Saturday, October 18, 2014

The old live in poverty - the rich get richer

The Age UK charity released a report on Thursday, saying 900,000 of the pensioners live in “severe poverty.” According to the charity, hundreds of thousands of British pensioners are struggling to pay for basic needs such as heating, fresh food, and warm clothes during the winter.

The report said one of the main problems for the affected pensioners is that they do not receive benefits that they are entitled to under government schemes.

“It is nothing short of a scandal that there are still so many vulnerable older people in the UK living in poverty…when billions of pounds in benefits are unclaimed,” said Caroline Abrahams, the charity’s director.

The charity’s report comes just days after a separate report showed a rise in financial inequality in the UK, with Britain being the only country among the Group of Seven (G7) industrialized nations where inequality has grown since 2000.

According to the report by Credit Suisse, the UK’s richest 10 percent control 54.1 percent of the country’s wealth compared to the 51.5 percent in 2000.

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