Those who retired before April 6, 2016, on the old basic State Pension are furious at falling behind. However, pension experts insist that the system is fairer than it looks, with winners and losers on both sides of the great pensions divide.
Old and new State Pensions will both increase on the first Monday of the new tax year, which in this case will be Monday April 11.
They will climb by the same percentage, 3.1 percent, after Chancellor Rishi Sunak suspended the triple lock.
Those who qualify for the maximum new State Pension will get an extra £5.55 a week, lifting their income to £185.15 a week.
By contrast, the full basic State Pension will rise by just £4.25 a week to £141.85.
That’s a difference of £43.30 a week, which works out as £2,252 a year.
Worse, this discrepancy will get wider every year.
The Government has pledged to re-introduce the triple lock next year, which means both pensions could increase by 7.4 percent in 2023, in line with September’s anticipated inflation figure.
That would give those on the new State Pension an extra £13.70 a week, but those on the full old State Pension would get just £10.50 a week extra.
The annual pensions gap will widen again to £2,418 a year in 2023/24.
Becky O’Connor, head of savings and pensions at Interactive Investor, said it will now widen every year after that. “The basic and new State Pensions rise in line with each year’s triple lock decision, but in pounds and pence, this equates to a bigger increase to the new State Pension, because it’s higher.”
She added: “Those reliant on the basic State Pension may increasingly feel left behind.”
Express.co.uk readers are baffled and angry, with Swifty pointed out the basic unfairness of having two State Pensions. “We are being robbed left right and centre. I am on the lower pension and my brother on the higher one, both worked all our lives it is unfair.”
Jenny37 added to the furious online State Pension debate: “I think it is so unfair and discriminatory that the new State Pension is over £2,000 more than the basic State Pension.”
She concluded: “All pensioners should be paid the same amount and shouldn’t have to worry about how to heat their homes or eat. With £2,000 extra a year I wouldn’t have to.”
READ MORE: State pension fury as older people get £2,251 LESS income a year – ‘pu
SeaninBlair said: “We have almost the lowest State Pension in the western world. Now we have two classes of pensioner. We need an ombudsman to hold these idiots to account.”
Reader Theancienttone said: “Those on the older scheme should need to get bigger increases until both pension schemes are equal.”
Brian at home says simply: “All pensions should be the same. The amount paid is well below the living wage.”
Interactive Investor’s O’Connor said those who retired on the new State Pension do not automatically get more, although it looks like they do.
Many will get below the headline rate on both systems because they did not make enough qualifying NI contributions while working, she said.
O’Connor added: “Some will do better under the old State Pension because they benefit from the old state earnings-related pension scheme, known as Serps, which is paid on top.”
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Serps later became the state second pension, or S2P. “Those who receive Serps will have much bigger State Pension than those without,” she said.
Serps and S2P can be paid both to people on the old State Pension, and those who retired on the new State Pension but built up their entitlement before 2016.
O’Connor said many workers also contracted out of the old basic State Pension, which means they paid less in NI.
In many cases, their contributions were paid into another pension, for example, a private pension. “So although they get less basic State Pension, they should in theory have more private pension to make up for it.”
In some cases, retirees get a lower basic State Pension because they didn’t make the 30 NI qualifying years required to get the full amount, a figure set in 2010.
Similarly, many on the new State Pension do not get the maximum amount, because they did not contribute the required 35 qualifying years of NI.
Yet the system is so confusing, and the State Pension so low in both cases, that pensioners will continue to feel they are getting a poor deal all round.
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