Morning everyone, Hope you’re all as well as you can be. I haven’t been on for a while and I just wondered how other’s felt about something I’ve only just found out. I myself have SPMS, my husband took early retirement to look after me 3 years ago, from a well paid job, he now gets carer’s allowance of 64.60 a week, not a massive amount, but better than nothing, anyway we had a conversation about when he gets to state pension age, ie will his allowance still continue and when we checked it out we were amazed that the answer to that is NO, I was amazed that they class state pension as a benefit and there my husband can not have both, now what I would like to know is this, just because my husband has reached state pension age does that mean that the care he will still be giving to me is no longer valued, important, ? I would really like your take on this. All the best to all of you, x x P.S. I thought we paid our stamp so we could receive our pension, I never classed it as a benefit, do you.
Don’t class benefit as pension hi carers allowance will be set aside but may give him right to another benefit or increase
To wards something else such as pension credit .
Hello
The point of Carers Allowance is that if you spend at least 35 hours per week caring for another person (who gets PIP for Daily Living or DLA middle or higher rate for Care, or Attendance Allowance), then theoretically your earning power is less because you are spending a large part of your ‘working week’ caring for that person. The carer need not be related to or indeed living with the person they provide personal care to.
Once you receive State Retirement Pension, it is assumed that you are no longer in the workforce, therefore any time you spend caring for another person is not (again theoretically) reducing your availability for work time.
Thus you cannot receive both State Pension and Carers Allowance. They are known as ‘overlapping’ benefits. It does mean that although you don’t receive Carers Allowance, you retain what is called ‘underlying entitlement’ to it. You thereby qualify for a Carer Premium, so you may get extra Pension Credit (Guarantee type, not Savings type), or Housing and Council Tax Benefit. (Or any other means tested benefit for which you claim.)
It may not seem fair, after all you are still spending the same amount of time and energy caring for that person. But this is the rules and the rationale behind those rules. And of course it’s the DWP we are talking about. The word ‘fair’ isn’t usually seen in the same sentence as DWP.
Sue
Sue will you become my financial advisor ?
I cant pay you but I could offer endless cups off coffee, biscuits, even the odd box of chockies .
Aw that’s a job offer I don’t get everyday.
I’d be delighted. Only I’m cr@p at anything financial except benefits. Sshh don’t tell anyone but it’s related to my job when I worked. Some things have changed but others remain the same. And it means I know how to read the DWP gobbledygook. (No I’m not yet another sacked Minister for Work and Pensions, thank the god of the DWP, - ie Satan!)
And payment in tea and biscuits will be fine if there could be the occasional gin thrown in - never let it be said I don’t know how to negotiate an employment contract!
Sue
As soon as your husband gets his state pension he should apply apply for pension credit.
GIN, now that is something I can do !
No need for negotiation on that one !!!
I might need your “services” soon ?
I had a PIP “assessment” at home about 5 weeks ago but as yet no decision ?
I initially rang them just to say that had gone from RRMS to SPMS so they decided to do a complete reassessment.
If I’m honest I wasnt expecting to be reassessed, I just thought they would “make a note” of the change in diagnosis, I wasnt telling them I had suddenly got worse, because that has happened over gradual 2 years.
It seemed to go ok, but you can never tell ?
It’s a case of getting the assessors report. And of course their decision. I assume that you’re already a member of https://www.benefitsandwork.co.uk/ If the assessor or the DWP have ballsed up your reassessment, then you’ll be stuck with getting a mandatory reconsideration.
As always, it’s a question of paper evidence to support your change. And the problem is that whenever you report a change - even a change for the worse - they will look at the entire claim again.
If you had full entitlement before (or whatever your previous award was), then they can’t really argue that you qualify for less, given that your MS has progressed.
Let us know when you get the result.
If you need any help, I will always work for gin and chocolate.
Sue
The sad state of British pensions - how did we get here?
Thanks for your replies, when he gets to that age will we look at what he might be entitled to. The post from PJday just shows the state we’re in, some of my family live in Dublin and they get so much more than us, not just in pension’s, but in ever thing else, no poll tax, no water rates and that’s just 2 and the laugh of it is, we helped to bail then out, what a joke, can’t but what I really like to, take care all, x
[quote=“PJday”]
The sad state of British pensions - how did we get here?
[/quote] As figures it doesn’t look great but taxes paid need to be known to get a perspective. I have a German friend on 25-30K per annum and his national plus regional tax burden is close to 40%. I guess our pension provision is to compliment savings which in itself is laughable.