This Guardian Article caught my attention today: Are older retirees getting a bad deal...?
The starting point for the premise in the title is that those in receipt of the Basic, or old, State Pension receive a lot less as a base-amount than those in receipt of the New State Pension.
The system changed in April 2016, anyone who retired on or after April 6th 2016 is in receipt of the (not so anymore) new State Pension. 75% of current pensioners are in receipt of the Basic (or old) State Pension
Quite a Difference!
There is quite a difference in the base amount received....
Those in receipt of the Basic State Pension receive only £169.50 a week, while those in receipt of the New State Pension receive £221.20 a week, a difference of more than £50 a week!
Worked out over a year this means that the New State Pension is £2700 a year more than the Basic State Pension...
The article above naturally starts with a case study of a poor 80 something woman who lives in the Basic pension and basically has no life because she can't afford to do anything.
Cases like this have even prompted a petition to raise the old Basic State Pension up to the same level as the current New Sate Pension, awarding an additional £2700 to EVERY SINGLE ONE of the 8 million or so people currently on the old pension scheme.
NB that's £26 billion a year.
The problem is MOST older pensioners are not that poor!
As the article itself states...
"This point is illustrated by the DWP figures for 2023. At a time when the basic rate was £141.85 a week the average man and woman received £178.67 and £152.90 respectively. For the new pension (then worth £185.15 a week) the equivalent figures were £175.54 and £170.61."
This means the amounts are quite similar, ON AVERAGE!
The Basic State Pension system was DIFFERENT to the New One, and MOST people get an additional amount based on their NI contributions, which brings the two systems nearly level.
There is an exception for women, maybe women on the basic state pension do need an uplift!
A Universal Increase should be out of the question....
Ministers have thus far rebuffed calls for an increase to the basic pension, on the basis of the above facts.
It's just not a great used for £21 billion a year, not when younger people are struggling so much.
There is a case for selected, means tested pension supplements, but these actually already exist, such as with pension credit.
Paying out extra to EVERYONE over the age of 70 odd would just be obscene, not when there's no clear vision for how to manage an ageing population in 10, 20 or 30 years time, and not when the actual pensioner poverty figures are far less once you factor in the bigger picture!
You need to be really careful with these moral-panic headlines!