I’m wondering if we couldn’t bring in our young people to do something for our oldies. Here are two pretty well complementary problems: there are too many young people who haven’t got jobs, and too many old people who have problems they can’t solve. With, for example, their computers; with their piles of junk; with their ceiling light bulbs and jammed doors and incomprehensible benefit forms and TV sets that have refused to go digital and… I could go on.
Tag Archives: family
Full state pension for stay-at-home mothers and carers
Stay-at-home mothers and carers will receive a full state pension for the first time under a radical overhaul of the country’s retirement system, The Daily Telegraph can disclose.
Iain Duncan Smith said women would be the ‘major winners’ in the reformed system
Millions of mothers who have chosen to take time out of work will no longer be penalised once they are pensioners, Iain Duncan Smith, the Work and Pensions Secretary, has announced.
However, the overhaul is expected to hit wealthier workers, as the state second pension will be scrapped.
At the moment, people who do not work for 30 years do not qualify for the full basic state pension. Under the reforms, mothers and carers will be treated as if they had worked throughout their lives, benefiting them by £2,000 a year.
Mr Duncan Smith said women would be the “major winners” in the reformed system, which will mean that everyone who works or looks after others will receive a flat-rate payment worth at least £140 a week.
The measure will be applied to women who retire from 2015, giving an average of £40 extra a week to mothers who took time out of work. Currently, they receive a reduced entitlement for each year out of employment.
Help the aged and Carers
Matching young people without jobs and old people who need help is surely one for The Apprentice?
Help at hand: what the elderly need is someone who can do those tricky little jobs. Photograph: Rex
