Steve Ion, PCS Associate and Retired Members Merseyside (Personal Capacity)
The Centre for Ageing Better has produced a report on the state of ageing in 2023. This report shows a great divide between rich and poor. The number of pensioners living in poverty has increased. The gap between the health of richer and poorer old people is greater than the difference in living standards between older and younger generations.
Many older people are living with major illness and disabilities, which are not helped by poor housing conditions. Pensioners are increasingly living in private rented accommodation and, on fixed incomes, struggle to find money for increasing rental costs. The private rented sector has the highest proportion of poor housing. 49% of poor housing has people aged 55 and over living in it.
Health inequality was found to be linked to ethnicity as well as age. These negative impacts accumulate as people get older. For example, the proportion of Bangladeshi women aged 50 and over who report being in poor health (22%) is the same as for white British women in richer areas aged 85 and over. Similar figures show disability inequality too.
Even with an 8.5% increase to state pensions with the triple lock, not all pensioners get this, as some are on earlier schemes and only get a CPI-inflation-based increase. The UK State pension remains one of the lowest in Europe. A living state pension is badly needed, with flexible retirement on full state pension from 55 years onwards. The wealth and resources exist to fund dignity and respect in old age for all, not just the wealthy. And advances in production mean work could be shared out.
While we suffer further cuts to the public sector, the trade union and pensioners’ movements need to continue to campaign on these issues. Follow the example of the Liverpool 47 council which fought for and won a campaign for extra money for public sector jobs, house building and social services for working and elderly people of Liverpool.
To properly provide for elderly people, we need a socialist society to end the capitalist system, based on profit not need, once and for all.
