Gordon Brown’s Oft Used Numbers: Pensions

Having just read today’s PMQ’s, one thing stood out for me: ‘We have lifted one million pensioners out of poverty’. This seems to be a line that is trotted out time and time again, but I can find no basis for it.

In an article about the current stats and a Beeb piece about the pension credit scheme, this claim seems to be blown out of the water. It strikes me that the main reason for this is that, to be blunt, most die.

It’s a bit harsh really, but using stats with pensioners is a bit weak form Gordon Brown. Simply because each year tens of thousends of them kick the bucket. When he says that a million have been ‘lifted from poverty’, he might as well say ‘a million have popped their cloggs’.

According to Age Concern, 1.8 million pensioners are in poverty. Which is interesting. This is mainly because in an old BBC article from 2006 it is claimed that, in 2002, there were 2.2 million in poverty from a then total of 10.9 million.

So a bit more like 400,000 out of poverty Mr Brown. Doesn’t the same ring does it?

In fact over half of all single pensioners receive just £6,000 a year. It’s ok though, because in 2012 Brown will stop taxing pension funds and they have just had a £3.50 rise which should keep them all sorted for Werthers I presume.

Then we have this from Joe Lewis, National Pensioners Convention General Secretary:

“…A 100 years after the first ever state pension and 62% of pensioner couples and at least 50% of single pensioners are living well below the official poverty line”

And they also have this rather useful breakdown:

• The state pension link with average earnings was broken in 1980. Had the link remained, today’s state pension for an individual would now be worth £145.15 a week rather than £90.70.
• By the time the link is restored by the government in 2012, 3m of today’s pensioners will have already died.
• The national insruance fund currently has a surplus balance of £46bn.
• Around 1.8m pensioners do not claim the means-tested Pension Credit, despite being eligible.
• 1 in 5 pensioners live below the official poverty line, the vast majority of them women.

Have a look at their website and offer your support for this worthy cause. If you like, I’m not forcing you or anything.

All in all, gordon Brown is starting to become a soundbite. A milion this, the lowest ever that, it can’t keep going like that because if, like me, you get a bit inquisitive about such bold claims, you look into it, it’s all rubbish.

The state of the pension system in the country is a shambles and it was created completely by one person: Gordon Brown. It has affected the housing market, the economy, our grandparents and parents and, if you are of a certain age, you.

Gordon Brown has spent years robbing the poor to pay for schemes designed to help them. In this case the poor are those old people you see about. When they were young they were promised the earth and given a insurance system to look after them when they had retired. That was blown out of the water by Gordon Brown and now all of us are the creek without the proverbial paddle.