| Topic: | Re: The State Pension makes up the largest part of the Welfare Bill | |
| Posted by: | Philippa Bond | |
| Date/Time: | 03/05/26 19:14:00 |
| https://obr.uk/forecasts-in-depth/tax-by-tax-spend-by-spend/welfare-spending-pensioner-benefits/ "The state pension is the largest single item of welfare spending, forecast to make up 42 per cent of the total in 2023-24. The system for pensioners who retired before April 2016 comprises the basic state pension (paying up to £156.20 a week in 2023-24) and the state second pension which is mostly related to prior earnings. Since April 2016, these have been replaced by a ‘single-tier’ (flat-rate) state pension for newly retired pensioners (paying £203.85 per week in 2023-24)." I have seen higher more recent percentage figures online. Apart from the State Pension there are also the other Pensioner related benefits which you can see if you copy and paste the above link. There are a lot of youngsters who have had badly interrupted schooling as a result of the Covid pandemic - an expected-sometime-pandemic which we were badly prepared for despite warnings and risk assessments. Unnecessary austerity continued for far too long and made it harder to recover. The gap between the richest and the poorest increased. |