My husband is 62 in september. Has been made redundant ........................

[lilacben]

He has been to see what we can claim and it seems nothing.? He has a small private pension and I also have a works pension plus get incapacity benefit. which amounts to £200 per week. which they say is enough to live in. Just wondering if this is correct.?

[razza]

That is the figure DWP sent to me in a letter,I have it in black and white that is the reason.

[buildersmate]

"because I decided to pay into a company pension as an alternative to paying extra NI to the Government, my state pension has been reduced by £298.00 per month".

[lilacben]

Very interesting to hear from other people and there problems with all this. Our latest update is.. husband had to go to job center again yesterday and he has been toldyet again noyou are not intitled to any thing. It appears because he was made redundant three years ago after being in his job for 30 odd years and has only been working part time since.. It means he hasnt paid a full stamp for past two years so he cannot get contrabution based JSA. So back to square one.!

[jorock]

My husband is in the same boat. He is 62 Has worked all of his life hand is entitled to nothing. I have also been severed this year and my income has dropped to half with my small private pension and I am not entitled to state pension until next year. We have both paid into Nation Health Insurance all of our working lives but, it seems, no chance of getting any back. It seems that the only people that can get anything out of it is those who have never paid in. Under the Trades Descriptions Act it should be re-named to National Charity and those of us who have been robbed all of our lives should get compensation. My husbad could not claim anything when he had a serious heart operation and when he eventually claimed incapacity benefit for a few weeks his tax code went up when he was forced back to work in a physical job too early. We were looking forward to using my small pension lump sum to replace our 25 year old tatty kitchen, replace the fence that blew down two years ago and the Central Heating boiler with a mid of it's own. but will have to live the rest of our lives in more poverty on the pension for which we have saved all of our lives than those who have always spent OUR hard earned money. My husband was saving for a decent pension and we may have been better off if the company that he once worked for had not used the pension fund for paying off asbestosis claims. It is all so unfair. He cannot get his state pension until he is 65. His redundancy pay will last all of 6 months. There must be some advice for us out there.