Many People are losing their Access to Pension Credit.

Mustbeananswer??

Pension Credit comes with a  lot of bonuses but a lot of Pensioners are losing theii access to Pension Credit because their State Pension(and their Occupational Pensions in some cases) kicks them over the threshold by a few quid.The bonuses include Free Dental Care...Free Glasses....Housing Benefit ...anybody in this situation ???.

MattMattMattUK

Mustbeananswer?? said:

Pension Credit comes with a  lot of bonuses but a lot of Pensioners are losing theii access to Pension Credit because their State Pension(and their Occupational Pensions in some cases) kicks them over the threshold by a few quid.The bonuses include Free Dental Care...Free Glasses....Housing Benefit ...anybody in this situation ???.

Lots of people will be, probably several hundred thousand to a million. What is your question?

Marcon

Mustbeananswer?? said:

Pension Credit comes with a  lot of bonuses but a lot of Pensioners are losing theii access to Pension Credit because their State Pension(and their Occupational Pensions in some cases) kicks them over the threshold by a few quid.The bonuses include Free Dental Care...Free Glasses....Housing Benefit ...anybody in this situation ???.

Yes, lots. It's tough on those who are only a few pounds over the threshold and miss out on all those benefits, but there has to be a cut off point somewhere.

artyboy

Marcon said:

Mustbeananswer?? said:

Pension Credit comes with a  lot of bonuses but a lot of Pensioners are losing theii access to Pension Credit because their State Pension(and their Occupational Pensions in some cases) kicks them over the threshold by a few quid.The bonuses include Free Dental Care...Free Glasses....Housing Benefit ...anybody in this situation ???.

Yes, lots. It's tough on those who are only a few pounds over the threshold and miss out on all those benefits, but there has to be a cut off point somewhere.

I think the iniquity here (whether you consider it perceived or real) is that this is a 'cliff edge' cut off rather than a tiered reduction. So a few quid more pension means hundreds or thousands of lost benefits. Doesn't seem like the fairest approach...

hugheskevi

artyboy said:

Marcon said:

Mustbeananswer?? said:

Pension Credit comes with a  lot of bonuses but a lot of Pensioners are losing theii access to Pension Credit because their State Pension(and their Occupational Pensions in some cases) kicks them over the threshold by a few quid.The bonuses include Free Dental Care...Free Glasses....Housing Benefit ...anybody in this situation ???.

Yes, lots. It's tough on those who are only a few pounds over the threshold and miss out on all those benefits, but there has to be a cut off point somewhere.

I think the iniquity here (whether you consider it perceived or real) is that this is a 'cliff edge' cut off rather than a tiered reduction. So a few quid more pension means hundreds or thousands of lost benefits. Doesn't seem like the fairest approach...

It reminds me of the arguments applied when Labour introduced the Minimum Income Guarantee for pensioners back in the late 1990s. By focusing on means-tested benefits a much greater impact at a much more lower cost could be achieved than uplifting universal benefits such as State Pension. It was expected that this would be very welcome, uplifting the income of the poorest pensioners but instead MPs got deluged by complaining pensioners that their feckless neighbour who had never saved a penny now got the same as they did. 

And so the Savings Credit was introduced in 2003, replacing a cliff-edge with a taper. That removed the cliff-edge problem, but at the cost of subjecting more pensioners to means-testing throughout the 2000s and early 2010s.

To deal with the problem of the growth of means-testing and the consequential savings incentives, the single-tier State Pension was introduced in 2016, with rates set such that most pensioners would be above the Pension Credit minimum, and the Savings Credit was removed.

Perhaps now we are getting back to the start of that cycle and will go around the wheel of universal benefits/cliff edge /means-tested benefits/taper once again. 

Xbigman

Its not the cliff edge many perceive it to be. Being on pension credit gives you an automatic entitlement to things like a council tax reduction at 80% but if you are just over you can still get a CTR of 55% but you need to claim it and be assessed like non pensioners. Housing benefit is also still available at lower rates. The real issue is that the income banding the council uses in my area hasn't changed for something like a decade and more pensioners are getting pushed into lower reduction bands as time goes on.


Darren

Carfar

Marcon said:

Mustbeananswer?? said:

Pension Credit comes with a  lot of bonuses but a lot of Pensioners are losing theii access to Pension Credit because their State Pension(and their Occupational Pensions in some cases) kicks them over the threshold by a few quid.The bonuses include Free Dental Care...Free Glasses....Housing Benefit ...anybody in this situation ???.

Yes, lots. It's tough on those who are only a few pounds over the threshold and miss out on all those benefits, but there has to be a cut off point somewhere.

They have just increased my state pension so that I no longer receive pension credit my phone water will all be affected 🥲

Carfar

I agree that there has to be a cut off point but to increase your pension so that you reach it seems to be very underhanded 

Mustbeananswer??

Carfar....I think their intention is to phase out Pension Credit entirely.I feel that Keir Starmer has Pensioners in his sights...and its not all good news !!!

cloud_dog

I find that very hard to believe, Labour abolishing a benefit that would directly impact probably a large proportion of their voters, seriously?

Silvertabby

One of the long term aims of the new State pension is that once most pensioners receive this, thus taking them out of means tested benefits, any other pension savings they have will be theirs to keep.

At the moment, pensioner A on less than the means test limit with no other pensions or savings is eligible for PC top ups etc.  But pensioner B, on exactly the same amount of State pension but with a small private or occupational pension gets nothing.

The idea is to encourage all pensioners to enter retirement with the State pension as the backbone of their finances, but with other pensions/savings as the padding.

I know a lot of people will disagree with me when I say this, but right from day 1 the State pension alone  was never  meant to be enough to live on comfortably.  It was only ever meant to pay for the basics, with 'luxuries' being paid for by other means.

Unfortunately, over the years, "The State pension will pay for what you need" has Chinese whispered into "The State Pension should pay for everything you want".