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It is very hard to live on a pension as a couple a lot harder for singles.
Government do not seem to care about us and the banks don’t seem to care about anybody except their share holders C.E.O’s.
our pension rise is always not quite enough to cover what wxtra we are charged for deeming or extra houshold costs

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It is a fact that self-funded retirees receive no help from the Government.  They are the people who worked harder, paid their taxes during their working life and provided for their own retirement. And yet, there is no recognition of that fact by any government and no benefits or advantages for doing so.  On the contrary, they are slugged with higher and higher charges in all areas.  The government should support self-funded retirees by giving them special recognition and the same benefits as other pensioners as they do not live at the cost of the government but help provide for the pensioners as well.

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One might assume bureaucrats can also do [have done] the mathematics.

They must have parents who are affected by this two handed approach - else the pension increase is targetted to the very low level.

What is the point of people having nine percent taken out of their income (to fund retirement?) and then it is reduced by smart sliding of the deeming rates.

They will be old one day (and retire at 67!)

Trying to retire.

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no, i am not affected. i am a rent payer. i would love to be a rate payer. if owners think they are hard done by, let them try paying rent. they should stop whinging.

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Since December I will have lost $6 per week of my part Pension. The interest from my investments has not increased by that much, so I am worse off what with increases in gas and electricity.
V. Bevan

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I don’t understand this at all.
Why would the banks reduce their savings rates when their borrowing rates are goign up?
I am really upset with Centrelink.....
Deeming rates gone from 2 and 3% to 3 and 4.5% -0 a huge jump
We are greatly affected - because we have sold our home, having to rent at $405 per week until we buy another property, an inheritance is in british pounds receiving VIRTUALLY NO INTEREST

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I dont have any money in the bank but I think it is unfair what they are doing to those who have worked hard all their lives for what they have… they still deserve to get treated like any other pensioners.

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I agree with Kaye, maybe we should all withdraw our Funds and keep them under the mattress. I would not hold my breath for a response from the Minister on this. I have been waiting since the 9th of January for an answer to a query I brought up, regarding the forced transfer from Transitional Rates to New Rules because of sickness or Family needs preventing a partner working and subsequently not earning a wage. Also the fact that in my case, as an aged pensioner, my Pension was reduced by 117% above the normal Taxation Rate for the amount earned on the last fortnight. Why? When are these Politicians going to get it right for the Ageing? We can’t afford to keep Jet Setting across the world at the expense of the Tax Payer, nor can we give ourselves a Pay Increase.

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I am a Widow on Widow’s Allowance and I have always been able to get a better bank interest rate than Centrelink’s deeming rate. Right now, while deeming rates are 2% & 3%, I am getting 5% on my high interest at call bank a/c, I transact on line or by phone, last month, I got 6.4% for a 5 mth term deposit from bendigo bank. It seems to me that deeming rates have actually been well market interest rates for the last couple of months, when they go up to 3 & 4.5% on the 20th March, I will still be ahead. If you are not happy with your bank, vote with your feet and change banks.

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I agree it is totally unfair - the pension rate has gone up but we have in fact had our pension reduced because of deeming rates.  The savings we have are in the form of superannuation and this has been going backwards for some time. Margaret

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Kaye, sorry to do this to you however I must take umbrage at your article. Like everyone else you have completely ignored those of us on the widow allowance.  Speaking for myself I would love to be on the single aged pension of $17469 per annum. I am on the MAXIMUM widow allowance and the increase I get is $7.40 a fortnight this makes my annual amount $13174.20.  Because we get paid the NEWSTART benefit and come under the newstart because we are NOT on a pension ,even though we have to be born before the 1/7/1955 and therefore aged 54 or older but still not age pension age(in my case I have to be 64and a half which is not until around July 2012)we are told we are given a benefit that is an adequate income on which to live while looking for work.
Yeah right!!!! one of the criteria to get the widow allowance -apart from the date of birth-is that you must not have been in the paid workforce for the ten years prior to becoming a widow.
Whilst it is hard for pensioners I will admit, I and thousands of women in Australia would love to be on a pension-some like me will be trying to exist on this amount while still paying a mortgage some may be paying rent and others may be lucky enough to own their own home.
How about sharing this thought with the politicians you mentioned-could you or they exist on the maximum widow allowance of $506.70 and there are some who will be trying to exist on $462.80 which is the bottom of the range of widow allowance benefit.  Remember most of us widows do NOT have superannuation,savings or investments,how could we-half the time we are lucky to have any money to buy food.

