Three in four pensioners are living in a cold home

I am 72,old rate state pension, no private pension at all.
So I’m just continuing to work 18 hours a week in a high dementia care home, luckily I do enjoy my work but I would be buggered without this little job….

Monica it's just under 2000 sq ft (total for both floors), 50 years old, brick cavity walls with cavity insulation and full double glazing. Boiler is about 8 years old.

We are in N Derbyshire (not far from Buxton who once had snow in July) and house is abt 800 feet above sea level. I think this is probably higher than average.

Shinamae

I am 72,old rate state pension, no private pension at all.
So I’m just continuing to work 18 hours a week in a high dementia care home, luckily I do enjoy my work but I would be buggered without this little job….

Do you get a pension credit top up, help with C/T.

I don’t mean to sound harsh and I know that some people are struggling especially those just on the cusp of Pension Credit who miss out on all the fuel and other benefits that PC is a gateway to but how many people is that? It isn’t nine million.

I’ve recently finished reading Trust by Hernan Diaz. The central character talks about his study of mob psychology where people follow one another’s behaviour. In that case it’s about the mass get-rich-quick speculation on Wall Street that led to the 1929 crash.

Since last July, the media has bombarded us with stories about hard-up pensioners - and some genuinely are but not nine million out of thirteen million.

Pensioner couples are better off than single pensioners with an average income in 2023 of £561 pw after housing costs. That’s £2,431 a month. The lowest income a pensioner couple can have is £332 pw on Pension Credit which is £1,440 a month (plus WFP and WHD). Isn’t that level of income enough to heat a home adequately?

In 2023, 4.2 million pensioners lived alone. On average, single pensioners have less income than couples but they still have to heat their homes. So, it’s those that are more likely to be struggling with energy cost. But even if every pensioner who lives alone was cold it’s only half the number Age UK are claiming.

Whichever way I look at this, the numbers don’t add up.

Out of my either side neighbours, both elderly couples, one had his wooly hat on in the kitchen and I think a fleece when I saw him through the window and the other side use electric blankets instead of their heating. We aren't cold at all and use our heating as needed and our log burner. So, according to my quick poll, 2 out of 3 pensioners near me are cold this winter.

rafichagran

Shinamae

I am 72,old rate state pension, no private pension at all.
So I’m just continuing to work 18 hours a week in a high dementia care home, luckily I do enjoy my work but I would be buggered without this little job….

Do you get a pension credit top up, help with C/T.

No, I wouldn’t even apply for it because I’m still working

Whitewavemark2

So are most of GN members living in cold homes?

Do a straw poll of friends - how many do you know live in cold homes.

I know of no one.

Neither do I.

There doesnt seem to be a single confirmed fact in the publication.

I would really like to know why pensioners with above Pension Credit eligability are cold. There are several other benefits they can claim. Has the newspaper done anything to help these pensioners?

Chocolatelovinggran

And the data to support this is?

Office For National Statistics and Age UK.

mae13

Chocolatelovinggran

And the data to support this is?

Office For National Statistics and Age UK.

But that data doesn’t support the Express headline does it?

Numbers do not matter so much as the fact that there is anyone in this position at all. Good for the newspapers for highlighting a need. Not something that should be swept under the carpet at all and maybe this publicity might make the government actually try to help.

Whitewavemark2 Several of us on this thread have already explained that yes, we do live in cold homes!

nanna8

The numbers don’t matter, no one should be freezing cold because they can’t afford heating. If it was the Conservatives in charge I can just imagine the furore. I thought the Labour Party was supposed to help people. One of the reasons we left the UK in that dreadful Ted Heath’s regime was that we couldn’t afford to heat, eat or anything else. Nothing’s changed.

If you think that nothing's change in the UK since Ted Heath's time then you've either not been back or not looking about you when you were here. Everything has changed.

