IFS reveals how much worse off women are from state pension changes

About 1.1million women are £32 worse off per week on average as a result of state pension age changes, the Institute for Fiscal Studies says. The think tank published a report which also said that the increased female state pension age has already boosted government finances by £5.1bn per year.The report stated: “Between 2010 and 2016, the state pension age for women rose from age 60 to 63. The result is that 1.1 million fewer women are receiving a state pension and government is providing £4.2 billion less through state pensions and other benefits. This means that affected households are receiving about £74 a week less in state pensions and other state benefits as a result of this change.“For women aged 60 to 62, who are now under the state pension age, the reform has also increased employment rates substantially, boosting the gross earnings of these women by £2½ billion in total. Across all 60 to 62 year old women (including those not in paid work) this is equivalent to an average of £44 per week. This – and the fact that employee national insurance contributions are paid up to the (now higher) state pension age – has boosted government revenues by £0.9 billion.“The net effect is that household incomes for women in this age group have fallen by around £32 per week on average. The reduction is similar in cash terms for richer and poorer households meaning that while the average drop in proportional terms is 12%, the decline is significantly larger, on average, for low income households (21%) than for high income households (4%).“The falls in household incomes caused by the reform have pushed income poverty among 60 to 62 year old women up sharply (by 6.4 percentage points compared to a pre-reform poverty rate among women of this age of 14.8%). On the other hand we found no evidence of any change in measures of material deprivation (that is people saying that they cannot afford a range of important items). This might suggest that, despite lower incomes, so far families have generally managed to avoid higher levels of deprivation by smoothing their spending over time.” Jonathan Cribb, a senior research economist at the Institute for Fiscal Studies, and an author of the new report, said: “The tax and benefit system is much more generous to those above the state pension age than those below it. So while increasing the state pension age is a coherent response to the public finance challenge posed by rising longevity it does place a further pressure on household budgets.“The increased state pension age is boosting employment – and therefore earnings – of affected women but this is only partially offsetting reduced incomes from state pensions and other benefits. Since both rich and poor women are losing out by, on average, roughly similar amounts the reform increases income poverty rates among households containing a woman who has reached age 60 but has not yet reached her state pension age.“More encouragingly, we find no evidence of increases in other measures of material deprivation. It is important that the Government communicates the ongoing increases in the state pension age clearly so that families can plan for their retirement as well as possible.”The research was funded by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and the Economic and Social Research Council, and published today by the Institute for Fiscal Studies.

IFS reveals how much worse off women are from state pension changes

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