Press Release

Government Failure Forces 822 Extra Pensioners Into Poverty Each Day, Says Help The Aged

June 10 2008

Responding to the Households Below Average Income (HBAI) figures released today by the Office for National Statistics, Mervyn Kohler, Special Adviser for Help the Aged, says:

“The Government should be mortified by the latest rise in pensioner poverty - in a twelve month period, an additional 300,000 pensioners have been forced into poverty.  On average that’s around 822 pensioners each day.

“When older people live on a fixed income it is virtually impossible for them to pull themselves out of poverty.  Pensioners often have to cut back on essential household items, just to survive. This is a disgrace.

“The Government must take responsibility for the inequality so many older people face.  Instead, each year the Treasury sits on more than £5 billion of unclaimed benefits which should go to older people.  While this figure may make the Chancellor rub his hands together with glee, this daylight robbery of older people must not be allowed to continue.

“It is up to the Government to ensure older people get the benefits they’re entitled to and these should be paid automatically.  The spirit in some parts of the Government seems willing, but unfortunately for the one in four pensioners living in poverty, the flesh in the Treasury seems weak.”

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