Martin Lewis issues pension credit warning to Rachel Reeves hours before budget

Martin Lewis issues pension credit warning to Rachel Reeves hours before budgetThe Martin Lewis Money Show/ ITV

Transcript

00:00Will you get pension credit is the question and for a single person you

00:03need an income of under £11,400 to be eligible for pension credit. I think that

00:08is a very tight means test and pension credit is critically underclaimed, not

00:12enough people who are eligible are claiming it, about 700,000 are missing out.

00:16So let's just go through this. Your mum gets £22 a week state

00:21pension, clearly not a lot. What I don't know is does she have other income, does

00:26she have savings of over £10,000 in which case it counts towards

00:29her income. If she doesn't have substantially other income she will be

00:33eligible for pension credit right and she will get a pension credit payment

00:37which is an average of £3,900 a year. If you know a low-income

00:40pensioner talk to them about it, £3,900 a year. It also means you're entitled to

00:45winter fuel payment but, so Jessica when when did her husband pass away? Two weeks

00:50ago. Okay so the winter fuel payment eligibility week is the week of the 16th

00:56of September, you had to be eligible for it in the week of the 16th of September

01:00so her husband was still with us. If he had income that was with her combined

01:05above the pension credit limit, which is higher for a couple, then because he

01:09passed away two weeks ago and it was the assessment period was before, then

01:13wouldn't be eligible to winter fuel payment. If he had a low income they

01:16would. So it's touch or go whether they would be entitled to winter fuel payment.

01:21There's a lot more I could do on winter fuel payment. We've got a budget special

01:24on Thursday night, my fingers are crossed the Chancellor will join me. I've asked

01:27her, I don't have a reply yet, it's being thought about and if we do we'll be

01:32talking about winter fuel payment and if she doesn't I'll be talking about winter

01:34fuel payment without you Chancellor. You may as well be here, it'll be a lot better.