The loss of state pension age at 60 began back in 1995, but over the years the pension age has been raised, and even 2 years back went from 64 to 66 for many.
But now there is a group of people being left penniless.
In 2013, many thousands of even terminal or multi amputee disabled, will lose all their disability money.
Most of the women in their 50s who are unemployed now are Long Term Sick or Disabled
Assumptions have been made by wealthy politicians, that women in their 50s are still in work. When it is women in their 50s, having worked their way to the top of their pay scale of the basic grades, who will be the ones made redundant by early retirement packages from the half a million public sector posts that will be lost by 2015. And since the economic crisis began in 2008, the rate unemployment in those in their 50s has risen by fully 50%, in a society that is ageist in recruitment to those in their 50s.
Women in their 50s have little or no savings or works pensions. The savings are barely enough to last a year, never mind a decade. And works pensions can be very low indeed as women in their 50s have had breaks in service on gone part time for child and elder care commitments.
And so I face a future in a house frozen with unaffordable central heating never switched on, even on the coldest nights. I am not alone in facing a future that is uncertain if not life threatening. Because I never started on disability money even though medically diagnosed for a decade. I was turned down for various daft reasons, even taking into account a GP's report that said absolutely nothing as he did not assess my disability and never asked me.
What I was told was that I had to have such a disordered mind that I could not plan a journey and needed to be supervised when out of the house, which means that physical disability is being ignored.
Disability claims are routinely turned down now, and the appeals are done not with medical professionals but just solicitors. Very few get through successfully, and when they do there is no respite, as a short time they must claim all over again. There is beginning to be death shortly after being assessed as fit for work in claimants from the original illness they said made them unfit for work.
The raising of the pension age whilst cutting benefits and piling on higher taxes on energy bills, taking away Council Tax benefit in April next year, in a triple dip recession when young able bodied people cannot find work, is an Austerity that threatens life and limb.
I have signed the petition because France's leader Monsieur Hollande was allowed by Europe to reinstate the state pension at 60. If he can do it, so can we.
Some fanciful ideas for a new party were put on my personal website, with policies on a drop down menu.
www.staffordshire-vote-english.org
The other party is a real one, registered with the Electoral Commission, but has little about pensioners other than Fair Pensions.
