New update on calls for State Pension weekly payments of £416 for every person over 60

dailyrecord.co.uk:

An online petition calling for the State Pension to be increased to £416 each week for everyone over the age of 60, to match the hourly rate of the National Minimum Wage, has received more than 10,000 signatures of support and is now due an official response from the UK Government.The ‘Make the State Pension equal to Minimum Wage to all from age 60’ petition created by Michael Thompson, states: “The State Pension is far too low.

The Government must increase the basic State Pension to £21,673.60 a year (£416.80 per week) and extend this to everyone aged 60 or over.

This should lift thousands out of poverty, give our elderly folk more power to survive, and help grow the real economy, bottom up.“A State Pension Age of 60 for all, based on 40 hours a week at the minimum wage, reflects that there has been a decline in improvements in life expectancy, and that health often deteriorates long before people are able to claim State Pension currently.”Parliament is in recess until Monday, October 18 so a response to the petition is unlikely to come before then.

The petition can be viewed in full on the petitions-parliament website here.If that sounds like a familiar proposal it’s because another petition - open until October 6 - has received more than 37,700 signatures of support and has made a similar argument, but was recently rejected by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).The DWP response explained that the State Pension and National Living Wage have “different purposes” and that a “direct comparison cannot be drawn” between them.The full New State Pension is currently worth £203.85 each week, or £815.40 every four-week pay period - some £10,600 over the 2023/24 financial year.