Quote Originally Posted by SinceSept1959 View Post
You need to remember that pensioners were young once and also faced hardship starting out in married life !
The difference then being a working ethic and not buying things that they couldn't afford.
In addition pensioners paid NI throughout their working lives, funding state pensions for senior citizens without whinging about it.
The same criteria applied to size of families , responsible couples didn't have children they couldn't afford , rather than the taxpayers funding a family.
In essence, the same criteria throughout history , meant that cities expanded through job creation and prosperity.
Rightly or wrongly, married people stayed together and single people and single parents didn't create pressure on housing stock.
Regarding the net gains and losses statistics which you quoted, you must remember statistics can be manipulated and are forever changing.
Thatcher famously stated that "there is no such thing as society " which coincided with the foundations of yuppies ,the greedy mantra division and resentment .
The rule of thumb is....if a government introduces a benefit, it's nigh on impossible to remove it.

This could be Starmer's Poll Tax moment - it's very early in his tenure though. As with the Poll Tax, it probably wasn't a terrible idea, just totally mishandled and poorly introduced.