Millions in £30,000 pensions gender gap
SHORT-changing women pensioners by thousands of pounds a year adds financial injury to the insult of discriminating against half the population.
MILLIONS of women will be almost £30,000 worse off than men in retirement due to a shocking state pension divide.
Males currently get an average of £153.86 a week while females have to get by on £125,98, a probe by Which? Money magazine found.
That is a difference of £1,449.76 a year or £28,995 over a 20-year retirement, according to the analysis of Department for Work and Pensions data.
The yawning gap for those who have already retired is because many women took time out from work to raise families and did not put in enough National Insurance. Earning less than men is another factor. Women also receive less in private pensions due to poorer wages and smaller employer contributions. A 2016 overhaul, which was meant to make the system fairer, introduced the flat-rate pension for men and women. But in reality not everyone gets the same and it has created multiple confusing layers of thresholds. In some cases, people who retired before April 2016 could end being up to £40,000 worse off over a 20-year retirement than those who have left work since. Former Pensions Minister Baroness Altmann said: “The new state pension doesn’t mature for a few decades so women will continue to be the poor relation.”
But the DWP said: “This analysis does not include the benefits from previous contracted-out pensions that were integral to the state pension system up to April 2016.
“This means that it under reports the incomes of millions of people.”
Valuing people equally and commitments to equal pay must mean equal state pensions.
Or is this Government committed to a lifetime of second-class treatment for women?