{"id":103415,"date":"2025-08-30T16:13:07","date_gmt":"2025-08-30T16:13:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/103415\/"},"modified":"2025-08-30T16:13:07","modified_gmt":"2025-08-30T16:13:07","slug":"dwp-blocks-payments-for-163500-state-pensioners-in-epic-debacle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/103415\/","title":{"rendered":"DWP blocks payments for 163,500 state pensioners in epic ‘debacle’"},"content":{"rendered":"

State pensioners are set to be denied \u00a33,900 payments from the Department for Work and Pensions ( DWP<\/a> ) as the number of Pension Credit claims rises. The DWP benefit is worth \u00a33,900 to state pensioners and acts as a gateway benefit for people.<\/p>\n

Claims areup 44 per cent between July 29, 2024 and July 27, 2025 compared with the same period a year earlier. But 163,500 claims were not awarded between July 24, 2024 and July 27, 2025 which marks an 88 per cent rise year-on-year.<\/p>\n

Rachel Vahey, head of public policy at AJ Bell, said: \u201cThe government might think it has banished the winter fuel payment debacle by U-turning on its previous decision to remove it for all but the very poorest pensioners.<\/p>\n

READ MORE: Eight million state pensioners face \u00a3216 shortfall from DWP in September<\/a><\/p>\n

READ MORE: Nationwide makes bank statement rule change which is ‘blow to millions’<\/a><\/p>\n

READ MORE Drivers in England face new midday to 8pm ban from September 21 <\/a><\/p>\n

“But these figures lay bare the panic caused by the initial announcement. In the year following Rachel Reeves\u2019 infamous declaration, only days after taking office at number 11, pensioners swarmed to apply for pension credit and keep their winter fuel payment.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe DWP received an astonishing 44 per cent increase in applications between July 2024 and July 2025 compared to the previous year, having to work hard to process a staggering 344,700 pension credit claims during this period in total.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe silver lining in this whole debacle is that many more pensioners have been pushed into claiming pension credit and will therefore enjoy a better financial standard of living as a result,” she said.<\/p>\n

Ms Vahey said: \u201cAnd that can only be good news for those who are struggling to make ends meet in light of soaring food inflation and a rising energy price cap.”<\/p>\n

The benefit is handed to people who have a weekly income of less than \u00a3227.10 (just over \u00a311,800 a year). It isn’t paid automatically, meaning older people have to claim.<\/p>\n

But it has been traditionally under-claimed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"State pensioners are set to be denied \u00a33,900 payments from the Department for Work and Pensions ( DWP…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":103416,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[84,4176,6215,1447,4174,4175,50374,56,54,55,44965],"class_list":{"0":"post-103415","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-personal-finance","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-finance","10":"tag-pension-credit","11":"tag-pensioners","12":"tag-personal-finance","13":"tag-personalfinance","14":"tag-rachel-vahey","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom","17":"tag-unitedkingdom","18":"tag-work-and-pensions"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103415","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=103415"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103415\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/103416"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=103415"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=103415"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=103415"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}