Not Dead Yet: A Manifesto for Old Age. Julia Neuberger
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because no one noticed that they were a bit confused.
Much of that confusion was about money. They may not have been poor, but managing money, or trusting someone else to do it for you when you can’t do it yourself – particularly if you don’t have children or other close relatives – is quite difficult. It is also a source of concern, and even fear, among many older people.
Real poverty
Despite these trends, real poverty is still an issue for many older people. Some 1.8 million older people are still living in poverty in England, according to Age Concern, and inequality amongst retired people is greater than amongst the working population.3 The top fifth of pensioner couples have a retirement income averaging around £45,000 per annum, whilst a quarter of all pensioners live below the poverty line (£5,800 for a single person).
All this is further complicated by the fact that some £4.2 billion in possible benefits for older people go unclaimed. Age Concern England has been trying to persuade the public to do more to make sure older people they know claim the benefits they are entitled to. After all, the Department for Work and Pensions is on record saying that no pensioner should be living on less than £119 a week. Yet a third of us are afraid that an older friend or relative is missing out on cash benefits, and almost half of pensioner households fail to claim Council Tax Benefit, leaving almost £1.4 billion unclaimed. As many as 40 per cent of pensioners fail to take up their entitlement to Pension Credit, 47 per cent to Council Tax Benefit and 19 per cent to Housing Benefit.
Older people’s charities, such as Age Concern and Help the Aged, already do a fair bit to alert older people and their families and friends to claim the benefits they are entitled to. But they could do much more, and this is where their polite approach to campaigning and providing help is less than useful. Many older people watch TV a great deal in the daytime, and a really angry television campaign might alert people to what they are entitled to. Giving them numbers to call and encouraging them to go to the Citizen’s Advice Bureau – even taking part in the campaign – might also help. There was a high-profile launch of Age Concern’s ‘Your Rights’ campaign, but we need to shame benefits officers into going out and finding older people who are not claiming. They are doing just this in some parts of the country; why can’t they do it everywhere?
Fuel poverty
The poverty that older people are often particularly prone to is ‘fuel poverty’, not being able to afford proper heating. This is defined by the Faculty of Public Health as the situation where any household has to spend more than 10 per cent of its income on keeping warm. Older people need their houses to be warmer than younger people do, and often live in poorly insulated housing, or in their former family home, not having wished to move house, which is expensive to heat, particularly if they are living on their own. A total of 1.25 million pensioner households spend more than 10 per cent of their income on fuel.
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