I noticed how the state pension age increase saw a rise in poverty in Croft Ward and the Tories want to stretch it further.

 

Councillor Kath Nisbet of Croft Ward in Blyth with one of the highest number of privately let homes in Northumberland agrees wholeheartedly with the recently released view from the Institute for fiscal studies who have looked at the early rise of the pension payment age.

Their research found that the increase in the state pension age from 65 to 66 resulted in a 14 percentage point increase in the absolute poverty rate for 65-year-olds - with 24% of 65-year-olds in income poverty in late 2020. 

Councillor Nisbett said “The research that was undertaken found that the massive increase in poverty was concentrated amongst those who rent their homes privately, single people and those with literacy and numeracy problems. With the high levels of private letsand people with problems concentrated in Croft Ward I noticed the changes first hand yet help is just not available to stop the problems people face growing daily” 

The IFS associate director Jonathan Cribb told the press that a "key takeaway for policymakers is to ensure the working-age benefit system appropriately supports those approaching the state pension age, with this being increasingly important as the state pension age increases further".

Councillor Nisbet said that “it certainly isn’t adequate but neither is the help people need to try to budget without enough cash when not only do we have rising pension ages but we also have the economy spiraling out of control and local people worried sick about how they will survive from week to week and that group will grow as this Government sucks ever more people into the poverty trap of their making”