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Could You Get By on £50 a Week?
By Ian Pollack, BBC News
United
Kingdom
November 1, 2005
Ann Green advises women how to raise their pensions
Nearly 900,000 pensioners are still living in what the government says is 'absolute poverty'.
Ann Green's experiences help to reveal why.
They highlight some of the biggest obstacles to women receiving a full state pension.
Work & Pensions Secretary David Blunkett has been making this problem a major target for reform.
On Wednesday he is expected to publish a government report which will underline the difficulties women have in trying to achieve an equal place in the
UK's pension system.
Too few contributions:
Ann is now 68.
She got married at 18, stayed at home for several years to look after her three children, and spent many years working either part time or full time in about 10 different jobs.
By the time she retired, eight years ago, she had paid National Insurance contributions for fewer than the 39 years needed to qualify for the full state pension.
Like many women she had also paid reduced National Insurance contributions, known as the "married women's stamp".
Under this arrangement, married women could opt to pay lower contributions, in exchange for receiving a reduced pension on retirement.
This was abolished in 1977.
Even if the consequences had been fully explained at the time, Ann doubts she would have done anything differently.
She and her then husband simply needed all their money to raise their family.
"We needed the money there and then," she says.
"You can't save, it's impossible.
"Even if they had said years later your pension will be a few pounds more, I couldn't have done it because we needed the money to live on," she adds.
Pension credit:
One government policy designed to improve this situation is the pension credit.
This was introduced in 2003. It is supposed to ensure that everyone aged 60 or over gets at least £109.45 a week.
Nearly 3.3 million pensioners now receive it.
The money doesn't arrive automatically though. People have to claim it.
Ann found the process was very off-putting.
"I didn't want to do it. You feel kind of ashamed that you are having to do it, telling people all about your personal financial income.
"They said it wasn't means testing but it was.
"I rang the free phone number and it was an awful thing to go through, talking about your personal finances, horrible. You are exposing yourself. The whole process was intrusive."
That may be one reason why around 20% of pensioners have still not claimed any of the new credit.
Poor take-up:
Ann's weekly pension is now £110 a week.
She says getting the credit has been a real benefit.
"At first it got me £11 a week, which probably sounds like nothing, but when you are on a low income it makes a big difference. And now it's £16 a week. And I don't have to pay the full council rent and council tax."
But each week she meets other women who seem to be living on pitifully small amounts of money.
They are among the women who come up to the stall which she runs in Leicester market on behalf of the Leicester Pensioners Rights campaign.
Ann hears stories from some women that astonish her.
"There are a lot of women who shock me. There are a lot whose income, a year ago, was £40 a week, now it's just under £50 a week. If they went for pension credit they would get more. "
It seems either they still don't know about Pension Credit or just won't apply for it.
Divorce:
One piece of advice Ann gives to some of the women is to get a formal divorce if they have already separated from their husbands.
Ann did this herself a few years ago and as a result her pension went up significantly.
That is because the rules allow divorced people with fewer than the maximum NI contributions to claim an increased pension, based on the contributions made by their former spouses.
She says many women aren't aware of this and are reluctant to jump through that hoop anyway.
"There's a look of resignation on their faces. Maybe some go away and do it.
But there's a lot who aren't."
Send us your comments:
At this year's Labour Party conference, the Work & Pensions secretary David Blunkett said low pension provision for women was a scandal.
He said he aimed to reshape the country's benefit and pension system.
Ann Green's preference is straightforward: a flat rate, non-means tested pension, of about £125 to £130 a week.
"If we had a reasonable state pension that allowed us to do the things we wanted to do we wouldn't have to go through those hoops. They should do away with means testing. I'd rather have a decent state pension so I could pay my own way."
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