Pensions - Articles - Pensioners hold breath as COVID may still impact pensions


Pensioners hold their breath as COVID-19 continues to make inflation-linked pension increases hard to predict. The inflation figures from the ONS show prices have risen by 1% year on year to July, up from 0.6% in June. The next months are critical for pensioners as public sector pension increases as well as the state pension ‘triple lock’ use figures to September published in October

 Steven Cameron, Pensions Director at Aegon comments: “While today’s figures showed that consumer price inflation rose to 1 per cent for the year to July from 0.6 per cent the previous month*, the impact of COVID-19 and lockdown measures restricting what we can spend money on is making it hard to predict inflation figures month on month.

 “The coming months’ figures are critical for pensioners though as public sector pension increases are based on CPI figures to September published in October and there’s an expectation inflation will nose dive, with the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Report outlining it may drop to minus 0.3 per cent** for the year to August.

 “State pensions increase by the triple lock (the highest of price inflation, earnings growth or 2.5%) and again, it’s the September inflation figure published in October which is used here. If both inflation and earnings growth are particularly low or even negative, the underlying 2.5% guaranteed increase will come at a significant cost to the Government on top of their other COVID-19 bailout measures and put significant pressure on the future of the triple lock. While a bigger inflation increase compared to last month may raise hopes, pensioners will need to hold their breath to find out what future months hold in store.”

 
 *https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/inflationandpriceindices/timeseries/d7g7/mm23
 **https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/-/media/boe/files/monetary-policy-report/2020/august/monetary-policy-report-august-2020

Back to Index


Similar News to this Story

4 ways completing a tax return can help boost your pension
Missing the Self-Assessment deadline not only risks a penalty for late filing but could cost individuals hundreds, if not thousands of pounds in uncla
DWP holds AE thresholds with GBP90bn of pensions expected
The DWP has issued its review of the Automatic Enrolment Earnings Trigger and Qualifying Earnings Band for 2025/26, retaining all three thresholds at
Response to Triple Lock means testing comments
Aegon has called for ‘a future focused debate on a sustainable state pension’ following comments on the Triple Lock by Conservative leader Kemi Badeno

Site Search

Exact   Any  

Latest Actuarial Jobs

Actuarial Login

Email
Password
 Jobseeker    Client
Reminder Logon

APA Sponsors

Actuarial Jobs & News Feeds

Jobs RSS News RSS

WikiActuary

Be the first to contribute to our definitive actuarial reference forum. Built by actuaries for actuaries.