THE FUTILITY OF REFORMS

Roger Turner the General Secretary in his News and Views article of the January/ February issue of the Unite magazine, relates some facts about pensions and pensioners that demonstrate that pensions are not a solution to working class poverty, however, I’m sure he will not point out to his members that the solution is to stop trying to recycle capitalism, best thing is to bin it. The article reads,

Are you living in comfort

A Survey by pension’s provider Friends Provident claims that people can live ‘comfortably’ on an income of £832 a month, excluding rent or mortgage payments.

I don’t know what Friends Provident means by ‘comfortably’ but whatever it is; it is luxury beyond the dreams of avarice for the majority of pensioners.

The state pension is £363 a month. Pension Credit pushes this up to £496. Does this mean that your average pensioner is living half comfortably? Or could half a pensioner live in comfort, while the other half made do on the breadline?

Who knows? These surveys rarely reflect the real world. What is certain is that after 100 years of the state pension failing to meet the needs of pensioners – it celebrates the anniversary of its introduction in 2008 – most pensioners are still struggling to make ends meet.