Hundreds of thousands of elderly Brits unable to afford basic essentials as cost of living bites
Hundreds of thousands of elderly Brits are struggling to cover the cost of basic essentials, a damning report exposing the scale of pensioner poverty in the UK has revealed.
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Over half a million pensioners on low incomes reported finding it difficult to pay the bills, research by the Living Wage Foundation (LWF) has uncovered.
Nearly one in three rely on benefits or help from friends and family to survive, as basic incomes can no longer cover the basics, the charity found.
Among pensioners renting, almost a quarter were falling behind on their energy bills and required loans to cover food costs and other essentials.
Meanwhile, one in five 5 use their hard-earned savings to cover everyday expenses.
It means almost half of the 533 pensioners polled have been forced to cut back on hobbies and entertainment, while nearly a quarter say they can rarely ever afford the non-essentials that ‘make life enjoyable’.
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Sheila, a pensioner in her 80s, said: “It’s tough, really tough. Everyone thinks older people are all rich, but it’s just not true. I’ve not turned my heating on for three years.
“I go running every day to keep warm in the winter and try to grow as many vegetables as I can in the summer. Our pension barely covers the basics, so there is no room for anything extra.”
She said the hardest trade-offs have been between heating and eating because “that’s what it comes down to in the winter.”
“When something breaks, the boiler, fridge, or I need a new pair of shoes, I panic, because I know I can’t just replace it,” she said.
Sheila added that this causes “constant stress” as the worry “chips away at you”.
Making matters harder, she lives on her own so there is no one to share bills with and she has “no family to lean on”.
She continued: “I would say, we pensioners are not asking for luxuries, we just want enough to get by. We worked, we paid in, and now we’re left to struggle.”
Katherine Chapman, director of the LWF, said the report exposes the “tough reality” for too many pensioners who after a lifetime of work still do not have enough money to live on.
“No one should be worrying about putting the heating on when it’s cold or boiling the kettle for a cup of tea. The good news is, there’s a simple way that employers can play their part in tackling pensioner poverty,” she said.