I today posted a blog detailing why the bedroom tax will affect mixed-age pensioner couples. The full post is here (wp.me/p1vuvL-sX) and runs to about 6 pages of A4.
It begins: -
"?Oh what a tangled WEBB we weave, when first we practice to deceive? proclaimed Sir Walter Scott in Marmion:A tale of Flodden Field
Go and work 3 hours extra at the minimum wage to pay off your £16 per week bedroom tax says Steve Webb the junior minister at the DWP. That?s all it takes he claimed on Radio 4 last week. Absolute nonsense and brought this statement to mind as the government are overtly trying to deceive.
The £18.57 pw gross extra in wages sees the government reduce your housing and council tax benefit by £15.78. Those 3 hours additional work see you better off by a massive £2.79 or 93p per extra hour worked!
Yes that does mean for every extra £1 you earn your benefit will be reduced by 85p ? an effective tax rate of 85%!
(Note too that applies to all ages not just pensioners and if a billionaire only pays 45%?and allows them to say errantly that you will always be better off working which you wont be!)
Cue scores of Government apologists saying this is not a tax it?s a benefit reduction!
Call it whatever you like but if it looks like a duck and walks like a duck it?s an ef*g duck!
Now imagine you are a 59 year-old woman and your husband is 66. This is known as a mixed-age pensioner couple; mixed-age as one qualifies for pension or pension credit and the other does not. Your combined electricity and gas bill has increased 9%, food cost is going up by the day and predicted to rise much more so in the coming months, all other household costs are increasing too and your hard-earned savings at getting interest at 0.01% in the building society.
Hubby you say, they want me to work 3 hours a week more from April and we need the extra money. Ok love if that?s what you want. So you do. Then ? and there is no easy diplomatic way to say this reader ? the shit hits the fan!
Not only do you discover the 3 extra hours earn you the princely sum of 93p per hour but because this is a change in circumstances you are now hit by the bedroom tax and have to pay 25% of your rent on the 3 bed house you have made your home for 40 years bringing up your four children. They have homes of their own now and treat them with the same love and attention you have given ?the family home? as that is what it is since 1973. The same family home the darling grandchildren come to visit and stay over to give their mums and dads a night out or just a break. The same darling grandchildren who make you feel young again and on whom you lavish love and affection and get so much back in return.
How are we going to cope with the £37.50 per week Housing Benefit cut from our £150 per week rent in ?the family home? in London.
I could go on with this tale in the same way yet the key issue here is that mixed-age pensioner couples will be hit by the bedroom tax in April if they have a change in circumstances, such as working 3 more hours as the government advises in it tangled WEBB of deceit. The couple above would be £2.79 per week better off yet then have to pay £37.50 per week in the bedroom tax.
They would be £34.71 per week worse off for working 3 additional hours that government minister Steve Webb advocates ?and that can happen from April 2013."
You can read the rest at the reference above which includes full references and sources for the above and then goes on to explain the coalition guidance on the bedroom tax which absolutely and unambiguously confirms the above.
Finally, there are 90,000 of these mixed-age pensioner couples who will be caught by this from April