Welcome missbetty. I am sorry I do not know but if you bring up Centrelink you should find out.

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Do Widowers receive an allowance from the Government because their wife passes away?

If not wouldn't this be discrimination? Just wondering about that.



Do Widows receive money because they have never worked and can

prove this, and relied on their husband's wage to support them? hence no training to do any type of payed work? SO if the man has never worked and been a stay at home Dad does

he get a widower's allowance because of this if his wife passes away?



What about a Spinster lady? or an unmarried Gent. I would not think a marriage certificate would be the reason to receive a Government payment would it? I am guessing it has to do with the age of the person? as anyone with a disability would be on a Pension of course.

But I think even they have to prove they cannot work don't they?

Phyl.

I would say if you have the card then yes you would get the $1400--

Yes missbetty, you will get the $1400 - any-one with a seniors health care card will get it. Any-one with a card that mentions the word pension will get it.

I am not too sure about that. At 62 you are not old enough for the aged pension. The widows allowance can be given to any female who is out of work and has not been in the workforce for a certain length of time. It is similar to Newstart, you have a card but it is not the same as the aged pension card. However possibly if you have a seniors card you might get it. Best ask Centrelink.

I do know that people on the Widows allowance who are not of aged pension age are obliged to do volunteer work same as on Newstart.So I was told by Centrelink anyway.

Miss Betty and Miss Jacinta, as far as I can ascertain if you were a widow prior to turning 60 and you were on the widow allowance for a continuous period for 39 weeks prior to your birthday you then get the pension concession card, I do reccommend you go and apply for itself and do not rely on Centrelink to send it out as when I was coming up to my 60th last year , in its usual way some of Centrelink call centre staff said yes I would get that card and some said they did not know and some said straight out no you do not get anything until you reach age pension age. When I last looked at the Centrelink site it did say that those on partner , widow and I think the Mature age allowance(Mature age does not exist now however it is still paid to those who were on it at the time of it cutting out under the grandfather clause which means they can not take people off of it just because it is not in use anymore)would get the bonus in December. Remember though it is starting to be paid during the fortnight beginning the 8th of December and you may not get it right until the end of that fortnight which is about the 19th . Keep a check on your bank account-actually if you have more than one account that Centrelink have the details of keep a check on all of them because I have a friend who thought she had not been paid her normal widow allowance and when she asked why , to her horror she found out they had paid it into her other account and they had not been given any authority to do so.If at the close of business on the 19th of December you do not have the bonus in any of your accounts I strongly respectfully suggest you visit your usual Centrelink office and put in a query. In relation to the issue of volunteer work to get the widow allowance that is wrong, when you are having your interview to see if you qualify for the widow allowance it may come up in the conversation are you interested in doing volunteer work or are you interested in looking for work and if you indicate that you may be interested in either then that is registered on your records however if you decide later that you do not want to do that you go in and tell them so and they take that off of your records , it is NOT compuslory to do either of those things to get the allowance. What you do have to watch is if you get some work just off of your own bat no matter what it pays you have to report the details and if your work is such that it precludes you from getting any money from Centrelink for 6 fortnights you drop off the widow allowance and this is the killer because if your work finishes you are NOT allowed to go back onto the widow allowance and you HAVE to go onto the NEWSTART where you DO have to do either search for work or do the 15 hours a week volunteer work and trust me you do NOT get any assistance from Centrelink in looking for volunteer work and their rules on what qualifies as volunteer work is horrendous as I found out from reading a post by another person on this site.Also a lot of what I have mentioned I have found out myself since I was widowed in 2005 and I make a habit-which I reccommend others do - of checking either on the phone or in the office or both- of checking every few months and always just before my birthday to see if anything has changed in relation to what I am entitled to.