Age Concern: Pension schemes inadequate

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Age Concern: Pension schemes inadequate

Thu 23rd Oct 2008

Current schemes to take pensioners out of poverty fall "pitifully short of the mark", the director general of Age Concern has said.

Speaking after a rally outside Parliament by the National Pensioners Convention (NPC) and 15 trade unions demanding a raise in the state pension, Gordon Lishman said more than two million pensioners are below the poverty line.

He added that thousands struggle to pay their basic households costs.

Mr Lishman urged the government to consider the "real rate of inflation" for pensioners when it uprates the basic state pension and pension credit next year.

In addition, he said it needed to do more to make sure the £5 billion in unclaimed benefits reaches the people entitled to it.

The BBC reported the NPC rally prior to its taking place.

Campaigners said that the state pension is at poverty level and called for the basic single pension to increase from £91 to £151 a week.

NPC general secretary Joe Harris called it a "national disgrace" that millions of elderly people are in poverty.

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