Extra money for older people

If you are over 60 the information in these pages will tell you about extra income you may be able to get. It will help you decide if you qualify, tell you how to claim and show you how much you might get. There are special rules for some people from abroad and for people who are in hospital or living in a care home. If in doubt, you should seek further advice from one of the organisations listed at the end.

There will be major changes to the benefits and tax credits system over the next few years because of the Welfare Reform Act, in particular the introduction of a new benefit, the universal credit. This will affect working age people and replace income support, income-based job seeker’s allowance, income-related employment and support allowance, housing benefit, working tax credit and child tax credit. It will affect new claims from 2013 and existing claimants over a period from 2014 to 2018.

The main benefits for older people, pension credit and attendance allowance, will remain outside of this system. However a number of changes are being made which will affect people aged 60 and over. In particular, from April 2010  changes have been made to the age at which you can claim state pension. The pension age for women born after 5 April 1950 is gradually increasing from 60, so that by November 2018 it will be 65, the same as for men. From December 2018 the age for both men and women will start to rise and reach 66 by October 2020. There are further plans to increase the pension age to 67 between 2026 and 2028. This means an increase in the lowest age at which men and women can claim pension credit and most other pensionable age benefits. There is also a corresponding rise in the maximum age that men and women can claim ‘working age’ benefits like income support. We refer to this age in these pages as ' the women’s pension age'.