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I do think the banks need to be regulated. They need to be made to offer a service to customers at reasonable levels of interest. albeit lending or savings rates.
It seems at present taht the only thought they have apart from excessive executive salaries are the shareholders and no one else matters

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It is extremely unfair for banks to continually lift loan interest rates and to not at least match the current deposit earning rates.

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This is just another way the banks have found to keep your money.  So, find another option to your savings.  Show the banks exactly what we think by using our feet and walking away from them

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Seggie. I’d like to see politicians and all those who make the rules for pensioners. To be told by the doctor that your blood levels are not good and you should eat more red meat; would those in charge of us cut a small piece of meat in half, then half again to have meat and salad one night and a steak (chew slowly) sandwich the next night. I very much doubt it. I’d like to raid their garbage bins. Wish they’d check mine.
We saved our money to help ourselves in our twilight years and we wanted to be reasonably independent except for the pension. We don’t have holidays and are too old to pitch a tent and our bones wouldn’t allow it. Totally disgusted with the change in deeming rate. We’ve gone without, so we could manage. They give us a rise, then take it away. Maybe we should have had overseas holidays, gone to the pokies and generally wasted money. It seems to us that many without money(and wasted what they had) go to public hospitals and get rent assistance. We try to keep our hospital cover but it’s a struggle. So again, I ask you all, who are you going to vote for?

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Here’s a true story - At age 30 I left the convent, sick, no voice due to a slip of the surgical knife, no job prospects, no tertiary education, no family, no home, no money to get me started… so I went to live in a refuge for women and was expected to “live” on $43.45 fortnight in the 70’s. I swapped from disability to Age pension at 65. Not much has changed except I have an old house in the cheapest and poorest place in Queensland and a mortgage I can no longer pay...so have to sell..at my age...There will be very little left over. I have no money invested, negligible savings,...again, no prospects, I am old, not strong, I have nobody to support me in any way, I do not know where to go or what to do...I agree with the rent-payer, pensioners cannot afford to rent any kind of decent place where they we feel they some human dignity. I acknowledge that those self-funded retirees and recipients of part pensions (who have too many assets to receive full pensions) worked for everything they have..but weren’t you lucky to be able to work? Weren’t you lucky to have your health, youth and strength anmd the determination of youth? Those of you who had good partents to give you a start in life...Weren’t you lucky? Weren’t you lucky to have been in a position to find a good partner in life and to have been able to marry and have a family? Nobody should take any of that for granted! Would anybody out there who has a paid-for home, paid for car/s, investments, maybe a caravan and takes a holiday occasionally, leads what they would consider to be a modest life on a pension and who is now having to “go without”...(and I wonder what is your concept of that)...would any of you fortunate people like to trade places with me for a few months and experience what a lifetime of “going without” almost everything really means? I don’t see any benefit in complaining. I do see that getting on with your lot, whatever it is, and trying to make the best of every day is the only positive thing we can do...and never giving in and never giving up...And God has nothing to do with it...we are on our own in this life, make of it what we will. Sure, it gets depressing, distressing and so hard that life is hardly worth it...but I am still in here pitching. If I can do it with nothing why can’t those of you who have something make a go of it?
Maybe I could give those of you who feel badly done by some survival tips!
ERH (’er royal highness!)