Tag Archives: Poverty

A testing time for the DWP and its Pension Minister.

The Pensions Minister has called out the private sector for not having a long-term view. In this blog I call on his department to focus on a short-term strategy to deal with the problems facing people approaching and in retirement … Continue reading

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Welcome to your reduced standard of living

From April a single person under 25 will get £265 a month universal credit. The standing charge for gas and elecricity on prepayment meters will total £26.50 a month. So from April a tenth of their UC will go on … Continue reading

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What I’d pay more taxes for.

This election has become about “Getting Brexit Done” and “Saving our NHS”. It could have been about so much more. We don’t live in a just society when we allow poverty of the type video’d here. This is a tough … Continue reading

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Why we should not be shut up about pensioner poverty – it exists and it shouldn’t.

If you’d been at the ICAS “how to avert the pension crisis” debate on Tuesday, you’ll remember that part of the conversation when we discussed the Institute of Fiscal studies’ contention that we were having difficulty spending our retirement savings. … Continue reading

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A tale of two Cities

      Have you ever turned up at a place and realised you shouldn’t be there – but stayed anyway just to see what it was like? That’s what happened to me yesterday. I went to an event about … Continue reading

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Is optimism enough?

“Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen pounds nineteen and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery.” Mr Micawber’s character was based on Dickens’ own father.  Dickens must have loved his Dad. The Micawber … Continue reading

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Happiness and harm

Time will tell whether the Coalition Government has created a credible and sustainable system which allows us to measure and understand “government finances and the structure of the State”.

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Posted in dc pensions, NEST, pensions, Retirement, Treasury | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment