Pension Roll

“ The rate of pension was fixed at $12 per month when sixty-two years of age, $15 per month when seventy years of age and $20 per month when seventy-five years of age. The act of April 1908, fixed the rate of pension for widows, minor children under the age of sixteen and helpless minors on the roll or afterwards to be placed on it at $12 per month, and granted pensions at the same rate to the widows of persons who served ninety days or more during the civil war, without regard to their pecuniary condition. ”

“ Recognizing the just claims of deserving Union soldiers, we heartily endorse the rule of the present Commissioner of Pensions that no names shall be arbitrarily dropped from the pension roll, and the fact of an enlistment and service should be deemed conclusive evidence against disease or disability before enlistment. ”

“ If pension laws are potent in the making of diseases, pensions themselves have the opposite effect—they cure them. There is nothing that promotes longevity like a pension. It is now seventy-seven years since the War of 1812 began and seventy-four years since it ended. Yet there are nearly a thousand men on the pension-rolls who claim that they were soldiers in that war. ”

“ I have considered the pension list of the Republic a roll of honor, bearing names inscribed by national gratitude, and not by improvident and indiscriminate almsgiving. ”

“ In addition to all these arrangements for promoting a real community of interests between the company and its employees, there is a pension fund out of which retiring pensions, varying from one-fifth to one-fourth of the wages earned by the pensioner, are granted to employees who have served the company for a certain number of years, or who find themselves disabled from further service by age or by disease. ”

“ During the period of disablement, the worker is entitled to benefits ranging from 30 to 100 percent of his wage, depending on the severity of the disablement and on his income. Prolonged or permanent disability entitles the worker to a pension.
Old-age pensions are based on the years of service and kind of work performed. The pensionable age is fifty-five for women and sixty for men, but earlier retirement is possible for certain categories of work. ”

“ The second great function of the Elizabethan Poor Law was the relief of the impotent, and under it practically every poor person had an old age pension. Those who have studied the old parish books will tell you that in most parts of England almost the whole labouring population—young, middle-aged, and old—were upon the rates, and outdoor relief was universal. There is no difference, but in name, between old age pensions and outdoor relief, except that old age pensions are more attractive, because they are on a higher scale and are free from the name of pauperism. ”

“ The law on the subject, although frequently amended, is still based upon the Superannuation Act of 1859, which grants to "persons who shall have served in an established capacity in the permanent civil service of the state" for ten years, and retire at sixty years of age or by reason of infirmity, a pension equal to ten sixtieths of their final salary. ”

“ I believe in the trite formula we workers preach—in the eight-hour day, the old age pension, which is only the inevitable step from the mother's pension, the gradual nationalization of mines and railroads. ”

“ At the close of the last fiscal year, on the 30th day of June, 1894, there were 969,544 persons on our pension rolls, being a net increase of 3,532 over the number reported at the end of the previous year.
These pensioners may be classified as follows: Soldiers and sailors survivors of all wars, 753,968; widows and relatives of deceased soldiers, 215,162; army nurses in the War of the Rebellion, 414. Of these pensioners 32,039 are surviving soldiers of Indian and other wars prior to the late Civil War and the widows or relatives of such soldiers. ”

“ Guardians who are prone to give out-relief, finding that the people over seventy have been taken off the rates, are by no means loth to fill their places with younger people. Moreover, there is always now the almost irresistible plea that people should be kept out of the workhouse for a year or two until the old age pension becomes due. ”

“ Several have been continuously receiving relief since taking their pension. In all these cases, except in six, when the pensioners came into the workhouse, they continued to receive their pension. One pensioner who had been admitted to the infirmary on five occasions stated that one reason for wishing to be admitted was in order to save money against his discharge. Some pensioners allowed their pensions to accumulate, whilst others allowed a relative or friend to draw the pension. ”

“ An employee who has been at least twenty years in continual service and has become unfit for duty may be retired with a pension, although he has not reached the age of seventy. The amount of the pensions is 1 per cent, for each year of continuous service, based upon the average rate of pay received for the ten years next preceding retirement. The pension system became effective on January 9, 1910. The latest government report on the number of railroad employees puts the total for the country at 1,672,074. ”

“ We were told that old age pensions would empty our workhouses and save an enormous expenditure upon Poor Law relief. Mr Charles Booth assured us that it would be possible to do away with out-relief altogether. We were told, moreover, that the grant of a pension at seventy would be a strong incentive to self-maintenance until that age was reached; and now we find our workhouses nearly as full as ever, whilst the places of those transferred from outdoor relief to the pension list are being filled by those under seventy. ”

“ So far from the pension being an inducement to self-maintenance in earlier years, the fact that a pension is due shortly is made a reason for asking for out-relief in the interim. And so relief is made to breed relief. But a further irony of fate remains to be recorded. When the Old Age Pensions Act was passed the greatest stress was laid upon the condition that old age pensioners or the "veterans of labour" should be entirely dissociated from all contact with the Poor Law. ”

“ New members entering the combined society, who were not previously members of the former Provident Society or Pension Fund, upon attaining the pension age will not, on leaving the service, be entitled to receive a retiring gratuity, but will in lieu thereof be allowed an increased pension of it per week. ”

“ As you are perhaps aware, a small percentage of our earnings is always appropriated by the State, and a proportionate pension becomes our due as soon as we wish to claim it. If we claim our pension at the age of seventy or eighty, it is relatively smaller than if we wait until our hundredth year or thereabouts. We are usually not in a hurry to place ourselves upon the pension list, for our active period of labour ceases then, and this source of income is lost. ”

