Gripe re Pension start date.

pustit

Hello all,
My 65th birthday falls on a Thursday and the state pension will be paid 4 weekly in arrears.
However what bugs me is that the first payment will not be paid out until the following Tuesday.
So who is grabbing 5 days of my pension and how can that be justified after nigh on 50 years of hard slog ?

PeacefulWaters

The payment date is based on your national insurance number.

Your total payments between retirement (65th birthday) and death will be for each and every day you're alive.

You've missed out on nothing.

dunstonh

So who is grabbing 5 days of my pension and how can that be justified after nigh on 50 years of hard slog ?

You are worried about 5 days after a working life of over 18,000 days?

System

You have already thrown away those 5 days by the stress of worrying over them.

Look at your life expectancy clock and you will see it ticking relentlessly away with every gripe.

JezR

Ah but if you were to die on a Wednesday your estate can at present get pension for the days after you die up to the next payment ...

This has been the case going at least back to the Widows’, Orphans and Old Age Contributory Pensions Act 1925. As explained by a Minister in 1940:

A full week’s pension is payable on the first weekly pay-day after the date on which the pensioner becomes entitled to pension and on every subsequent pay-day whilst he or she is alive and entitled to pension, including the week in which the pensioner dies. In some cases there will be a few days for which pension is not received at the beginning; in others there will be a few days for which pension is paid after death. On balance there is no saving from this method of payment.

You might well have expected that something could be done about this now that payments aren't all made on the same day, but are spread around the week and that the computer has been invented.

le_loup

Don't worry, you get the five days after you die.


What is the matter with people?

Nick_C

Count yourself lucky you are getting your pension at 65! I won't get mine till I'm 66, and younger people (aged 36 or less) will have to wait until they are least 68.

Fruit_and_Nut_Case

A search of the Forum shows that this question crops up time and again:

when do you get your state pension?
Pension start date
State pension not paid for first few days

greenglide

And it gets "fixed" when the new State Pension comes in in 2016!

But you are too "early" to get that.

JezR

Indeed it does. Only taken nearly 100 years.

wroughtironron

and don't forget to cancel the daily newspaper delivery after you die, or you'll end up paying for something you won't read