PUCHI PENSIONER

CONTINUED Pensioners are entitled to money for clothing, bedding, etc. in the same way as the unemployed. They are also entitled to a lump sum to cover emergencies, a new bed, a table, or a chair and extra heating in winter.

The addition can be from a few pence to £3 or more. The average addition in 1970 was 32p.

The "long-term addition' of 50p included in the supplementary pension payment is reckoned to cover exceptional expenses such as extra heating, a special diet or laundry costs; a ridiculous view, as a gas or electricity biquarterly in winter can easily exceed fl a week.

In theory, extra money can be got from Supplementary Benefits Commission in cases of urgent need, but the wide powers of decision left to the officials means they can always claim that the long-term addition covers any eventuality.

The document which covers the operation of the Social Security system—-the 'A' Codestates that 'since the scale rates are intended to cover all normal fuel requirements, it follows that there must be something unusual about a case for extra provision to be required for heating'.

Listed as 'unusual cases' possibly needing extra payment are:

À householder or his wife, housebound or unable to go out frequently because advanced age or chronic poor health.

A householder without nondependants over 21 living with him where (a) the accommodation is damp or otherwise difficult to get adequately warm, or (b) there is no option but to use an expensive type of heating.

A non-householder or boarder who is in poor health.

Temporary need for extra heating because of illness.

The Code adds:

'When there is a long spell of weather so severe that most people have to spend much more than normal: on heating, specia help may be neeaea murc generally:

And clause 2835 states:

'In this situation officers are expected to make Exceptional Needs payments where necessary either for extra fuel supplies or for other debts which can be attributed to essential expenditure on extra fuel-the rent may have got into arrears or money set aside for clothing may have to be used instead for extra heating.' Facing winter heating bills can be a terrifying prospect for pensioners. Unlike young people who may be away from the house at work for a major part of the day, and who can be without heating during the night, the elderly need warmth 24 hours a day.

One expert considers the idea room temperature should be 70. 75 degrees fahrenheit during the day and around 65 degrees al night.

Men and women over 65 are automatically exempt from pre scription charges. They have tr sign a declaration on the back of the prescription form before handing it to the chemist.

The fact that women art exempt from prescription charge: at 65 and not at the retiremen age of 60 is a direct discrimina tion against them. Tory Ministe Sir Keith Joseph recently dis missed pensioners' demands or this issue, saying that 'it woul be undesireable to create al anomaly by setting a differen exemption age for women'.

Similarly, when supplementar! pensions were raised, Joseph' reDlv to demands that a marrier couple's increase should be double that of a single person was: 'a married couple should be regarded as a team'.

It would be unfair to wives who have paid full contributions to find that a woman who has not, is getting the same rate he said.

All pensioners are not exempt from dental or optical charges. If they are on supplementary pension or allowance they are automatically entitled to an additional benefit payment to meet charges for dentures, dental treatment or glasses by completing a form from the dentist or optician and sending it to the local Social Security office. Pensioners not on supplementary benefit may still get help with payments on the basis of low Income.

Help towards the cost of glasses is usually restricted to cheapest frames in the National Health Service range (76p) and no aid is given for safety lens charges.

According to clause 3016 of the "A Code, Payment for installation and rental for telephone is payable by Social Security where a person may be 'dangerously isolated' without one-that is if the claimant lives alone, is housebound and 'relies entirely on the telephone as the means of contact in an emergency'.

The Code does not include age alon the risk as sufficient reason. It adds in such an emergency must be clear cut and thus readily distinguishable from the risk shared by people in general, e.g. through onset of old age; it could arise on the breakdown of an appliance upon which reliance is placed to preserve life'.

Minimum payment adjustment TOr supplementary pensions is now 30p. For some. one whose rent rises by an amount less than this and who has just had a new supplementary pension book, no special action to raise the pension will be taken--there will be a six months' wait before a pensions increase is made to cover the new rent (that is, when a new book is issued).

Even when fully payable, the retirement pension, the supplementary pension and the various allowances have all got one thing in common: at today's cost-of-living level they are totally inadequate to provide for the items they are alleged to cover. At best, pensioners with no other income can try to make serious physical and mental dis- but many others suffer tress from the daily struggle to exist.

