PENSION REDUCTIONS

Evening Star, Issue 21073, 9 April 1932, Page 10

PENSION REDUCTIONS

NEARLY ALL GLASSES AFFECTED Wholesale reductions of varying percentages in practically every class of pension are set out in the National Expenditure Adjustment Bill. The amount of the old age pension is proposed to be reduced from £4" 10s to £4O 19s, diminished by £1 for every complete pound of income in excess of £39, instead of £52 as at present. In the case of married pensioners, the combined pension to which they shall be entitled is not to make their total income exceed £l2l, as against the present £143 limit. In the case of widows’ pensions, the allowance for children is to be 9s a week instead of 10s, with an additional 9s instead of 10s for the widow. The maximum amount of pension is_ to be reduced from £4 to £3 12s. No penj sion in this class is to be granted of such dmount that the total incomes of the widow and children, together with pension, will exceed the rate of £1 14s a week, as against the present £2, with 9s for each child (10s at present), or £4 17s week (now £5 10s), whichever is the less. The maximum amount of family allowance, reduced last year from £4 to £3 12s, is proposed to be further lowered to £3 ss. Regarding miners’ pensions, the Bill proposes a reduction from 25s a week to 22s 6d in allowances to single men, and a similar reduction in the case of married men with a wife and children dependent upon them, the allowance for each child being lowered from 10s to 9s. Allowances to widowers are similarly affected. The maximum pension is further proposed to be reduced from £4 5s to £3 16s 6d. Miners’ widows’ pensions are to be restricted to two years after the husband’s death, instead of for the duration of widowhood, as at present, and the rate is to be reduced from 17s 6d a week to 15s 9d. Such pensions granted more than eighteen months before the passing of the Bill are to continue in force and at the reduced rate for six months following the passage of the legislation. In the case of South African War pensioners, the special allowance of £l3 is to remain, but the maximum of receipts from all sources is reduced from £97 10s to £79 19s. Dealing with war pensions, the Bill provides for a reduction of 171 per cent, in the pensions of dependents and guardians of children, with the exception of the pensions to widows, children, and widowed mothers of deceased members of the forces, whose pensions are retained at the present. The disablement pension of exsoldiers is not affected by these reductions, r'-ich apply mainly to their wives, children, and parents. In addition to the-disablement pensions of exsoldiers and the ordinary pensions of war widows, their children, and the widowed mothers of deceased members of the forces, there are payable economic pensions. . .in these classes the Bill proposes that the es-soldieiV economic pension of 30s a week, which was reduced to 27s weekly in June 1, 1931, is further reduced to 21s weekly, and the economic pension of the widow, of 10s weekly for the first child, plus 2s 6d weekly for each additional child, is reduced to Ps weekly, pins 2s weekly. The widowed mother of a deceased member of the forces may receive an economic pension of 20s weekly in addition to her ordinary pension, and this economic pension is reduced to 16s weekly. Other clauses provide that sick allowances. charitable donations, and com-

ponsation payments are now to be included in computation of income. Existing exceptions to tlie requirement that no person can hold more than one pension aro repealed, and it is specifically provided that after the passing of the Bill no pensioner other than an old age pensioner can continue to receive a war pension as well as other wnsion. One allowance must he relinquished, and the pensioner is given the right to retain the larger.