Just one in 20 receives top rate of new state pension
THE new state pension of £185.15-a-week was last night dubbed “the politics of denial”, as it emerged only one in 20 receives it.
Government figures obtained by over-60s campaign group Silver Voices shows around 87 per cent are still on the old rate of £141.85 a week or less.
The new rate applies only to those who reached the state pension age after April 5, 2016.
Silver Voices director, Dennis Reed, said the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) figures were “truly shocking”.
He said: “Basing support on a top pension rate that so few receive and hiding away statistics that reveal up to four million receive a state pension of less than £140 per week are the politics of denial.
“After a lifetime of tax and National Insurance contributions, every senior citizen should be entitled to a living pension which does not require the benefits system to top it up.”
The analysis follows anger over Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s decision to suspend this year’s pensions triple lock mechanism that links the annual rise to inflation, meaning payments rose by only 3.1 per cent in April.
He has pledged to reinstate the link next year, with an expected rise of about 10 per cent.
But Mr Reed said: “Ten per cent of £140 per week is only £14, which will scarcely scratch the surface of the problem. “The imperative is for a big flatrate cash boost to pensions now. Anything less will condemn millions to a hungry, cold and cheerless winter.” Silver Voices obtained the figures through a Freedom of Information request to the DWP to identify the level of pension payments. According to the group’s analysis, only 740,000 out of the 12.4 million state pensioners received the new full rate.
Just 1.6 million were on the new state system at all, with around 10.8 million on the old rate, with only 7.1 million getting the full amount.
Silver Voices believes 3.7 million older people, the majority of them women, receive less than £141.85.
Former Lib Dem pensions minister, Sir Steve Webb, now a partner at consultants LCP, said: “The majority of today’s pensioners retired under the old state system rules.
“Many will get less than the full standard flat rate in the new system.
“This could be because they were in a company pension scheme and paid a lower rate of NI contributions, were self-employed and built up a limited state pension, or were married women who are getting a pension based on their husbands’ contributions. “Over the coming years, this balance will shift and more and more will come under the new system.” The DWP said: “The full yearly amount of the basic state pension is over £2,300 higher than in 2010.
“The vast majority in receipt of it also get additional income from either an occupational/private pension if they were contracted out, or the Additional State Pension – and many get a combination of the two.”