YOUNGSTERS need to be made aware of the crisis facing pensioners, according to the South West Herts Senior Citizens Alliance, which met for its monthly meeting on Wednesday.

Guest speaker Mr Neil Duncan-Jordan, press officer for the National Pensioners Convention (NPC), said: "The pensioners of tomorrow are going to be at least as badly off as we are now, or worse".

Mr Duncan-Jordan fears, with 20 million of today's workers without a private pension, senior citizens of tomorrow will be hard hit by the deterioration of the state pension.

As a result of the meeting, members of the alliance have decided to visit local schools in order to make young people aware of the inadequacy of the benefit system.

They hope to help school children see even if the crisis does not affect them directly, it will probably affect an elderly relative, and to show how they, too, will be pensioners one day.

Mr Duncan-Jordan hopes the alliance establishes "solidarity between generations".

At the meeting, there was a general consensus the recent rise in state pensions, given during the last budget, was inadequate, but was an improvement on the minimal raise of 75p in the previous budget. Mr Duncan-Jordan argued £2.25 of the £5 increase was simply to keep up with the rate of inflation, and was therefore not a real increase at all.

To subscribe to the Senior Citizens Alliance newsletter, or to find out more about its campaign, write to: 12 Cherwell Close, Rickmansworth, WD3 3UF.

The NPC is campaigning for pensions to be linked to the increase in earnings rather than the increase in prices, which they claim is not a true indication of the country's wealth.

If the link to earnings had not been abolished in 1980 the current state pension for a single person would be over £120, rather than the existing £72.

July 6, 2001 10:19