THERE is sometimes a tendency to think of Britain’s pensioners in terms of the better-off baby boomers: older people who have a decent pension, have paid off their mortgage and can afford a couple of nice holidays a year. Mention poverty on the other hand and we are more likely to think of perhaps a young couple struggling to pay the rent or mortgage or, even worse, struggling to put food on the table.
Both of these images are perfectly valid and accurately represent what is going on in large parts of society. But in thinking of many older people as better off, there is a danger we forget another major group: the elderly who are very far from well-off. According to research by Age Scotland, this group is made up of around 200,000 people, or one in five of those who are over 65 years old. These are pensioners who, far from spending their children’s inheritance, are struggling financially every single day.
Helping pensioners in this situation is partly about ensuring they receive the financial support to which they are entitled– and we are still far from achieving that. But it also means making profound changes to the settled view on wages and taxation so pensioners of the future can build up their savings and retire with a decent income, supported by a social care system that is there when they need it.
On the issue of ensuring pensioners receive the right financial help, the evidence is that we have a huge problem of under-claiming – in fact, some £292million in pension credit and housing benefit is going unclaimed by pensioners every year. This is not a problem restricted to elderly people of course – there is a similar problem on tax credits and other benefits – but the unclaimed benefits have a serious effect on pensioners’ income. Age Scotland estimate that claiming pension credit can increase a pensioner’s income by £2,184 a year.
A number of charities, including Age Scotland, are doing superb work in helping people to boost their income by claiming the benefits to which they are entitled, and the hundreds of thousands that such projects generate illustrates the scale of the problem. But it may be that the complex nature of the benefits system, combined with a reluctance by some pensioners to be seen as relying on the state, means a disincentive exists on claiming. Charities can help overcome it, but it is ultimately up to government to increase awareness.
In the longer term, pensioner poverty also has to be tackled by taking on some of the imbalances in benefits, tax, pensions and welfare. On pensions, that means protecting the triple lock, but it also means asking whether universal benefits are sustainable – the Scottish Government’s poverty tsar Naomi Eisenstadt says fuel poverty programmes for example should be targeted at the poor and it is hard to disagree with her.
And why has no real progress been made on taxation? It is no surprise that the European countries with the lowest levels of poverty are also the ones that pay the most tax and it is that fact that points to the future. The poverty of our pensioners – or anyone else for that matter – will never end unless and until the burden of tax is distributed more fairly.
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