Press Release
For immediate use: 31.12.2007
Campaign marks 100 years
of the state pension
Britain's biggest pensioner organisation - the
National Pensioners Convention (NPC) - will today (1
January 2008) launch a new 12-month campaign to mark
a century of the state pension and demand that
today's payment is increased by more than £40 a week
for all in retirement.
Back in 1898, a number of individual social
reformers, backed by the trade union movement of the
day, began a campaign to secure a universal state
pension.
A decade later, figures such as Rev Francis Herbert
Stead - a non-conformist social worker, Charles
Booth - a Victorian philanthropist, Margaret
Bondfield a leading trade unionist and Edward
Cadbury - a successful businessman, were the leaders
of a nationwide campaign that had secured the first
ever state pension.
The Old Age Pensions Act was passed in August 1908,
and on 1 January 1909 the first state pensions of 5
shillings a week were paid at the post office to all
men and women on reaching 70 years of age.
Even though the pension was means-tested, it was
clearly a tremendous advance in social policy and
represented the first time that the state had
recognised it had a responsibility to look after
those in old age.
Today, the NPC begins the first stage of its
year-long campaign to pay tribute to those original
pension pioneers and call for an increase in today's
state pension, with the launch of a new website at
www.pension100.co.uk.
Throughout the year there will also be rallies in
the same cities where public meetings were held a
100 years ago - Glasgow, Newcastle, Leeds,
Manchester, Birmingham, Bristol and London - as well
as a national petition and a lobby of parliament.
Joe Harris, NPC general secretary said: "We owe the
original pension pioneers a great debt of gratitude
for securing the very first state pension, that
sought to end the threat of the workhouse for
millions of older people. But a hundred years on and
we still have over 2m pensioners living below the
poverty line and many more struggle to make ends
meet. In fact, today's state pension is worth even
less in relation to average wages than it was in
1908."
"We must use this centenary year to put pressure on
the government to raise the state pension, for all
men and women, above the poverty level of £134 a
week and restore its link to earnings as a matter of
urgency. We must take up the cause of the pension
pioneers and finish what they started by once and
for all ending the fear of poverty in old age."
ENDS
For more information contact Neil Duncan-Jordan on
07940-357-608
Pension facts & figures - then &
now
1908
·
Non-contributory pension
·
Payable to men and women at 70
·
5
shillings a week: represented between 20-25% of
average earnings
·
Means-tested and based on character
2008
·
Contributory pension
·
Payable to men and women at 65 in 2024 and rising to
68 by 2044
·
£90.70
a week: represents around 15% of average earnings
·
Pension not means-tested, but means-testing still
exists for those who need additional income
·
One in five of
today's 11m pensioners live below the official
poverty line, the
vast
majority of them women. In 1891, 1.3m people were
classed as paupers – of which 31% were over
60-years-old
·
The government has
said it will restore the link between pensions and
earnings in 2012, but by that time 3m of today's
pensioners will have died
·
Today's state
pension of £90.70 a week from April 2008 is widely
regarded as the least adequate in Europe
·
The National
Insurance Fund currently has a surplus of £38.4bn,
which is forecast to grow to £72bn by 2012. This
money is primarily intended to pay for state
pensions, but today’s pensioners are being denied a
higher pension because the government is using the
money to fund other expenditure
