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State pension to rise by £2.40
By Rebecca Atkinson
Pensioners will see their state pensions increase by £2.40 next year, half the rise seen in April this year.In his Budget earlier this year, chancellor Alistair Darling said that the state pension, which is normally calculated using September's inflation figures, will rise by at least 2.5% next April. However, this is half the rise seen in April this year, when the state pension rose by 5% - the biggest increase since 2001.Despite inflation slumping to five-year low during September, this 2.5% rise means single pensioners will see their weekly income increase from £95.24 to£97.65 from next April.Pensioner couples, meanwhile, will receive £156.15, up from £152.30.This is the second time the government has used the 2.5% underpin, which was first introduced in 2001."Last year, pensioners got lucky because September 2008 was a high water mark for inflation," says John Ball, head of defined benefit pension consulting at Watson Wyatt."This time, the opposite could be true but the basic state pension will still go up by £2.40 in April 2010."However, while the fact that the state pension will rise despite inflation actually treading water in negative territory this September, the 2.5% rise has still come under criticism.Shona Dobbie, head of the Alliance Trust research centre, which carries out research into the real rate of inflation based on age, says the cost of living has fallen for older people because of lower utility and food bills.But she adds: "We are wary that the sharp drops that we have seen in both utilities and food prices may prove to be temporary and that the elderly may enjoy only a brief respite before their inflation rate begins to rise again."With VAT due to return to 17.5% at the start of next year, the cost of living could already has risen significantly by the time the state pension increases is introduced."By the time we get to April 2010, falling prices could be a distant memory," says Ball. "Prices have increased by 2.5% in the last eight months and it's only because the headline figures look at changes over a full 12 months that inflation is negative."
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