It’s not often that state pensioners – or any of us, frankly – ask for our money to be reduced. But there’s one DWP payment, still paid out to state pensioners, that’s become such a joke that even state pensioners themselves are asking Andy Burnham to just get rid of it already.
On paper, it sounds great. State pensioners aged over 80 can get an extra allowance in their weekly payments. Given how those aged over 80 are almost certainly no longer working, and often begin to need extra support with their health or mobility, or heating, that makes good sense.
But the increase has been slammed as ‘insulting’ by those in receipt of it and it’s hard to disagree. The rise is a breathtaking 25p. Not 25%, or 25p in the pound or anything like that, an actual 25 pence extra, per week. Over a year, that’s a measly £13, or a ridiculous 3p per day. That doesn’t even cover an eighth of a single unit of electricity per day on the current Ofgem price cap.
Similar to the controversial £10 Christmas bonus, the 25p payment has never been adjusted for inflation since it was first introduced in 1971. At the time, pensions were £6 per week, so 25p represented a 4% boost. Today, this same 25p represents 0.13% of a basic state pensioner’s £184.90 maximum payments.
What’s fascinating is that this is a state pension handout that even state pensioners don’t like. Responding to the Express’ exclusive reporting on this issue, reader DavidOAP posted: “With such a ridiculously small amount that probably costs more to administer than the sum handed out, why not just bin it.”
And @midster added: “It’s not the 25p payment that annoys me, that’s diddly squat. It’s the cost of the administration that’s the joke”.
Reader Timothy Pinner, who first contacted the Express about the issue, called it ‘insulting’.
The government has already said it has no plans to change it, and it’s clear that it will just phase out over time, as those who hit state pension age from 2016 onwards no longer qualify anyway. Perhaps Mr Burnham’s government, much like governments before him, doesn’t want to attract the headlines that scrapping any pension uplift would bring, even this hilariously peppercorn one.
But it’s a great example of government waste. Even the letters sent out to pensioners to tell them they’ll get it will have cost more to post than the uplift is worth. Nobody needs it, nobody’s life is being improved by it, and the government is almost certaintly spending more money than it’s worth to keep paying it out. Just axe it and throw the freed up budget towards an extra bit of support on Pension Credit or adult social care costs instead of running this ‘uplift’ that’s downright pointless.
