Old Age Pensions

Excerpt from Old Age Pensions: From 5s. To 7s. Per Week in Accordance With the Scheme of the Select Committee Would Cost Ł2, 700, 000 Not Ł10, 300, 000 Sir Henry Longley, Chief Charity Commissioner, stated that the Commissioners possessed an income of nearly a million and added that there had been no considerable difficulties in practice in its administration, and that their large existing pension system had worked satisfactorily and well. Mr. Davy, one of the Inspectors of the Local Government Board, who had been sent officially to Denmark to study the Old Age Pension system there, stated that in Copenhagen 45 per cent of the pensioners were unskilled labourers, 37 per cent were skilled labourers who had been employed by others, and 15 per cent were those who had or had bad businesses of their own. Brain workers, teachers, and so on, only account for just 2 per cent. In the first year of Old Age Pensions there were 5339 applications of which 1019 were refused, and last year there were 999 applications, of which 132 were refused. As to the pension system in Denmark it has no doubt been popular with the people themselves, and I know that even some with whom I have conversed, who have devoted some attention to economic questions, are in favour of it. There is no proof of thrift required to qualify for a pension In answer to the question Mr. Davy said None whatever. I am driven to the conclusion that there is and always has been in Denmark a great idea that the Poor Law relief is degrading, and that the pension relief is not degrading, and there is no doubt that the law is popular. Life in Denmark is very much like life in England. I was much struck with the uniformity of prices between England and Denmark. Universally I hear that the Pension Act is extremely popular amongst the lower classes that they like it that they look forward to it and that they appreciate it. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.