The Earnings Rule
Sur,—There is an aspect of this rule which I do not remember having seen mentioned in print. Like others I paid for my National retirement benefit but was never allowed to draw it between the ages of sixty-five and seventy after the first week, because although there were many weeks when I earned nothing I did not qualify (not even when absent from the country), the Ministry of Pensions averaging my annual earnings over the fifty-two weeks of each year. On the other hand, a friend of mine lost his National retirement benefit in each of the occasional weeks he had earnings, notwithstanding that if the same averaging rule which was applied to me had been applied to him he would have been entitled to benefit every week of the year. Now that I am over seventy I am subject to another rule which I do not remember having seen mentioned in print. If my wife earns no more than £2 9s. a week I draw a wife's allowance; if she earns £2 Ils, a week I lose the whole wife's allowance.
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