Maybe if your generation hadn't repeatedly voted for parties that gutted our social safety net through continuous austerity measures to encourage private enterprise, you wouldn't be in this situation, Ginette.
this post was submitted on 06 Apr 2024
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Temper your condescension with the awareness that you have no fucking idea how Ginette spent her life voting. Imagine being a lifelong NDP supporter struggling in your twilight years only to be met with the pitiless snark of some mellenial edgelord who presumes to know you just by your age.
The way some people in this thread are responding to the issue of elder poverty is so nasty. “Well they should have just bought a house when they were younger and since they’re old it’s probably their own fault anyway” is some shit I’d expect to see out of conservatives. There are SO many reasons an elderly person may be living in poverty, and none of them mean they don’t deserve secure housing and food.
It feels like lots of lemmings are very edgy 17 yo's
That's not the message I was trying to convey at all.
What I was saying is, the boomer generation, could have built a society where everyone could have had plenty. We had tax rules in place that taxed the rich and the companies and that money could be used for financing a whole safety net and also for big projects that made quality of life better. But instead they enabled conservative and neo liberal parties to completely do the opposite. And now we live in a society where everybody is having a hard time accessing basic needs like food and shelter.
It's the boomer generation that voted for Mulroney, Reagan, Thatcher, etc. Who brought us trickle down economics.
Right, but just got the sake of argument, i would guess a lifelong NDP supporter having a hard time to make ends meet in retirement would know exactly why...
That's a fair point. Think about the pitiless snark of boomers who pretend to know us millenials by our age too. Housing isn't expensive, you just are lazy and eat too much avocado toast!
That's exactly right. We've been on the other end of this. We're still on the other end of this.
Over my life, I've met many people who have been systemically oppressed. It's like they're being held to the ground, a boot on their neck.
Most of them just dream of a world where they can be free of that oppression... But for some people... Their minds grow diseased, and they instead of dreaming of a world free from oppression they dream of one day becoming the boot.
Don't be the boot!
The affordability crisis is a major crisis, and we need to do whatever we can to get this under control.
At the same time, I literally have the same question that's in the title. She says she only makes $1,200/mo. Assuming that's true, the OAS estimator (also assuming she's single) says she should be getting $1,013.77 from OAS and GIS alone. I don't live in Quebec, so i don't know a lot about QPP, but that should be more than $200/mo if she worked most of her life. And if she's making that little, she shouldn't have any tax deducted at source, so that shouldn't reduce her income.
That's the problem with using one person as the hook for a news story. Readers focus on the one person's story.
We don't know a lot about her circumstances. Maybe she had a shitty time during her earning years. Maybe she made some bad choices. Maybe she isn't maximizing her income now.
But prices for rent, food, and necessities are spiking. People who fall into the categories above are going to have a bad time. If we don't get living costs under control larger and larger segments of the population are going to get screwed.
I totally agree with what you say. At the same time, it's often easier for the generally public to see an issue through an individual case rather than numbers and statistics. That's why many movements have used vetted individuals, probably the most famous being Rosa Parks for the Civil Rights Movement in the States.
That's why many movements have used vetted individuals, probably the most famous being Rosa Parks for the Civil Rights Movement in the States.
Agreed. I'm kind of amazed that Canada doesn't have a national group organizing about cost of living issues. I was really sad when the Reddit group organizing for housing costs imploded.
Idk who needs to hear this, but there's absolutely no shame in using a food bank. I volunteered at one for years and people were always so embarrassed. They always had an excuse, as if they had to justify the help they received. That's literally what it's there for! Everyone hits hard times at some point and your neighbors are here to help.
I later utilized a food bank for a couple years when I was recovering from homelessness and it was a godsend.
Cause you voted for Bouchard, Legault, Marois and every other right-wing dickhead who can't help but gut every social program while getting votes to "protect our culture".
It was the Charest and Couillard Liberal government that applied austerity measures and gutted our social safety net in Quebec. They were in power for just over a decade. And I doubt this lady has voted for the parti québécois at any point in her life.
I'm going to go out on a limb and assume this lady is over a couple of decades old. And yeah, those leaders were just as bad. C'est pas une compétition.
Pagliuca explained she’s using her RRSPs to cover the rest of her rent, but said a good portion of that is getting taxed.
That is how the RRSP is designed to work. She got all those taxes refunded for decades so now she can pay a lower taxable amount than she would have earlier.
