10M PENSIONERS FACE A £500 CUT

[TCL-MUMPING]

http://www.express.co...ioners-face-a-500-cut

“MILLIONS of pensioners will lose an average of £500 a year in a state pension con trick played by Chancellor Alistair Darling, it emerged last night. Whitehall figures released yesterday show the Treasury will save £500million by limiting the scope of a 2.5 per cent increase in payments due to come into force in April.

Angry pensioners have been told the rise will apply only to the basic state pension while the level of other elements of their income, affecting 10million people, will be frozen.

It means some hard-up retired people could be getting around 10 per cent less than previously expected.”

I have a couple of problems with this story. The first problem is this, if there are ten million pensioners and the Treasury is saving £500 million, is that not an average of £50 per pensioner?

The second problem is if the increase should have been 2.5% on all the components of State Pension and they are not getting it, surely the deficit it is a bit less than 2.5% (since the basic pension IS going up by 2.5%) rather than 10%?

[Buenchico]

My degree is in mathematics (with statistics as one of my course specialisms) and I can't make any sense of the figures either!

What, I wonder, are the 'other elements of their income, affecting around 10 million people'? Approximately one in five of the country's population have reached state pension age, so that's roughly 12 million people. (Source: http://www.statistics...cci/nugget.asp?ID=6). While most of those people will receive the basic state pension, only some of them will receive additional state benefits (such as pension guarantee credit). Anyone with a reasonable occupational or private pension won't receive a penny from the state on top of their basic state pension. So how can it be that '10 million people' will lose out on 'other elements' when nowhere near that number are in receipt of such elements?

Chris

[Buenchico]

Oops: My link isn't particularly important but I see that I've mucked it up by not leaving a space before the bracket. It should have been this:
http://www.statistics...k/cci/nugget.asp?ID=6

[ABerrant]

I think the figures are indeed nonsensical but the article seems to indicate that of the total number of pensioners in receipt of Basic State Pension or who do not qualify for Basic State Pension, there possibly are millions who receive at least one of the supplementaries such as Additional State Pension (SP2 or SERPS), State Pension Deferral, Over 80 Pension, Invalidity Allowance, etc. etc., none of which is to be increased by the 2.5%

As I see it, the pensioners most greatly disadvantaged will be those who do not qualify for Basic State Pension and only receive the supplementaries. Yet the maximum they can be disadvantaged by not receiving the "promised" increase is 2.5% no matter how many of the available supplementaries they claim. In the specific case of of the Over 80 Pension, the maximum deficit would be about £75 per year.

[ABerrant]

Here's the 10 million...

DWP figures for Sep 2008 show 6.1 million women and 4.1 million men were receiving additional state pension (the mean amount received per week by women was £22 compared with £61 for men).

http://www.statistics...nsion_Trends_ch05.pdf

[anotheoldgit]

Nothing more than can be expected from the party of the working man.

They can't even look after those who have worked and payed taxes all their working lives.

I bet they won't go short in their pensions, when the time comes.