Poverty in the UK

[Arthur Little]

Its getting more and more difficult just to live an ordinary life you need both partners to be working to live an average lifestyle.

Not necessarily! ... I'm retired ... and my wife (who taught senior High School students for 22 years in the Philippines) cannot teach in the UK because her BSc degree isn't recognised by either the NUT or the Scottish Education Department. Equally, she's deemed as being over~qualified for a great many (dare I say?) less academically skilled occupations ... thus rendering her sort of "piggy in the middle", in the employment stakes. Most frustrating!

But really, the point I'm trying to get across here, is this:

Despite neither of us being employed, we, as a couple, manage to live comfortably on an income comprising my weekly State Pension and my [modest] Occupational Pension (paid monthly). Which, when combined, is considerably lower than the minimum financial requirement - since a year past July - for sponsoring a non-European partner from abroad.

So ... ... there you go!

[tiger31]

Not necessarily! ... I'm retired ... and my wife (who taught senior High School students for 22 years in the Philippines) cannot teach in the UK because her BSc degree isn't recognised by either the NUT or the Scottish Education Department. Equally, she's deemed as being over~qualified for a great many (dare I say?) less academically skilled occupations ... thus rendering her sort of "piggy in the middle", in the employment stakes. Most frustrating!

But really, the point I'm trying to get across here, is this:

Despite neither of us being employed, we, as a couple, manage to live comfortably on an income comprising my weekly State Pension and my [modest] Occupational Pension (paid monthly). Which, when combined, is considerably lower than the minimum financial requirement - since a year past July - for sponsoring a non-European partner from abroad.

So ... ... there you go!

arthur, if your house is paid off then that makes a big difference in living comfortably as you put it on your pension. The average rent in the u.k now stands at 720 quid a month add all the utilities and everything else to the list, its a very scary figure.