{"id":405536,"date":"2025-09-07T15:21:15","date_gmt":"2025-09-07T15:21:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/405536\/"},"modified":"2025-09-07T15:21:15","modified_gmt":"2025-09-07T15:21:15","slug":"state-pensioners-told-to-apply-for-new-dwp-benefit-or-lose-pension-cash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/405536\/","title":{"rendered":"State pensioners told to apply for ‘new’ DWP benefit or lose pension cash"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former Liberal Democrats pensions minister Sir Steve Webb is trying to raise awareness of \u2018new style ESA\u2019.\"StateState pensioners told to apply for ‘new’ DWP benefit or lose pension cash<\/p>\n

State pensioners are being told to apply for a ‘NEW’ Department for Work and Pensions ( DWP<\/a> ) benefit or lose state pension cash. Former Liberal Democrats<\/a> pensions minister Sir Steve Webb is trying to raise awareness of \u2018new style ESA\u2019.<\/p>\n

He says it “might offer more hope because it is not based on your income or savings”, adding: “However, it is based on your National Insurance record and if you have not worked and paid NI recently, you might well fail the contribution test.<\/p>\n

“On the face of it, you might think that there\u2019s nothing that you can do \u2013 you don\u2019t think you\u2019d qualify for ESA\/UC because of your income and your NI record isn\u2019t good enough to qualify for new-style ESA.<\/p>\n

READ MORE Bank Holiday change for England households in 2026 with date moved<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

“However, there is a solution. As you know, I recommended that you claim \u2018new-style\u2019 ESA even though you thought you would not qualify.<\/p>\n

“The reason for this is that as long as you satisfy the rules on being unable to work you can still get NI credits even if you don\u2019t get a weekly cash benefit.<\/p>\n

“It may seem bizarre that you should apply for a benefit knowing that you won\u2019t get it, but this is what you need to do in order to get the NI credits.”<\/p>\n

Sir Steve was replying to a future state pensioner who said: “I am in my mid-50s and had to stop work eight years ago due to a severe illness. I was lucky enough to qualify under my work pension to qualify for early retirement due to permanent disability.<\/p>\n

“However my pension is small as I worked part time whilst my children were at school. I do not qualify for any benefits as my pension is just over the limit so I live entirely on my pension which is challenging.<\/p>\n

“I have looked at my state pension and I have 32 qualifying years but am still a few years short of the full pension which obviously would help me enormously.<\/p>\n

“Therefore I would like to know if there is any way to get credits as I know if you are on benefits due to being too ill to work you can qualify for them, but as far as I can see there isn’t any way for claiming credits if you don’t qualify for benefits yet are unfit to work.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former Liberal Democrats pensions minister Sir Steve Webb is trying to raise awareness of \u2018new style ESA\u2019.State pensioners…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":405537,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3093],"tags":[51,1267,474,11518,2499,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-405536","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-personal-finance","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-dwp","10":"tag-finance","11":"tag-liberal-democrats","12":"tag-personal-finance","13":"tag-uk","14":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115163698545878755","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405536","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=405536"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405536\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/405537"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=405536"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=405536"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=405536"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}