“ The cost of the old-age pension system has greatly increased, as might have been expected, for the reason that an increasing number of old persons who previously would have come under the poor-relief system are now receiving old-age pensions. ”

“ The grant of parish relief under the old ways has been humorously likened to a State pension, which, when it has once been given, is never supposed to be revoked during the lifetime of the privileged pensioner. ”

“ The above shows that the provisions for invalids' pensions have been, from time to time, but generally at long intervals, liberalized as to the requirements upon which claims should be based. In claims on account of service in the Revolution, first requiring service and disability, and without limitation as to time of filing claims, allowing only half-pay pension; seventeen years after, two years, limitation for filing was adopted, and two years thereafter the date of completion of the required proof was made the date of commencement of pension. ”

“ But then a workman has frequently to labor for ten or more years at such a piece. The wages of the workmen are not very high; I was told, however, that after a certain number of years of service they receive a pension, which is granted in a shorter period should they become blind over their work—a calamity which not unfrequently befalls them. ”

“ When the employe was honorably retired, say at sixty or sixty-five, after a stipulated number of years of steady work, he would be pensioned until he died, which pension might in whole or in part be continued to his wife if she survived him. ”

“ The addition to the expenditure in payment of pensions by reason of increase of rates, the including of so large a proportion of the pensioners among those entitled to the higher rates, and the extension of the benefits of the pension laws to so many classes of pensioners, have been so great as to warrant consideration in connection with any proposition for further increase. ”

“ At the same time, it must be remembered that, once a pension has been granted, any departure from the paths of virtue on the part of the recipient will probably be quickly noted, and the pensioner will be penalised to the extent of the whole or some part of his pension, according to the magnitude of his offence. ”

“ It will be seen that this pension is an essential part of the civil service system, and the method of it is at once a sort of insurance and a stimulation to faithful service. Good service is a constant inducement to retention, to promotion, and to increase of pension. ”

“ Since the first pension law was enacted, the amount of the annual allowance has been several times increased. Already the government has paid out more than forty-five million dollars in doles to the aged, and there are, I am told, about twenty thousand people now receiving these pensions. This is considerably more than one pensioner to every hundred persons in the country. ”

“ POVERTY AND UNEMPLOYMENT: France: A. D. 1910. General Old-Age Pension Law. A general measure for the pensioning of workmen in old age, which had been pending in the French Parliament for nearly three years, became law in April, 1910. Passed in the first instance by the Chamber of Deputies in 1907, it was held in the Senate, undergoing an extensive remodeling, until the 12th of February, 1910, when that body gave it an unanimous vote. ”

“ Ten per cent each year was paid for interest on these shares until the pension was paid, but had to be left to accumulate with the society until then. When a member begins to draw a pension the amount will have to be according to the number of shares and the age of the members when the first allowance is paid. ”

“ The Local Lunacy Authorities are now providing for all grades of the mentally defective, irrespective of their affluence, not only control, but also ameliorative treatment and maintenance. The Local Pension Authorities are now providing for all persons over seventy who do not possess more than twelve shillings a week of income, irrespective of whether or not they are destitute, regular pensions from national funds. ”

“ A pension he had defined as pay given to a state hireling to betray his country; a pensioner as a slave of state hired by a stipend to obey a master. It seemed unlikely that the author of these definitions would himself be pensioned. ”

“ Every phase of human need was looked to. We are just beginning to realize our obligations to care for the old, and the last twenty years has seen various efforts on the part of governments to provide old-age pensions. In the Middle Ages according to the laws of the gilds the man who had paid his dues for seven years would then draw a weekly pension equal to something more than five dollars now, for all the rest of his life if he were disabled by injury, or had become incapacitated from old age or illness. ”

“ Smart thinks "The smallest sum upon which an old man can exist, even when his lodging is provided by his friends, is 7s. a week. The pension, therefore, should not be less than this amount, and should be obtainable at sixty years of age. ”

“ It seems to be pretty well demonstrated by the history of benefit clubs and the calculations of actuaries, that the agricultural labourer, out of his amount of wages, cannot put by a sufficient monthly contribution to enable him to receive a pension when he becomes old and infirm. ”

“ The petitioners quote from a statement by the National Industrial Conference Board the following: 'More specifically, the efficiency of the individual workers is stimulated by the feeling of security and hopefulness that results when the individual is relieved of the fear of destitution and dependency in old age and by the sentiment of loyalty and good will fostered by the pension plan, which thus operates as a spur to the ambition of the worker and incites him to more intensive and sustained effort. ”

“ A share of the net earnings of the business is to be set aside each year, and applied for the benefit of the employés in three ways—as pensions, insurance, and endowment. Every male employé who becomes unable to work after a continuous service of ten years receives a pension equal to fifty per cent of his wages. Each three years of service over ten up to twenty-five, increases the pension ten per cent. A disabling accident happening to an employé while on duty entitles him to a fifty-per-cent pension, even if he has not served ten years. ”

“ Findlay has her old age pension each Friday. She thus has eight and six a week. I wonder did Lloyd George realise that his pension scheme would one day prevent fat farmers from having conscience qualms when they gave a widow sixpence a day? ”

“ For old age merely, he cannot begin to draw his full pension until he has attained the ripe age of seventy-one years. Then he will draw the full amount. He may anticipate that if he be incapacitated; but in that case the pension will be on a lower scale, proportioned to the amounts paid in and the length of time of the payments. ”