Pensioner poverty

Apologies for my last post on Wednesday. The amounts I gave for Pension Credit and Basic State Pension was totally wrong - no idea where these figures came from
At present the amount of State pension for a single person is £8476.00 pa. and for a couple £12,837.60.
In order to claim Pension Credit, the person must have under £10,000 in savings, otherwise £1 is deducted for every extra £500.
All pensioners receive the Winter Heating Allowance £100/£200/£300 and the £10 (? Yep still that amount) Christmas Allowance). Pensioners are entitled (at present) to have their TV Licences paid. For those on Pension Credit and some other benefits there is an additional Winter fuel payment made via some of the energy companies, which this year is £140.00.

GillT57
I was answering an earlier post about energy/water bills.
Those on pension credit would not have to pay council tax (or rent if they were renting)
Most retirees over 65 have finished paying their mortgages and are just paying their council tax.
I was not comparing like for like.
Just saying that my monthly
outgoings such as council tax, gas, elec, water, broadband, contents insurance and mobile phone bills are eminently doable out of my basic state pension.
They are the bills we all have to pay.
Everything else such as tv, car, Sky/Netflix, food bills are fluid depending on how much is left over.
People on pension credit can still have £10k in savings without being penalised.

Franbern
I've no idea where you live but in England, pensioners do not get their tv licences paid. They (at present) have to pay.
After their 75th birthday they can apply to have the licence fee rescinded.

Don't forget the extra 25p per week after the age of 80!

A single person on pension credit is allowed up to £10k on savings, free heath benefits (scripts etc) £140 winter fuel allowance if the bill is in their name and is credited by their electricity provider (not gas) to their electricity account but not all elec providers are in the scheme.
It is not money in the bank.
Everyone born befire Nov 1953 gets the Winter fuel allowance whether working or not. It is not means tested.
The amounts are broadly the same even if you claim the guarantee portion of pension credit.
This is £200 for a single person no ing alone and £300 those born before Sept 1938.
The amounts differ slightly if you live with someone also claiming their pension and/or a benefit.
These monies are paid into your bank account between Nov-Jan.
There is also a £25 payment for weeks in which the temperature drops to below zero, plus a Christmas 'bonus' of £10.
A free bus pass and concessions at theatres, cinema, days out, hairdressers and restaurants all help people on a pension to live well.
I don't think pensioners have anything to complain about.

no ing should be living

The £25 for weeks when the temperature falls consistently below zero is available only to those in receipt of Pension Credit and it is quite some time since we had a winter cold enough to trigger it. No one above pension credit levels receives it.

Frankly I think all the bells and whistles Gabriella mentions except the commercial ones, which are offered by companies wanting to generate income at times when they are usually short of custom, should be abolished and Pension credit increased by the the amoont all these cost divided by the number of pensioners.

As for bus passes, it does assume that there is a bus route nearby and in many rural areas there are no buses.so a bus pass is as useful and as valuable as a chocolate teapot. not to mention oddities like me who suffer from travel sickness on buses and coaches, so do not travel on them and do not have a bus pass for that reason.

M0nica
You are wrong.
I know of a family who received a £25 cold weather payment 3 weeks ago...in South Surrey.

No travel sickness in taxis or cars then M0nica?
There are plenty of rural places in England and Wales which have only one stopping train per day and one bus into and out of the area but that is still an advantage not to be sneered at.
The government cannot cover every eventuality or situation. The pot is finite and I think they do very well in the interest of pensioners.

Gabriella my sister suffers awful travel sickness on buses but not on any other form of transport.She was involved in an accident when she was about 6 in a bus.Was thrown the length of it and badly injured and that has always been the cause .She can travel on boats in high seas and fly in turbulence with no ill effects but buses are a major problem when there is no other choice

Even though our yearly income is considerably less than when we worked full time and had children at school we are really much better off with State Pensions and private pensions we have never been so well off.
We don't have to think how we are going to pay the next bill or paying for holidays meals out etc.
Paying into those private pensions really paid off even though we struggled at the time it has been well worth it.

I suffer from travel sickness in most types of transport, but it is by far the worst on buses. It is caused by a combination of the smell; a mix of diesel and the smell of the upholstery, the constant stop starting. the rolling bouncing movement of the suspension, exacerbated by the way air brakes work. Completely different to travelling in a car, or on a boat or plane.

There are plenty of rural places in England and Wales which have only one stopping train per day and one bus into and out of the area

There are many,many more that have neither and that number is growing fast. Even as close to London as South Oxfordshire there are villages without any access to public transport, and the number is growing as Local Councils reduce subsidies to these services and operators withdraw them.

Surely the fact of the matter is that it is up to all of us to ensure that we will have enough money to live on in retirement.

There is the state pension which is only intended to be a top up, along with various benefits already outlined by GabriellaG54, but the majority of income in retirement must be generated by ourselves.

I have said this before, but it always amazes me how so many people seem to sleep walk into old age without having made any provision for it by, for instance, paying into a private or work pension during their working life.

Of course there will always be some who, through no fault of their own, fall on hard times, and they are quite rightly helped, but for the majority of us, it is up to us to start planning for retirement decades in advance.

The problem is that there are actually a lot of people who do not earn enough to be able to put enough money aside to provide a pension large enough to live on, even with a state pension.

Look at all those on zero hours, working in the gig economy where money is uncertain week to week and pay rates around the minmum wage, all those who receive working benefits. I doubt many of those can afford to pay into a private pension and if they did, it wouldn't even be icing on the cake, more a thin (very thin) sprinkling of icing sugar.

The state pension is not the icing on the cake you must have a exceptionally generous pension yourself, to see the state pension as 'icing'. The state pension IS the cake for the vast majority of people in this country and the occupational pension is the icing.