Indignity of the old age pension
Let there be no delusions about the purpose of old age pensions. They are not designed primarily to benefit the pensioners. A case in point is the first national pension scheme ever, in this country. The motive behind that scheme, whatever nonsense the politicians talked about it, was to find a cheaper way of keeping the old geezers going than sending them to the workhouse. Since then, the pension has been increased many times, but it is still inadequate to keep an old person in any sort of comfort. Hence the fact that millions of pensioners have to resort to National Assistance.
The basic pension for a single person is £3.7.6. a week. In London a furnished room costs a minimum of about £2.10.0. a week, which leaves very little for heating, cooking, beer, tobacco, clothes and food. Perhaps economies are possible; very little heat would be needed to cook the paltry amount of food which could be bought on that budget. Yet this is what Sir Alec Douglas Home referred to as “sharing in prosperity.” Truly, someone is prosperous, but it is not the worn out workers who make up the army of old age pensioners.
But, say the defenders of the Welfare State, there is always National Assistance. The N.A.B. considers that a single person needs £3.16.0. a week for needs other than rent. It is of course difficult to find out what allowance the Board makes for a pensioner’s rent, but so far as one can judge from published correspondence, is has been about £2.10.0. for a single person and £4.10.0. for a married couple. This, obviously, is acceptable to a pensioner, but it represents something far from prosperity, or even moderate security.
The scheme is bedevilled by complications and anomalies. For example, if pensioners live in a council house or flat, they are deemed to be paying a reduced rent, and their National Assistance reduced accordingly. They are investigated by the council and by the N.A.B.—the council want their rent, the Board want to keep their payments as low as they can. However delicately the investigations are carried out, the pensioners’ dignity is bruised; many of them, indeed, refuse to apply to the N.A.B. for that reason.
After a lot of cogitation the late Tory government introduced a “graduated” pension scheme. This was supposed to be a wonderful improvement. When the fanfares died away, it was apparent that the new scheme meant that a slightly higher pension would be paid, after higher contributions from workers and employers.
One thing which came to light later on, when the Labour government were proposing to increase pensions, was that, under certain conditions, the pensioners stood to lose under the graduated scheme. When the Labour government’s Bill was being debated, the Conservatives introduced an amendment to increase the weekly payments to those who worked after they were sixty-five. Referring to the existing scales,
“Lt. Cdr. Maydon (C. Wells) former parliamentary secretary, Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance, said that if a single man deferred his retirement for the full five years, the State would be better off by £1,385. The man would have to live until he was 95 years old before he broke even” (Daily Telegraph, 4.12.64).
It is, we need hardly say, not curious that the Tories did not draw attention to this point when they originally introduced the Graduated scheme.
The amendment which Lt. Cdr. Maydon was supporting was rejected by the Labour government, in their familiar pose of the Pensioners’ Friend, on the grounds that they are engaged in a general review of all social security provisions. They now propose to increase the basic pension to £4.0.0. for a single person and £6.10.0. for a married couple. These new scales will come into force at the end of March. The Assistance payments are also increased, by 12.6d. and £1.1.0. respectively.
These modest rises amount to the Labour Government’s redemption of their election promises. The postponement of the higher payments until March 19th., while the rise in MP’s pay was backdated, aroused some misgivings among Labour MP’s, but the official answer at the time was that the amount of extra clerical work involved prevented any earlier increases. Then Mr. George Brown, Minister of Economic Affairs, let one of his many cats out of one of his many bags. Speaking at the Labour Conference at Brighton, he admitted that it was the economic ministers, Mr. Callaghan and himself, who had advised against earlier payment. “We simply” he said, “in this situation, could not do more than we have done.”
At this stage, we cannot foresee what will result from the present Review. But one thing is certain. The pensioners have nothing to hope for from the Labour Party, which upheld the Means Test when they were in office in the Thirties and which kept the pensioners worse off, when they were in power after the war, than did the subsequent Conservative governments.
As long as capitalism lasts, old people are going to suffer the indignities and deprivations which are inseparable from them today. Capitalism is interested in its workers only so long as they are a source of profit when they grow old they become just another Social Problem. But somehow they must be kept, so the State levies a contribution, from both the workers and their employers, to finance the payment of pensions later on. The basic concern is to keep capitalism running. Pensions are a side issue, full of the anomalies of what were the Ten Shilling widows, the disabled hanging on to life with their feeble fingertips, the embarrassments of National Assistance.
Yet the pensioners have a hope. They cannot, like their younger fellow workers, strike to improve their conditions. But there are six million of them and that is an awful lot of votes. That is why they are wooed and promised the Earth, by Labour and Tory Parties alike. At the moment, young and old are deceived by the promises. But they could use their vote, in unity, to set up the world of freedom and dignity, for human beings throughout their lives.
RAMO