The state pension is on track to top £10,000 a year for the first time ever in April although some MPs have warned that pensioners will not be much better off due to the spiralling cost of living crisis.
The maximum state pensions anyone can get under the 'new' system is £185.15 a week - or £9,627.80 a year - but this will be boosted next year and it's all due to rocketing inflation according to The Mirror. This financial year, which started in April, all benefits went up by 3.1% in line with a decision to increase the state pension by that amount.
Pension rises are normally based on a triple lock that sees them go up by whichever is the highest: inflation, average wage increases or 2.5%. But wages jumped at the end of furlough, in what was described by Work and Pensions minister Therese Coffey as 'an anomaly', so the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) announced last September it would set the wages element aside, and instead use the inflation figure of 3.1% at that time. Had the average wage increase been used, pensions would have jumped by eight per cent in April.
