SILVER VOICES UPDATE: UNPAID OLDER CARERS UNDER THE COSH, BUT WHO CARES?

 

Carers UK has published some important research revealing how unpaid carers are struggling in the cost-of-living crisis. A survey of more than 12,400 unpaid carers found that:

 27% are already struggling with their bills

16% are in debt as a result of their caring role

16% are using bank overdrafts to cope

8% are using food banks

Carers UK calls on the Government to make radical improvements to the Carer’s Allowance (currently £69.70 per week) to meet this situation, and their full report can be accessed on the following link:

 https://www.carersuk.org/news-and-campaigns/campaigns/cost-of-living-crisis

 While Silver Voices supports the recommendations, Carers UK ignores the plight of hundreds of thousands of state pensioners who are caring for a relative or friend (often round-the-clock) but who are barred from receiving the Carer’s Allowance at all. Approximately 1.5 million unpaid carers in the UK are over 65 and nearly 500,000 of these are over 80, but receiving the state pension makes them ineligible for the Carer’s Allowance. This is clear age discrimination. If you are below state retirement age, any income received from occupational or private pensions is disregarded in respect of eligibility for the Allowance, but once state retirement age is reached eligibility ceases.

 Carers UK routinely ignores this blatant discrimination when they plead the case for carers and Silver Voices was the only older person’s organisation to raise this issue in the run up to the 2019 General Election. We have written to Carers UK to request that they pick up the plight of older carers in all their future work, rather than focusing solely on working age carers.

 Tory Leadership Farrago

 As Rishi Sunak prepares to take office as the third PM in the last three months, it is uncertain how his Government will act on the economic and cost-of-living crises. We await the answers on pensions, benefits, and public spending at the ‘fiscal event’ (another Mini-Budget) scheduled for next Monday. We will of course cover this event in our next Briefing.

Silver Voices was active over the weekend in ensuring that older people’s issues were highlighted in the (very short) Conservative leadership campaign, with prominent articles in the Tory-supporting newspapers, the Daily Express and Sunday Express. These articles can be viewed on our media page:

 25 October 2022

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