It’s surprising that a Leftist media outlet should give any attention to it as they usually support the ‘tax to the max’ policies of the Leftist parties. Do KCDC councilors ever take the hardship-of-those-at-the-bottom consideration into account? A few of them do, but others are callous — Cr Liz Koh, for example, has said that retirees should take out reverse mortgages on their homes to pay KCDC’s imposts or move to where it is cheaper.
from TV One news
Retirees are “suffering in silence” as the cost-of-living struggles continue to bite, according to Age Concern.
Around 40% of retired New Zealanders have to get by on their pension alone – a maximum of $496.37 a week for a single person living alone.
Unlike previous generations, many don’t own their own homes. To balance the budget in a cost-of-living crisis, something inevitably must give.
Age Concern chief executive Karen Billings-Jensen told Breakfast while last night’s Sunday story on retirees struggling to make ends meet “would have been quite shocking for a lot of people”.
She said “it is the reality that we see quite often”. Her major concern is around “those that are suffering in silence”.
Billings-Jensen said: “We know that a lot of older people are living on their own and simply may not even be telling anyone how hard it is for them”.
She said while 40% of people are relying on superannuation as their only source of income, a further 20% “will have very little”.
“With the accommodation supplement basically not kicking in if you have more than $8000 saved, as it is currently, that’s not a lot on top. If you’re living for another 20 years, $8000 savings isn’t going to go very far.”
This is a reality that is not being confronted by a current left-leaning clique of Councillors who want to keep putting up rates to fund their spending on virtue-signalling projects such as ‘climate change adaptation’, financial contributions to iwi and ‘economic development’ initiatives. The community at large are not benefitting from this expenditure. And this is happening while the Council is telling the public that the rates increases are all about paying for infrastructure and ‘services’. It seems that the Council has bought into a leftist rhetoric that subscribes to the myth of a well-off baby boomer generation who can pay for ever-increasing rates, even when they are surviving on an income of under $500 a week. The average rates bill in Kapiti is approx. $5600 per annum for an average house. That represents $108 per week, which is about 22% of a single superannuitant’s income. I know people who live in just one room of their house during the winter because they can’t afford the electricity to heat more than that.