Yahoo Finance Underpaid pensioners get £209m out of £1.46bn owed due to government mistake
The government has returned £209.3m in underpaid state pensions as the latest estimates shows that many as 237,000 pensioners had been underpaid around £1.46bn.
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) identified 31,817 state pension underpayments between January 2021 and last October, making it possible to hand back £209.3m.
However, in its progress on reviewing cases of state pension underpayment, it said that as many as 237,000 pensioners had been underpaid around £1.46bn.
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DWP has admitted that there are systematic errors in state pension calculations for three main groups.
Married women, who should have received an upgrade to a 60% basic state pension when their husband retired. The DWP said the average payment arrears in this group amounted to £6,929. It repaid £91.1m.
The second group are widowers who should have inherited an enhanced state pension when their spouse died. The government found 7,876 underpayments under this category and repaid £84m.
The last group are over 80s already in receipt of a state pension when they turned 80, who should have been automatically upgraded to a 60% basic state pension. In this case, the DWP found 10,784 cases and handed back £34.2m.
In new figures, the DWP has revealed that it is *way behind schedule* in finding and fixing state pension errors. The effort involved since Jan 2021 in paying out £200m to 32,000 people is welcome, but well over £1 billion is yet to be paid. https://t.co/vqVOnpnaao
— Steve Webb (@stevewebb1) November 29, 2022
“The DWP has let pensioners down on a massive scale – particularly women who tend to retire on lower incomes anyway,” Helen Morrissey, senior pensions and retirement analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, said.
“Today’s data shows the DWP has so far handed back more than £209m to people affected by state pension underpayments. This is progress but a drop in the ocean when compared to the almost £1.5bn estimated to have been underpaid overall. In some cases, these underpayments have stretched back decades and even though DWP has pledged to hire more people to speed up the process, it is clear many could be waiting for some time still before they are reunited with their money,” she added.
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The DWP has launched a project to fix errors in state pension payments but the task still well behind schedule. As a result, many older people will continue to be paid at the wrong rate for years to come.
“The DWP has a gigantic task ahead of it to resolve these issues and it must pull out all the stops to make sure it happens as soon as possible,” Morrissey added.
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