It has been confirmed by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) that the State Pension will increase by 3.1% to bring it in line with the Consumer Price Index (CPI) starting April 11.
As a result, the basic State Pension will rise to £141.85 a week and the full new State Pension will increase to £185.15.
As reported by the Daily Record, a newly launched petition has called on the UK Government to increase the State Pension even more, however.
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The petition demands that payments are upped to £19,760 a year, or £380 per week, which would bring it in line with the upcoming increase to the National Living Wage — which will rise to £9.50 an hour for those who work a 40-hour week.
The ‘Increase the State Pension to £19,760 a year (£380 a week)’ petition was created by Stephen Edward Wyatt, and has already received over 8,000 signatures.
If it reaches 10,000, the petition will receive a response from the UK Government, and if it reaches 100,000 it will be debated in Parliament.
The petition states: “The [UK] Government should raise the State Pension to match the yearly equivalent of the National Living Wage (NLW).
“The NLW is rising to £9.50 an hour (i.e. £19,760 a year for F/T 40h per week), which we are told is needed to live, yet pensioners are expected to live on a state pension of £7,376 a year.”
It adds: “The State Pension is not enough to live on. All people regardless of standing are supposed to be looked on as equal, this is clearly not the case.
“Most people have paid into the State Pension through National Insurance Contributions during their working life.
“Most pensioners live active lives and have to pay the same bills as others have to find money for but are expected to do it on less than half the income of those on the National Living Wage, this is unacceptable.”
The petition, which will close on August 25, finishes by asking the UK Government to “level up and treat everyone the same, this is the right thing to do”.
An estimated two million workers across the UK will see a pay rise next month when the National Living Wage increases by 6.6%.
During the Autumn Budget statement in October, Chancellor Rishi Sunak announced the rate for people aged 23 and over will go up from £8.91 an hour to £9.50 from April 2022 and means a full-time worker earning the living wage will get a pay rise of above £1,000 per year.
The 6.6% hike is more than twice the Consumer Price Inflation rate (CPI) of 3.1% which will be applied to all benefits and State Pension delivered by the DWP.
