Martin Lewis has said hundreds of thousands of Britons could be eligible for £3,500 a year as part of a pension scheme, which he called a “national tragedy”.
The Money Saving Expert founder said pensioners can claim if they have a weekly income lower than £201.95 if they are single or £306.85 if they have a partner.
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) scheme is designed to bring everybody up to the full state pension rate of £203.85 a week.
Mr Lewis said on his ITV show that 800,000 people in the UK could be missing out on pension credit. The average top-up is worth up to £3,500 per year.
“This is something of a national tragedy because these are some of the poorest people in the country who have been paying into the system for years and they are not getting the top-up to their state pension that they are entitled to,” he said on Tuesday.
"So this is my rough rule of thumb: If you're a single pensioner with a total income of under £220 a week, or a couple both of state pension age with total income under £320 a week then you should check – I'm not saying you will get it just that it's worth checking.”
He added that people can check the pension credit calculator on gov.uk or call the helpline to check if they are eligible.
Mr Lewis also said on television on Tuesday that missing national insurance years means many retirees will not be getting their full pension. He urged everybody to consider making up lost years via voluntary national insurance contributions, for which the deadline has been pushed back to April 2025.
“You need to check if your national insurance record to see if you have missing years,” he added.
“If you’re missing national insurance years, then you need to check your state pension forecast and whether you can improve your forecast.”
