your cash

 

[MikeTheNative]

Wealthy old people are some of the tightest people in existence.

My granddad isn't wealthy but he has a decent pension and they paid off their house in the 80s so he's quite comfortable.
He's oddly tight about spending money on really strange things. Didn't want to buy a new car when he had a death trap of a rover metro held together with tape , doesn't want to spend money on more comfortable chairs, sofa etc but then would spend £500 on a stand mixer they barely use.

 

[Hagar]

Wealthy people are some of the tightest people in existence.

Fixed. That is why they are wealthy. Look after the pennies and the pounds look after themselves.

 

[PlacidCasual]

I thought positive discrimination was a universally acknowledged boon.

On a more serious note not all pensioners worked for large companies with pension funds or in the public sector. Many live off the State Pension in near poverty and rapid inflation can hit them very hard.

 

[cheesyboy]

Boomerang kids could impact that, e.g. the main earner in the household might be late 20s but they are living in their parents house that's worth hundreds of thousands but was bought a long time ago so has huge equity even if the parents don't earn that much.
Then the average will be boosted by property developers and what have you with loads of equity.
However it still seems high, it's also by fair the most extreme ratio of PropertyWealth:FinancialWealth (i.e. they have more than 20x as much Property Wealth as Finance Wealth) and they have well over half their wealth in property (no other age bracket comes close). In some ways this makes sense because people of that age probably plough all their money into a house deposit rather than savings and investments, but as you say, if less than 20% actually own property, then it's a bit odd because all the people saving up for a house who haven't yet bought should have money in financial wealth.

Seems like @Dis86 's figures are mean average.

Median tells a more realistic story. (Though I have to say I still don't really believe his figures can be accurate)

Median in figure 4 in this link:

Household total wealth in Great Britain - Office for National Statistics

Main results of household wealth from the seventh round of the Wealth and Assets Survey covering the period April 2018 to March 2020.

www.ons.gov.uk

Net property wealth for 25-34 year olds is £12,000.

 

[Dis86]

Seems like @Dis86 's figures are mean average.

Median tells a more realistic story. (Though I have to say I still don't really believe his figures can be accurate)

Median in figure 4 in this link:

Household total wealth in Great Britain - Office for National Statistics

Main results of household wealth from the seventh round of the Wealth and Assets Survey covering the period April 2018 to March 2020.

www.ons.gov.uk

Net property wealth for 25-34 year olds is £12,000.

They're not my figures. They're the ONS.

 

[Zenduri]

A vast majority of OAP's in my home town are in housing association properties on state pensions and their are huge swathes of the town whcih are solely OAP occupied. They definitely arent sitting on this magical £900k assets in one of these posts. I know for a fact my 75yr old father isnt sat on 100's of thousands of asssets. Yes, older generations have benefitted from property value increases but to assume everyone owns a £500k property as soon as they reach 65 and have 200-300k in the bank or in private pensions is ******* stupid. Of everyone i know over 65, i dont think i know any that have a private pension.

There is a subset of elderly that are stupidly wealthy but there are plenty of oaps who stuggle from 1 week to another or live on the edge. Some of the responses from some people in this thread are a big disgusting tbh