State Pension -V- Pension Credit - only £3 difference!

56 replies

hoarderofthedough · 15/08/2026 12:19

Why do the Government spend money monitoring and recording whether people have paid enough to receive a full State Pension (at £241 per week), when people who have paid no stamps at all get Pension Credit (of £238 per week). What's the point? May as well just pay everyone £238 per week and stop recording who has paid what.

As someone who has paid my full stamp - and I am still paying, as I have now been working for 40 years, honestly I'm a bit miffed that someone who has never wored will only get £3 less a week than me. Where's the incentive?

OP posts:

ElectoralControversy · 15/08/2026 21:45

JenniferBooth · 15/08/2026 19:52

Read Peter Humphrey's story that we publish today on page three. He dutifully paid into his pension plan for more than 30 years. But because his employer, Dexion, has gone into receivership, he can now expect to receive only a fraction of his pension entitlement.
By a cruel irony, Mr Humphrey is a victim of the very legislation brought in after Maxwell to protect pensioners. The new rules were framed to secure the pensions of people already 'in payment'. It is they who stand at the front of the queue when the pension pot of an insolvent company is shared out.
Next in line are workers who have not yet retired, but who may have paid in contributions for decades. Sadly, they can be left with practically nothing once the existing pensioners are looked after.
The despair and poverty that now faces Mr Humphrey wasn't supposed to happen after Maxwell. A new watch dog, the Occupational Pensions Regulatory Authority (OPRA), came into being in 1997, with far reaching powers to search company offices, seize documents and encourage whistleblowers. Its new sister authority, the Pensions Compensation Board (PCB), would bail out workers if their bosses stole from the firm's pension fund.
But for Mr Humphrey and his fellow workers these ferocious watchdogs have been as useful as a toothless mutt.

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But he'll still be eligible for state pension, right? Rather than pension credit (havent read the article)

JenniferBooth · 15/08/2026 21:55

ElectoralControversy · 15/08/2026 21:45

But he'll still be eligible for state pension, right? Rather than pension credit (havent read the article)

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Yes but he and others may well have it topped up with PC to meet the income threshold A lot of those claiming PC now will have had things like this happen. its too simplistic to say "oh its because they never worked" Its nefarious bullshit.

oviraptor21 · 15/08/2026 21:59

Nourishinghandcream · 15/08/2026 12:40

I stand to be corrected here but if you haven't earned the full SP and instead get PC, aren't these dependant on you not having savings/income above a certain level?????

If you have the full SP, you can have any amount in savings/income and STILL receive the SP.

Yes. But if you're receiving pension credit you're also entitled to various passported benefits so barely worth it sometimes.

Asosbabe · 15/08/2026 22:06

All the extras are unfair. If you're on £12 or so k a year, you shouldn't only get free tv licence etc if you're on pension credit, not full state pension, which you've paid to get.

summater · 15/08/2026 22:09

Most people with very low pensions are unlikely to have tens of thousands in savings

HiZev · 16/08/2026 09:52

summater · 15/08/2026 22:09

Most people with very low pensions are unlikely to have tens of thousands in savings

I'd have thought some SAHP could be in this position? My husband is.

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