Pensioners incomes exceeds working families

Research has revealed that pensioners in the UK are now an average of £20 a week better off than working households.

The Resolution Foundation has highlighted a reverse in income, with the £20 a week higher income in contrast to being £70 less well off than the average working household, as was the situation on 2001.

As Time Goes By, the foundation’s fourth report on social inequalities, says that while typical incomes across the pensioner population have grown by more than 30 per cent since 2001, the typical income of someone who turned 65 in that year was only seven per cent higher by 2014.

Adam Corlett, economic analyst at the Resolution Foundation, said: “The main driver of pensioner income growth has been the arrival of successive new waves of pensioners, who are more likely to work, own their home and have generous private pension wealth than any previous generation.

"Of course, not all pensioners can draw on these income sources, which is why the state pension will always be the main income for many pensioners. We can't assume either that young people today will be able to draw upon the kind of wealth that recent pensioners have accumulated, given the recent fall in home ownership and decline in generous defined benefit schemes.”