‘British government killing pensioners’

This video from Britain says about itself:

13 April 2015

Increase in food bank use ‘linked to government’s austerity cuts’ – RT’s Laura Smith speaks to Dr Rachel Loopstra from Oxford University.

By Will Stone in Britain:

Government Cuts Are Killing Our Pensioners

Wednesday 16th March 2016

Chilling report exposes true horror of Tories’ austerity

TORY austerity is killing vulnerable elderly poor people, researchers have argued following a study of government cuts to pension credit.

The damning claim comes on the day Chancellor George Osborne will announce further deep spending cuts in his Budget.

Oxford University experts who carried out the study said that a “significant link” was found between death rates of the over 85s and government cuts to pension credit, which currently tops up the low income of poorer pensioners — to £151.20 a week for a single person or £230.85 for couples.

Researchers analysed the death rates of pensioners across England between 2007 and 2013 from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) alongside spending on pension credits across 324 local authorities.

They found that the death rate among pensioners aged 85 and over had been falling but began to rise from 2011.

By 2013, the death rate was 4 per cent higher than in 2010 among men and 6 per cent higher among women.

It was during this period that councils’ average spending on pension credit was slashed by £150 — from £2,482 per claimant in 2011 to £2,349 in 2013, experts found.

Each 1 per cent decline in pension credit spending per eligible person was linked to a 0.86 per cent rise in death rates.

And each reduction in the number of people able to get the benefit per 1,000 pensioners was also associated with an increase in death rates of 0.20 per cent.

But the ratios were higher when looking at a single year, with the average drop in pension credit spending per person in 2012 of 3 per cent corresponding to a 1.4 per cent rise in death rates.

And the decline in the number of people getting pension credit in 2012 coincided with a rise in death rates of 2.7 per cent, they found.

Oxford University’s professor David Stuckler said: “This study suggests that even seemingly small cuts to support for vulnerable older persons can have a devastating effect — possibly even costing them their lives.”

Only last week the government closed savings credit — an extra payment for those who saved money towards their retirement — to new applicants.

Lead researcher Dr Rachel Loopstra said: “Poorer older-age adults are one of the most vulnerable groups in the population and a reduction of just a few pounds could make a considerable difference to disposable income.”

“Declines of this magnitude can cause significant stress and anxiety to people of older ages, which could precipitate heart attack or stroke.

“Both recent and proposed future changes to welfare spending fall heavily upon pensioners.”

Mr Osborne has warned the country that there will be cuts of 50p in every £100 of spending, blaming the fragile state of the global economy.

To add insult to injury he downplayed the massive cuts, amounting to nearly £4 billion with £1.2bn coming from disability benefits, as “not a huge amount in the scheme of things.”

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has dismissed the study, arguing that it was “misleading” to link the figures.

However the authors said that while they could not show specific causes of death, financial hardship increased vulnerability.

When the winter fuel payment was introduced in the 1990s there was a significant drop in death rates, they pointed out.

National Pensioners Convention general secretary Dot Gibson told the Star: “This research certainly explodes the myth that older people have escaped austerity.

“Cuts to the income of some of our most vulnerable older people, like those cuts affecting younger and disabled people are absolutely outrageous.

“Quite literally, cuts have been killing pensioners.”

GEORGE OSBORNE will today unveil another package of cuts. Unless he changes direction from everything he’s done before, they will fall heavily on women, who have so far borne 81 per cent of spending cuts. They will fall on people with disabilities. Disgracefully, 640,000 people face losses of up to £150 a week as a result of changes to the Personal Independence Payment (PIP): here.

A cruel sleight of hand by the Tories can see benefits stripped away just for using a walking frame, explains LINDA BURNIP. THERE’S a joke going around Facebook this week that Britain cannot send any paralympic athletes to Rio as we no longer have any disabled people in Britain. Chancellor George Osborne’s announcement that there will be further cuts to entitlement for Personal Independence Payments (PIP) makes this statement much less of a joke. The government is redefining who is and who is not deemed to be disabled enough to be able to claim even meagre social security payments: here.