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Women suffering 'paltry' state pension

A STATE pension “hardly worth anything” will see millions of women end their lives in penury, campaigners warned yesterday at the National Pensioners Convention conference in Blackpool.

Janet Shapiro told delegates that the situation was especially critical for women who had missed out on occupational pensions due to lives as mothers or homemakers.

The Con-Dem coalition had made great claims of lowering income tax but nearly half of Britain’s pensioners did not pay any income tax at all, she said.

But the increase in VAT to 20 per cent and a four-year freeze to pension credits had hit pensioners hard, she said.

Ms Shapiro warned that more was still to come, with the state pension in 2016 set to be worth at most £113.10 a week, despite the private sector’s widespread slashing of occupational pension schemes.

And a sneaky change in the rate of inflation used to calculate payouts will further erode pensions.

“Our pensions will be hardly worth anything in the years to come if it goes on like the present situation,” she said.

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