Spinsters and Pensions The advocates of pensions for spinsters at
55 have not yet carried their case. They have, however, persuaded the Committee on Pensions for Unmarried Women that there is a good deal to be said for that case. The Committee, whose report was issued this week, admit that on some grounds there are strong arguments for granting spinsters equality with widows; but on the evidence they decide against the spinsters. To grant them pensions at fifty-five would, it is estimated, cost ‘4,000,000 yearly, but as the concession would almost certainly have to be extended to the wives of pensioner husbands the total annual cost would be £14,000,000. Life, on the whole, is rather harder for elderly spinsters than for married persons or pensioned widows, but there is no statistical evidence that industrial conditions press more hardly on them than on others. But the Committee concede that spinsters have just cause for complaint in that there is a State subsidy towards the cost of widows' pensions, while there is none towards the cost of old-age pensions for women who have contributed from the age of sixteen.
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