A new online petition is calling on the UK Government to set a minimum level of weekly State Pension payments of £200 for every retiree, 'irrespective of gender, marital status or National Insurance Contributions' record. The petition suggests that this would remove any anomalies in the current pension system, including the growing discrepancy between the old and new State Pensions.
Petition creator, Dennis Reed from campaign group Silver Voices, states that this would create a Minimum Pension Guarantee (MPG). He wrote that research by the group, take from Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) sources, reveals that in September 2020 only six per cent of State Pensioners received the top rate of the new State Pension at £185 per week, while 87 per cent received a basic State Pension of £142 or less.
Mr Reed wrote on the petitions-parliament website: “The UK provides the worst State Pension in the developed world, which is insufficient for life’s essentials, particularly with surging energy and food prices.”
He added: “After a lifetime of tax and National Insurance Contributions, older people deserve a minimum income of £200 per week without recourse to the benefits system.”
A similar petition created in April called on the UK Government to increase State Pension payments to £19,760 per year, the equivalent to £380 each week which would bring it into line with current National Living Wage (NLW) rates, is approaching a significant milestone.
However, despite receiving more than 51, 622 signatures of support from across the UK, the DWP responded to it saying that the UK Government “has no plans to match State Pension and the NLW, which serve different purposes” and highlighted how it has “never paid our pensioners more, spending over £134 billion on pensioner benefits this year”.
The ‘Set a Minimum Pension Guarantee (MPG) of at least £200 pw for state pensioners’ petition has already received more than 1,268 signatures of support (at time of writing) - at 10,000 the UK Government will respond.
You can view the full petition details here.
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