ABSTRACT
Poverty and low income are a characteristic feature of old age in Britain as social commentators from Charles Booth onwards have documented. Using the supplementary benefit scale rates (currently 57.10 pounds per week for a couple and 35.70 for a single person) laid down annually by Parliament, which may be taken to approximate to society’s notion of a minimum standard of living, 20 per cent of all pensioners have incomes below the poverty line. A further 44 per cent have incomes which are on the margins of poverty i.e. less than 40 per cent above the relevant S.B. scale rate (Townsend, 1979). Thus 5.2 million pensioners in Britain live in or on the margins of poverty. Additionally although the elderly constitute approximately 15 per cent of the total population they account for 32 per cent of the population defined as poor.