Other ways of 'getting at' the pensioner are:

The 'fl' added to the basic retirement pension in September 1971 turned into only 60p for those also receiving supplementary pension, because 40p was promptly deducted from the supplemen facing contis , continual discrimination in terms of lower wages than men during their working lives find that this situation is continued into retirement. The reason is that graduated pensions are based on previous levels of earnings, SO are consequently lower than for Some pensioners may get a supplementary payment towards special diet for a specific medical condition or illness such as diabetes or stomach ulcer. But there is no special payment for proper nutritive foods-fresh fruit and vegetables, good quality meat and other high protein food —needed by all pensioners.

Medical experts agree that these foods are very necessary for the elderly, particularly in winter. However, at today's rocketing prices they are totally beyond the income of most retired men and women.

The deduction from supplementary pension by the Social Security office of the amount over fl given by any organization to a pensioner-if they find out about it—is an exceptionally mean and despicable act. Presents of cash are made precisely to give the pensioner a bit more than usual to buy a few extras beyond the barest necessities required.

The bureaucrats' penny-pinching deductions effectively penalize the worst-off sections of the community and ensure that not even a temporary respite from poverty occurs.

While the social services can certainly do without secret snoopers prying into the personal affairs of single women and others on supplementary benefits, themselves to apply for available awards. The means. test: prytig, form filling and genetat condescension of the system stinks of the Poor Law, charity, and the workhouse for too many who remember the 1930s.

They would sooner go without; a situation which fits in very save millions of pounds on socio well with the Tories' plans services over the period 1970-1975.

Thousands of workers "have" tried to prepare for their later years. The 'Age Concern' report shows that supplementary pensioners are certainly not people who have made no provision for retirement, as almost a fifth live in their own house and three out of five have some savings.

But the continuous rise in the cost of living makes the few hundred pounds saved virtually worthless compared with its value. when it was originally earned.

The pensioner of 65 and over, born in or before 1907, has lived and fought through two World Wars and the depression years of the 1920s and 1930s. Capitalism, however, gives them no thanks for that.

On the contrary, in an attempt to solve the economic crisis of the system, measures have been taken which specifically depress the condition of the pensioner still further.

Decimalization, entry into the Common Market and introduction of a value-added tax (VAT) are brought together in an attempt to improve the stability and profitability of big business.

But each of these moves directly brings an increase in prices. The working class, particularly those subsistence level, are therefore the worst hit once more.

Further the Tories' new 1 VAILO National Insurance system nothing more than a move towards hiving off pensions to 'private enterprise' as a lucrative fund-raising concern for finance and industry.

Industrial action to put out the Tories is right, but the betrayal of the Labour MPs who voted for the Tory Common Market plans must no t be forgotten for an instant.

A socialist governmer it elected to replace the Tories entirely committed to revoking the Industrial Relations Act, and the Immigration and Common Market legislation. -The Labour traitors must be cleared out from the political and trade union movement. must be guaranteed a standard Evervone reaching pension age retirement pension tied to the cost. of living, which totally obviates the need for Poor Law extras. Also, the best of health service, chiropody, dental, ocular and hearing aid • treatment and appliances must be provided free of charge.

Every working man and woman who has contributed a lifetime of labour to society must rightfully be entitled to the best that society can provide and not be callously cast aside; required merely to subsist until dead.

Young and old, trade unionists and pensioners must combine to defeat any attempt to worsen conditions and to win for the pensioners, the sick and the unemployed the support and care which is rightfully theirs.

For those at work, the present government's attempts to hold down wages are only a prelude to using a mass impoverished pool of unemployed to enforce active wage-cutting in the future.

The Tories' plan ruthlessly to exploit and tyrranize the working class must be shattered now. The Socialist Labour League calls on every worker to support the Right-to-Work marches to London organized by the Young Socialists which culminate in a mass rally at the Empire Pool, Wembley, on March 12.

We must say now that we refuse to let the Tories use unemployment to smash the unions, cut wages, recreate the conditions of the 1930s or take any other action which paves the way for the corporate state and fascism.

Mortaro Proca, TI ту 22, 1572 РМ