From elsewhere on the above blog
"My husband I couple be affected by these changes, there is roughly 19 years parts us, that is 19 years of living on or below the bread line. I have been doing what I can to campaign around this issue, to hope gain changes to Universal Credit to help mitigate the impact to couples where the oldest of the couple is getting State Pension, in many cases will be higher than the couple alliance of UC, which means they will receive no help, not one penny even toward rent. Then there are health, heating cost, basically mixed aged couple will be set adrift with no help. It will have a wider affect on society where grant parents provide free childcare now may not be in a position to offer this help to their adult children, also this will impact on some types of care packages that aim to keep people included in society, they will become unviable if a couple cannot afford to fuel their car. This will disastrous for couples with are in private renters property as the older person pension will end up going on rent with nothing left, so I think we will see an increase in homeless pensioners as result of the bad change of law"
"My husband and I are absolutely devastated. We love each other dearly but will likely have to divorce.
He is in his 70s and I am in my 50s. He has an age-related cancer that is only going to worsen over time. Our only remaining parent has mid-stage dementia. If we inherit a modest amount when they pass and our ‘savings’ exceed the limit temporarily we are finished.
His state pension will stop our entitlement to UC , so unless I find some fairly well-paid work almost immediately we will have to switch off heating, scrap our old car, which is our only means of transport for his hospital appointments or go without food if we can’t do without it.
This specific targeting of mixed age couples for severe punishment will leave us with the choice of divorce or die. He will be in his late 80s before we could get pension credits back.
Ironically, if we split up it will cost the government much more in benefits and social services care than if they left us as we are with me taking care of him.
This seems to be punishment for the sake of it, incentive to divorce and leave the duty of caring to to the government, not incentive to work.
Incentive to work would involve giving the pensioner his entitlement to PC and HB and allowing the younger person to claim UC , carers allowance or work to improve their income and save for their own later life – without deducting it from his entitlement."