And if she’s using it for $500 a month, the taxes on that are going to be very low, not a “good portion”.
The article is written in a very misleading way. 10-20% could be seen as a "good" portion, but it will be returned in the next year since 6K a year will be in the lowest tax bracket.
Most banks default to 10% tax deducted at source. Clients can tell the bank to take more or less, but you're right, she should be getting back almost of it (if not all of it) when she files.
if she’s using it for $500 a month, the taxes on that are going to be very low, not a “good portion”.
It raises her income, so she gets less OAS. You're right, but if she's poor, then she's gonna have a bad time.
OAS recovery doesn't start until $90,997 of annual income in 2024, so that's not a factor.
EDIT: It could reduce her GIS. The threshold for GIS recovery is $21,624, but from what she said, she also shouldn't have that much income, even with the RRSPs.
Yeah, sorry. I get OAS and GIS mixed up.
Understandable. GIS is automatically applied to an OAS applicant if they qualify, so a lot of people just think of them as the same program.
What’s the thresholds?
The bar is pretty high.
67-year-old At $1,200 a month, her pension doesn’t even cover her housing needs.
I don't know her circumstances, but at her age (and generation), she should have already paid off her mortgage 20 years ago. $1200 mortgage-free would be like retiring like a millionaire! Or at least, that's how the "old way" was set up.
I guess she's experiencing what the current, and future generations, will have to experience. And that makes me incredibly anxious. 😱
I don't know her circumstances, but at her age (and generation), she should have already paid off her mortgage 20 years ago.
A lot of boomers were poor. There's no guarantee she owned a house or had the money to save a significant amount.
$1200 mortgage-free would be like retiring like a millionaire!
If she's paid off her home, property taxes would be around $4,800 ($400/mo). Say another couple hundred bucks for utilities. Suddenly she's living on $150/week.
The median rent is $1,900. That's rough on $1,200/mo.
If she’s paid off her home, property taxes would be around $4,800 ($400/mo).
In fairness, no retired old woman is expected to live alone in a house big enough to warrant a $4800 property tax. The fact that she's "only" paying $1200 in rent tells me that she's not in an expensive area to start with.
The idea, or at least, the ideal, is to either downsize or move into a retirement home when you're done working. If your mortgage is paid off, then you'd expect to make $400,000 - over $1,000,000 for any type of home.
But really, the thought that any person her age would need to struggle just looks bad on the country. This isn't how it's supposed to be.
Doesn't it say that $1,200 doesn't cover her housing needs?
Yup, the article suggests her rent is ~$1,700:
At $1,200 a month, her pension doesn’t even cover her housing needs.
“I’m short like $500 just for the rent,”
Ah, I missed understood that.
Does she not also get the Guaranteed Income Supplement? She certainly qualifies based on her age and income <$21,000 a year. That would get her an extra $1000 a month.
said she started collecting her pension when she was 60 but kept working until she was 65.
I might also be wrong about this, but doesn't that majorly screw you over? To collect your pension before 65?
Yeah, I wish the article had more details about her situation. I don't know when she's talking about her "pension" if she's talking about her total income, her QPP (maybe including her OAS & GIS?), her private pension, or something else.
I might also be wrong about this, but doesn’t that majorly screw you over? To collect your pension before 65?
This articles lays it out pretty well. It's highly dependent on your personal situation, how long you think you'll live. I do question her choice to start collecting at 60, but we don't have enough info to judge if this was financially prudent, short-sighted, or just desperate.
At 67 most of us will still be working, if (and that's a BIG if) we ever retire at all
Who the fuck gives me a job when I am 67?
Walmart, McDonald's...the same kinds of jobs people say "shouldn't pay enough to live on"
Governments it seems
That's honestly my biggest fear. What's the point of working 45+ years, and not even have enough money left to enjoy the approx. 15 years in the worst health of your life without needing to work?
Providing shareholder value, mostly.
The article states she rents:
At $1,200 a month, her pension doesn’t even cover her housing needs.
“I’m short like $500 just for the rent,”
Pensions are absolutely not enough to live off of. They are 20, 30k a year if you are lucky. That's not enough to live off of. They are supplemental income at best. Retirement is a myth.
myth
You abbreviate "goal we need to direct the elected caretakers of our consolidated resources toward as a priority, funded by re-establishing tax rates on the wealthy from 'the good old days' again" funny.
The federal liberal party has a myriad of faults, but the name-association with the provincial linos is really hurting them for things they're not doing.
Inflation?