Higher and Lower rate of State Pension,. This really needs changing

Those on the lower rate were able to retire 6years (!!)before the ones on the higher rate and are able to get pension credit if you don’t have an occupational/private pension as well.

We WASPIs had to work another SIX years for the same state pension and the higher amount reflects this. Imagine having to work for so much longer if you have ill health and struggling!!

I think it will mostly be females on the lower pension - because if they worked and paid the 'married woman's rate' of National Insurance this didn't count towards a pension (or to sickness benefit or unemployment benefit). Maybe these should still get the winter fuel allownce.

Excuse me if I’ve got it wrong. Will pensioners whose only income is the old state pension not be entitled to pension credit to top it up to new state pension rate? So they will still be entitled to the winter fuel allowance.

Poppyred

Those on the lower rate were able to retire 6years (!!)before the ones on the higher rate and are able to get pension credit if you don’t have an occupational/private pension as well.

We WASPIs had to work another SIX years for the same state pension and the higher amount reflects this. Imagine having to work for so much longer if you have ill health and struggling!!

I had to retire on ill health at 59. I was a WASPI and had to wait seven years to get my state pension.
I had no intention of retiring, so when I did eventually get my occupational pension, it was smaller than I had hoped for. Some of my colleagues a year older than me, were claiming state pension and also still working.

Poppyred

Those on the lower rate were able to retire 6years (!!)before the ones on the higher rate and are able to get pension credit if you don’t have an occupational/private pension as well.

We WASPIs had to work another SIX years for the same state pension and the higher amount reflects this. Imagine having to work for so much longer if you have ill health and struggling!!

Those on the new system had to wait longer before receiving their State Pension but many who retired at age 60 (65 for men of course) could not continue to work as compulsory retirement age was not abolished until 2011.

Older pensioners, women in particular, were therefore forced to live on a much reduced income and/or any savings they may have for much longer.
Men are disadvantaged as not only did they work until 65, they are now on a lower SP than others who retire now at 66.

At some age point, those who receive the new SP will be overtaking those on the old SP in value of pension paid. Older pensioners are most at risk of poverty.

The whole system is unfair.

The Department of Work and Pensions is a complicated mess. For example, you could ring up and ask 3 members of staff (providing a few have gone back to the office) the same question and get 3 different answers. The entire process is scrambled and their own employees find it difficult to understand as one of them informed me during a recent phone call. I was born in 1948 so I am one of those who have £3k a year less to live on. It needs an overhaul but then so does everything else in this country, so I won't hold my breath.

Grannynannywanny

Excuse me if I’ve got it wrong. Will pensioners whose only income is the old state pension not be entitled to pension credit to top it up to new state pension rate? So they will still be entitled to the winter fuel allowance.

Yes, but many receive small occupational pensions which takes them just above the eligibility cut-off point.

Does anyone know, for definite, if pensioners on lower rate can get Pension Credit to top up to Higher rate? I have searched and searched for an answer to this, but nothing on the Pension information mentions this.

Surely if this is the case, then all those Pensioners on the lower rate should be informed and told to make that PC application immediately..

Franbern

Does anyone know, for definite, if pensioners on lower rate can get Pension Credit to top up to Higher rate? I have searched and searched for an answer to this, but nothing on the Pension information mentions this.

Surely if this is the case, then all those Pensioners on the lower rate should be informed and told to make that PC application immediately..

Franbern

Pension Credit tops up:

your weekly income to £218.15 if you’re single
your joint weekly income to £332.95 if you have a partner

The full weekly amount of the new State Pension in the UK for 2024 to 2025 is £221.20.

Yes Allira my friend finds herself in that frustrating position. When I posted I was taking a simplistic view and comparing like with like.

A pensioner on the old rate and the other with new state pension and neither with an occupational pension. The person on the old rate should receive the pension credit top up to the new rate which then leaves them in a better position financially than the person on the new rate. Unless I’ve got it all wrong and if so I’m happy to be corrected 😊

The pension credit top up will entitle them to other benefits such as winter fuel allowance, free dental care, free glasses etc. The folk whose income is solely their new state pension are the ones who will be hit hardest .

Pension Credit is a variable amount which should take your income up to the amounts mentioned above.

