Wake Up Britain is a social media human rights group, that currently focuses its efforts on what it describes as “the grossly unfair State Pension within this country”, with a level representing just 16% of average earnings.
The payment was set in 1980, by the Thatcher government, when it broke the link between British prosperity, and state pension increases. Since then despite a few small changes, the level remains low.
One Wake Up Britain’s founding members Michael Thompson has been pursuing this issue since the 1980s, to the extent of having stood for Parliament as an Independent, years ago on the same ticket. Since pensioners have little leverage over politicians other than their vote, the group has introduced a petition (number 640356) currently, calling to “Make the State Pension equal to Minimum Wage (40hr/wk for age 23+), to all from age 60”. The petition is in the top thirty of the government petition website. You can find and sign the petition here.
Despite the current government having spent the past four decades maintaining pensioner poverty through the inequity of triple lock freezing, the group feels that it is imperative to push the government at every opportunity to put the state pension in line with the UK’s minimum wage, using the National Insurance scheme, founded for this very purpose.
Wake Up Britain says:
“Our grandparents must be allowed to share in the real wealth of our country that was created by elderly people’s income tax paid into State coffers throughout their working lives. Remember to try and get the next government to adopt our reforms, after the next election, but in the meantime sign our petition which is one of the only genuine attempts to alleviate the decades of injustice, through which time so many have died in abject poverty.”
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Wake Up Britain’s petition link: https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/640356This article is based on a press release from Wake Up Britain
