Call for full widow’s pension is rejected

Saturday 19th March 2011, 2:29PM GMT.

Barry Paint REINTRODUCING a full widow’s pension would cost more than £1m. a year and encourage people not to work, according to the Social Security Department.

The claims were made in a letter to deputies Barry Paint and Jane Stephens, who are campaigning to have the payments reinstated.

The two politicians put their case to Social Security at a meeting last month and yesterday Deputy Paint (pictured) released a 13-page letter from the department detailing why it would not shift position.

The widow’s pension was scrapped in 2004 and replaced with a bereavement allowance for widows and widowers which is paid for one year after a spouse’s death. The former widow’s pension was paid from the death of a woman’s husband until she was eligible for old age pension at 65.

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View more: Pensions news, Widows Pensions news.

1
Martino

March 19, 2011 at 5:41 pm

Good decision. The widow’s pension is sexist nonsense. There is no ‘widower’s pension’ after all. Men and women should be treated exactly the same with regard to pensions, pension ages and pension rights. Well done the Social Security Department in the face of this latest bout of populist posturing from some of our more useless deputies.

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2
Burdock

March 20, 2011 at 11:28 am

Martino

Going forward this is indeed the right way to go. However there is a small percentage of the population who have been cheated out of their rights as promised in the past (due to their husband’s payment to the scheme). These were the generation who did the undervalued but very worthwhile task of raising their families to the exclusion of personal gain Times have moved on and some people ‘need’ to work to afford a home although many could stay at home if they were willing to do without the extras. i.e. multiple holidays and ‘fancy’ cars.

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3
Martino

March 20, 2011 at 6:49 pm

Yes Burdock, times have moved on but nobody has been cheated out of anything. We are now living in an age when nothing can be ‘taken for granted’ in the way previous generations took a job for life for granted and generous student grants for granted as well as gold plated final salary pensions for granted and widows’ pensions for granted.
Times are tougher and we as a society and as individuals can no longer rely on any of these old certainties. It is time for those clamouring for the return of the widows’ pension to get real and begin to realise that these days nothing (apart from death and taxes) can be taken for granted.

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4
Islander

March 23, 2011 at 3:07 pm

Well ladies, you have at least my sympathy…
My advice; Join the fire brigade, they got away with it… so why not you?

Anyway to those ladies who are married to those who deny your rightful pensions, or any other ladies, now is the time to show your womanly wiles

Just a few little ricks now and then … more often now than then,,,
just see how they like it.

Incidentally I am Male, but feel for those who really need a pension.. GO FOR IT GIRLS.

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