The pension credit top up will entitle them to other benefits such as winter fuel allowance, free dental care, free glasses etc. The folk whose income is solely their new state pension are the ones who will be hit hardest.

It would probably have been simpler and may have been cheaper to do away with a lot of these additions and give every state pensioner, whatever their age, the same decent State Pension.

The present chaotic mix of systems must cost a lot in administration too.

\think the bit about free dental care is laughable in many parts of the country, as it only applies if attending the dentist as an NHS patient. As great swathes of the UK there are absolutely NO NHS dentists, it means that anyone, whether or not in receipt of pension credit has to pay full wack for private dental treatment.

Even with glasses, Pension Credit may give money off the main eye test, however, specs still hve to be apid for as does any additional eye tests.

Like a lot of benefits, they always seem so much more than they actually are.

But good that those older pensioners in rreceipt of lower rate (and no other pension), can get top-up to nearly tghat of higher rate.

I am on the new state pension, I retired at 66. The last two years were a real slog, that's the reason, I feel we deserve more.

The pension system is a mess, I feel bad for women though who were born in 1953, who had to work longer but still recieved the basic state pension.
I get the new state pension but less money per week as I have occ pension which I pay tax on. The old state pension do not take your occ pen into account.
The whole system is a mess

applied twice for pension credit and was turned down but once i became a carer was then entitled to it

Can I just signpost anyone who wants help and advice to your nearest Age UK even if you have to ring them . Ask for the benefits advice . I find them invaluable and if you are entitled to any benefits they will help you apply .

I would add Don’t ring DWP for advice. They are not benefit advisors. Their employees don’t know the full picture, just the bit they work in, and don’t have time to research all the ins and outs.age Uk, Citizens Advice( and their website) or a local Welfare Advice centre are better able to find answers than DWP.

The whole thing is ridiculous. I have heard that the UK has the lowest pensions in Europe. Why, considering we are one of the richest countries?

I am one of the older waspi women so worked a couple of extra years and am on the old pension. My DB had to work a few months past 65 and is on the new pension. There are all sorts of discrepancies and unfairness.
Increasing the personal tax allowance to where it would have been if not frozen would bring single pensioners with a small private pension out of paying tax. We cannot get pension credit or winter fuel now but are hardly well off.

If on the lower pension rate you can apply for pension credit if you have under 10,000 savings. Or if on the new rate it is already included.

There remains a difference of about £3000 extra pa. between the old and the new. When we get the annual % increase the gap between the two rates will be greater with every passing year.
Maybe they hope we wont notice and just fall quietly off our perches.
Certainly many people don’t even realise we have a two class system. A retired headmaster and teacher wife friend were astonished when I told them recently that having retired in September 2016 luckily they got the higher rate. A few months earlier and they Woukd have lost £3000 each per year. Imagine how upset someone who retired at the start of 2016 must be to get the old pension.

I don’t want the new pension people losing anything but it’s galling having worked and paid in for 45 years instead of the 30 years required now for a full pension.
Every time pensions are mentioned on the media they always quote the higher amount which only those who retired after April 2016 get, the majority don’t get it.

I wrote to my new MP earlier today about the reasons why there are superior and inferior pension levels and why there isn’t parity between the two levels of state pension.

Maybe they hope we wont notice and just fall quietly off our perches
Yes. Frozen stiff.

It would save a lot of money.

Poppyred

Those on the lower rate were able to retire 6years (!!)before the ones on the higher rate and are able to get pension credit if you don’t have an occupational/private pension as well.

We WASPIs had to work another SIX years for the same state pension and the higher amount reflects this. Imagine having to work for so much longer if you have ill health and struggling!!

Not to mention at least 6 further years of NI paid!

kibera10

I think it will mostly be females on the lower pension - because if they worked and paid the 'married woman's rate' of National Insurance this didn't count towards a pension (or to sickness benefit or unemployment benefit). Maybe these should still get the winter fuel allownce.

Yes! And the passport of benefits which goes with pension credits.

There are other “benefits” to being on the old state pension, at least there was before Jan 2016.

My DM “inheritated” my DF state pension when he died, she had a very small state pension as she had the married women’s allowance, he also had an uplift on his state pension as he was a higher tax payer for a sizeable chunk of his working life.

This seems to all have been abolished in 2016 sometime.