Here are the Tories talking about means testing the fuel allowance as far back as 2017.
www.civilserviceworld.com/professions/article/theresa-may-admits-she-does-not-know-how-many-pensioners-will-lose-winter-fuel-allowance

The truth is that the vast majority of people who received the WFA didn't need it. Those that do can and should apply for it.

The media who are now parroting each other to criticise Labour's policy have spent the last several years filling their headlines with 'Boomers are rich and living like kings' headlines....they can't have it both ways.

Nanna8 the idea, that no one at anytime or for any reason should be cold, is ridiculous.

Nobody is sweeping anything under the carpet. Many try to give help where they can.

ViceVersa

Whitewavemark2 Several of us on this thread have already explained that yes, we do live in cold homes!

Why?

What makes your home particularly cold?
Is it rented or owned?
Why can't you move to a warmer home? (I'm not saying you can)
If you haven't enough money to spend on heating, whst are you spending it on?
Have you checked for benefits that cover what seems to be that greater need?

Nothing is simple but on such a large scale thing hafe to be simplified. So many questions to be answered about any individual being cold at home and they are not all in the government's gift to sort out. Some are of the person's own choosing or imposed on them by circumstance.

And don't forget the House of Commons briefing paper published on 5 November 2019 (i.e. just weeks before the General Election on 12 December 2019) where three options for reforming WFP were proposed including what has now been done.

We will never know but for the timing: a deadly pandemic followed by the war on Ukraine and the consequential energy and general cost of living crises where people needed more help not less, whether a Tory goverment would have carried out any of the reforms. I suspect not as the elderly are the Party's core voter base, but reforming WFP was on the table else why was the paper commissioned?

researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN06019/SN06019.pdf

The very last paragraph says:

Withdrawal at a certain threshold would also create a “cliff-edge” problem. This could be tackled by introducing some sort to “taper”.... but his would be complicated and expensive to administer.

This was the bit that Reeves ignored in her zeal to fill a "black hole" that cannot exist and that is what has caused the biggest problem for those who just miss out on Pension Credit.

I am managing by using my smaller bedroom as a sitting room. I have my pets and television in there and during this cold weather, it's where I'm spending most of my time. The only time I feel truly warm is in bed, so I retire early.
I'm not complaining because I'm thankful to have a roof over my head, but it does make life difficult.

PoliticsNerd

ViceVersa

Whitewavemark2 Several of us on this thread have already explained that yes, we do live in cold homes!

Why?

What makes your home particularly cold?
Is it rented or owned?
Why can't you move to a warmer home? (I'm not saying you can)
If you haven't enough money to spend on heating, whst are you spending it on?
Have you checked for benefits that cover what seems to be that greater need?

Nothing is simple but on such a large scale thing hafe to be simplified. So many questions to be answered about any individual being cold at home and they are not all in the government's gift to sort out. Some are of the person's own choosing or imposed on them by circumstance.

I've already explained this several times over on GN. We live in an old house, which we own. We have done as much as we possibly can regarding insulation etc to make it as warm as possible. We can't move for various reasons which are too complicated to explain on here, and we don't qualify for benefits of any kind whatsoever. These are our circumstances and there is little we can do to change them.
Thankfully we do have a wood burner and access to free wood, which makes a big difference. I'm not expecting to wave a magic wand and I don't expect anyone to feel sorry to me. But some people can be extremely judgemental on here and think everyone has it as easy as they do.

No one should be freezing, no one should be hungry, however there are definitely people who are.

Single people of all ages living alone are in the worst situation.

I still dispute these figures.

I think far more people are warm and not hungry, even pensioners, I know one single lady living alone in a three bedroom house she rents, she refuses to downsize and cannot afford to heat her whole home.

We are lucky, despite living in an older house, we are always warm.

These comments of “I don’t know anyone who lives in a cold house “ are meaningless aren’t they?

I also don’t personally know anyone who is too scared to put their heating on but I know these people exist!

In any case a few folk on here have said they are in that situation.

