DWP estimates that it underpaid 134,000 pensioners more than £1bn in State Pensions - almost £9,000 per pensioner.

[megilleland]

21st September 2021

Interesting that the DWP A National Audit Office investigation into the underpayment of State Pensions has revealed that pensioners lost out on payments due to repeated human errors, ‘some level of which was almost inevitable given the complex rules and high degree of manual review necessary when assessing claims,’ according to the NAO report.

The errors affect pensioners who first claimed State Pension before April 2016, do not have a full national insurance record and should have received certain increases in their basic State Pension. The issues were brought to the Department for Work & Pensions (DWP) by individual pensioners, concerned experts and the media. The DWP started exploring the ‘potential for error’ from April 2020 and confirmed there was a significant issue in August 2020. It started to review cases from January 2021 and will contact pensioners if it finds that they have been underpaid.

The department estimates it will need to pay affected pensioners a total of £1,053m, representing an average of £8,900 per pensioner. The DWP has not assessed the demographics of pensioners likely to be affected but according to the NAO, most are likely to be women. The DWP’s estimates are highly uncertain, and the true value of the underpayments will only become clear once it has completed its review of all affected cases.

Gareth Davies, head of the NAO, said: “The impact of the underpayment of State Pension on those pensioners affected is significant. It is vital that the DWP corrects past underpayments and implements changes to prevent similar problems in future.”

https://www.icaew.com/insights/viewpoin ... e-Pensions

[Pooky]

I recommend also this interview about the pension funds in USA.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rL-UV0GvRFo&t=1837s

from Peak Prosperity:

https://www.peakprosperity.com/ted-sied ... the-world/

"We are on the precipice of the greatest retirement crisis in the history of the world. And that makes perfect sense because, first of all, we have the largest elderly population in the history of the world.

Just focusing on the United States: our elderly are woefully unprepared to retire. And in the decades to come we will witness millions of elderly American's, Baby Boomers and others, slipping into poverty. 'Too frail to work, too poor to retire' will become the new normal for many elderly Americans."

So warns pension fraud whistleblower Ted Siedle.

Siedle's firm, Benchmark Financial Services, Inc. has pioneered over $1 trillion in forensic investigations of the money management industry. He's nationally recognized as an authority on pensions and investment management matters, having testified before the Senate Banking Committee regarding fund scandals and is an expert in various Madoff-related and other litigations.

In 2017, he secured the largest SEC whistleblower award in history of $48 million, and in 2018, the largest CFTC award in history at $30 million.