Anger at Osborne’s working-age benefits freeze | DisabledGo News and Blog

Last Updated: February 20, 2016By

Campaigners say the government’s decision to enforce a freeze on working-age benefits from April – even though older people will see their pensions increase by 2.9 per cent – will further entrench disability poverty.

The annual “uprating” of working-age benefit rates was decided last October, and are based on the CPI (consumer price index) rate for September, which showed that measure of inflation at minus 0.1 per cent.

CPI has since risen to 0.2 per cent in December, and could rise higher over the next few months.

But because of the “triple lock” rules introduced under the coalition, pensions will rise by 2.9 per cent, equivalent to the increase in average wages.

There was already anger at a freeze to many working-age benefits that will last until 2020, which was announced by chancellor George Osborne in last summer’s budget.

But Osborne’s freeze did not apply to benefits such as disability living allowance (DLA), personal independence payment (PIP), attendance allowance (AA) and the support group component of employment and support allowance (ESA).

Now, thanks to the decision to follow last September’s CPI, working-age benefits including DLA, PIP, AA and the ESA support group component will be set at exactly the same rate in 2016-17 as they were in 2015-16.

Source: Anger at Osborne’s working-age benefits freeze | DisabledGo News and Blog

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No Comments

  1. Joan Edington February 20, 2016 at 1:34 pm - Reply

    As usual, keep the pensioners sweet, they need their votes (but not mine), and to hell with those who might vote otherwise.

    • ian725 February 21, 2016 at 1:05 pm - Reply

      Joan …. ‘ keep pensioners sweet ‘ sure they will have a whale of a time on a top basic pension of £7500 a year. I trust your remark was tongue in cheek. They have actually given very little extra per week to pensioners in fact less than 0.40P more than the existing pension. Regardless of all Camerons Propaganda.

      • Joan Edington February 21, 2016 at 2:21 pm - Reply

        Not so much tongue in cheek but more long-term thinking. I agree that the fixed-rate pension has not only been described almost fraudulently but is probably the biggest pensioner rip-off in the history of the state pension. However, that value, once being claimed, will in fact rise, where working-age benefits are being frozen.

        Probably more to the point, the pensioners whose votes cameron wants currently, are mostly of an age where they have retained the original pensions. I retired in 2010, having just snuck in before the pension age rose, and am very lucky that I will be allowed to stay on the same pension policy as when I retired, almost £40 p/w more than the maximum fixed pension proposed. I really fear for those coming to pension age in the next few years.

    • ian725 February 22, 2016 at 2:50 pm - Reply

      Joan ‘Rip Off’ says it all.

    • Malcolm MacINTYRE-READ February 22, 2016 at 4:13 pm - Reply

      Hi Joan,
      I am a pensioner and I am totally against the attitudes and actions of this Con Gov. But more worrying for me, when talking to our mid-40s, world-aware and educated children and their friends, is that most of them do not see the point in voting.

      They view all politicians, local, national and European, as self-interested, self-serving, tribal followers of a party line to POWER… and sod the citizens and their national well being. Much as a I sympathise with that perception, and understand the reasons behind their conclusions, I know – having lived & worked in “western” police states, and worked with a number of similar nations behind the Iron Curtain – that an unwillingness to vote allows extremists and fundamentalists to take power in a disinterested democracy.

      And I also have to agree with Ian725 (he must be even older than me) that pensions have not risen as much as either our Dave claims, or others blame us for “taking” all the money.
      I had senior posts, managing national & international NFP orgs, but I never achieved what was claimed to have been an “average wage” (unlike today’s Oxfam or Save the Children).

      And what little we could save, in line with Thatcher’s plea that we should “take our own responsibility for our old age”, which would be “safeguarded”, was almost wiped out by the Treasury’s illegal actions and lies re: the Equitable Life scandal, starting under GorBro. But no probs, all that is now under the caring eye of Boy George.

      However, I still pay taxes and in my working life my taxes helped to support my ageing parents, our growing children and their education, our families health needs, etc., plus, up to Dec 2006, paying off the UK’s debt to the USA for WW11 loans. At least our current taxpayers won’t have to face that… but God only knows what we are paying now, and in the future for Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria.

      We all have our burdens to bare… generation after generation, parliament after parliament… whatever politicians con us into thinking will all be sweetness & light. Possibly… but who for, buddy, who for?

  2. jbw31 February 20, 2016 at 2:14 pm - Reply

    I’m in the ESA support group and I haven’t had a rise on that for the last four years at least so the first bit of your article is wrong. Now I won’t even get a pay rise on DLA and I’ve already had to leave my home and take charity from other people to keep a roof over my head. God knows how they think we can live. Employment is a none starter for me as no one will employ me and without a regular home and a good idea I can’t be self employed either. I don’t have the health or the stamina for that anyway and the constant moving doesn’t help with my helath. I may as well just die like they want me to

    • Mike Sivier February 20, 2016 at 3:36 pm - Reply

      I don’t think the article is mistaken, as it is based on government policy. Have you asked why your payments have never been uprated?
      As far as just dying is concerned – why do what they want?

  3. Linda February 20, 2016 at 5:33 pm - Reply

    I received a brown envelope today. (Why do they always arrive on a Saturday?) It was a notification that PIP payment will not increase this year, so will stay at the same amount. How much has it cost them to write to everyone just to tell them that they are not getting an increase?

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