Yes I can understand why the figures quoted are disputed and the headline certainly was misleading, but for a variety of reasons, many people are living miserable lives in cold damp homes.

PoliticsNerd

Nanna8 the idea, that no one at anytime or for any reason should be cold, is ridiculous.

Nobody is sweeping anything under the carpet. Many try to give help where they can.

Your words. What I actually said was ‘ no one should be freezing cold because they can’t afford heating’ Please do not misquote.

NonGrannyMoll

The Express, like every other newspaper, is primarily in the business of making money. We should bear that in mind when our eye is caught by an inflammatory headline. Did the reporter ask every pensioner? Of course not - I wasn't asked, for one. Or did (s)he ask 4 pensioners and 3 said their homes were cold? Were there reliable statistics to support the claim? (Mark Twain: "There are lies, damned lies and statistics.")

Agreed.

However, even one cold pensioner is too many.

Norah

NonGrannyMoll

The Express, like every other newspaper, is primarily in the business of making money. We should bear that in mind when our eye is caught by an inflammatory headline. Did the reporter ask every pensioner? Of course not - I wasn't asked, for one. Or did (s)he ask 4 pensioners and 3 said their homes were cold? Were there reliable statistics to support the claim? (Mark Twain: "There are lies, damned lies and statistics.")

Agreed.

However, even one cold pensioner is too many.

That is very true.

But what NGM says is also true. We need to know the source of the statistics, as ever. What was the question? I suggested upthread that if people were asked if they'd been cold in January, everyone who'd left the house would say yes. We don't know how many were asked, and how thy were sampled, so we don't know if the figures are representative. It's like eight out of ten cats, or the small print on face cream ads that say 70% of 30 people surveyed like it. That just means that they found 21 people who liked the cream.

This is why people are saying that we don't know anyone 'left shivering in their homes'. It's not that we are too dim to realise that our friends are not representative - it's that we are pointing out that the Express' claim that 75% of pensioners are 'living in a cold home' (what does that mean, incidentally?) can't be representative either.

My issue with Age UK’s claims, as reported by the press, are that they would have the public believe that the majority of pensioners are shivering because they cannot afford to heat their homes and that is obviously not true.

Campaign on behalf of those have been worst affected by the withdrawal of universal WFP but doing it using flawed research and numbers that don’t hold up to scrutiny exposes the organisation to criticism, allegations of misinformation and further generational divide. Younger people paying exhorbitant rents already wonder why such a fuss has been made about the loss of £200 or £300.

This research was carried about by Opinium for Age UK. A sample of only 2,573 UK adults aged 66+ were interviewed 6th–16th January 2025. The data is said to be nationally representative on age, gender and region. Figures have been scaled up to the UK age 66+ population using Office for National Statistics mid-year population estimates for 2023 to give estimates of the number of pensioners affected nationally.

I believe that was 12.6 million. As of May 2024 it was 12.9 million.

So Opinium sampled not 2% of the pensioner population of 12.6 million, not 0.2% of the pensioner population of 12.6 million but just 0.02% of the pensioner population of 12.6 million and claim that over 9 million are suffering.

As 2.7 million are either already paying or are on the cusp of paying 40% tax that’s akin to saying that almost everyone who doesn't pay 40% tax is struggling. It’s emotive nonsense.

Thanks for those figures, Silverbrooks. It's exactly like the face cream ads, isn't it?

When Thatcher began to deride Media Studies as a subject I feared that this sort of thing would happen*. People get completely taken in by headlines and media outlets with agendas exploit this. I firmly believe that Media Studies should be a compulsory subject to show people how to question more.

I realise that studying any subject that involves statistics and looking at various sources (which includes psychology, history, sociology and more) will encourage enquiry, but they all tend to be optional above a basic level. Arguably, a proper grounding in media is even more important now, as social media and other Internet sources make it even more difficult to look behind the headlines.

*I do not have a MS degree, and it was not taught when I was at school (or not in my school, anyway), so I have no axe to grind in this regard.