Long Term Loan Debt Worries For Unemplyed Over 50’s
Over the course of the last twelve months, unemployment figures have increased dramatically, as the UK continues to reel from the most recent recession. One sector of the jobs market which has been affected particularly hard, is the over 50’s, with unemployment figures for this age group increasing be more than 50 per cent in the past twelve months.
New research from the charity Age UK, has revealed that around 170,000 individuals over the age of 50 have been in long term unemployment for over one year, either through redundancy or illness and these figures are expected to continue to increase, according to the research.
Although the majority of people within this age group should now be planning for retirement and building up their savings and investments, a large proportion are still repaying debts on personal loans and credit cards, rather than looking forward to a comfortable retirement.
If long term unemployment continues for many of these individuals and plans from the Government to cut incapacity benefit go ahead, they will be unable to meet their monthly personal loan and credit card repayments and end up increasing their loan and card debt, instead of paying it off.
This could leave many borrowers entering retirement with outstanding personal loan and card debt which they will have no way of repaying.
The Consumer Credit Counselling Service (CCCS) have said that for somewhere in the region of 15,000 of the people it sees, incapacity benefit makes up more than one third of their regular income and many depend on this benefit to make their loan repayments.
Michelle Mitchell of the charity Age UK said “The Government must lay the foundations of a better job market for older people, with fairness and flexibility as cornerstones.”
