Cost of living compensation inadequate for poor and elderly, Anti-Poverty Alliance says

The elderly and poor families are experiencing an erosion in incomes because compensation for the cost of living does not meet their everyday needs, anti-poverty activists said.

The Anti-Poverty Alliance said the mechanism that sets the annual increase in wages and pensions is calculated on a basket of products and services that does not adequately reflect the expenditure borne by poor families and the elderly.

“Because of their low income, these people have a different basket of needs, which sees them spend more on basic necessities like food, rents and in the case of pensioners, medicines that are not always catered for by the national health service,” the alliance said.

It noted that recent statistics showed that the prices of these basic products and services increased at a faster pace than other items.

The alliance said inadequate compensation meant that the value of wages and pensions was being eroded and so causing more poverty.

The alliance called on the government to start correcting this imbalance in the next Budget that is due in October.