Confused and angry – workers who feel cheated
MANY of the forecasts for the new state pension have left retirees utterly baffled and struggling to get help.
Gina Smith, 62, is normally stoical, but burst into tears when she received her pension forecast.
After working since the age of 15, the retired council nursery nurse from Hetton- le- Hole, near Sunderland, expected to receive the full payout of £151.25 a week.
Instead, the letter from the Department for Work and Pensions told her she would get £126 a week — just £10 more than the current basic state pension of £115.95. This is because she had been contracted out for most of her career.
And Gina has suffered a double blow. She is among the millions of women in their late 50s and 60s who have had their state pension age put back.
Gina and her 72-year-old husband Mel (pictured left) must get by on Gina’s £400-a-month work pension and Mel’s state pension.
She says: ‘I thought the £151 a week was a promise. In fact it turns out it was nothing of the sort. It seems as though those of us who work and saved are those who end up being penalised.’
When Beverley Blackham, 61, from Huddersfield, contacted the Department for Work and Pensions for a state pension forecast, she was initially left baffled and then horrified.
The divorced mother-of-two, who has worked in finance, initially could not make head nor tail of the letter because it was so complicated and packed with jargon.
It explained that a deduction had been made for Beverley’s time contracted out while contributing to a final salary pension. Instead of the £151.25 she was hoping for, Beverley will receive £116 — just 5p more than the basic state pension today.
Beverley says: ‘ It seems as though the new state pension was just propaganda. How can we plan ahead when we don’t have the facts? The information we are being given is inadequate.’
Geoff Sutton, 62, from Neyland, Pembrokeshire, contacted the Department for Work and Pensions for a state pension forecast.
Geoff, who lives with his wife Maureen, worked for his local council for 43 years.
He expected to receive the full £151.25 a week. After five weeks Geoff received a letter. It said that as he had been contracted out for his entire career a deduction would be made from his state pension. He would receive just £115.89 a week.
GEOFF says: ‘ The way workers have been treated is scandalous. None of the politicians said anything about contracting out leading to the state pension being cut.’
Another reader, 63, has around 30 years of National Insurance contributions — enough to qualify for the full old state pension, but not enough for the full new payout.
His forecast says he’ll get £114 a week when he retires because he was also contracted out for many years. He says: ‘I am so upset about this and it is also so confusing, I asked the DWP call centre staff for help and they said they could not explain why the deductions were made.’