The UK state pension is set to rise by 3.9% next April under the triple lock, based on wage growth figures confirmed this week, adding £488 a year to bring the full new state pension to £13,036. However, commentator Rachel Rickard Straus argues pensioners could still end up worse off, as tax rises, frozen thresholds and a wave of rising living costs threaten to wipe out the gain before it reaches their pockets.

For the first time, the full new state pension will exceed the £12,570 income tax threshold, meaning pensioners will lose around £93 of the increase to HMRC, with more likely to follow if the threshold stays frozen; already over ten million pensioners pay income tax, a record high. Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds has declined to reconfirm a previous pledge that pensioners solely reliant on the state pension would be shielded from tax, leaving the issue to next month's Budget. Pensioners also face steep rises in energy bills (up 4% in October and potentially 9% more in January, pushing the average bill to £1,872), food inflation nearing 6% by mid-2027, and higher council tax from April. Additionally, millions of older pensioners who reached state pension age before 2016 may not receive the full triple lock rise, since only the basic state pension portion of their payment is protected, not the additional state pension.