{"id":61756,"date":"2022-02-24T13:21:40","date_gmt":"2022-02-24T13:21:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/?p=61756"},"modified":"2022-02-24T13:22:48","modified_gmt":"2022-02-24T13:22:48","slug":"2-8-billion-of-benefit-credits-available-to-pensions-are-not-claimed-a-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2022\/02\/24\/2-8-billion-of-benefit-credits-available-to-pensions-are-not-claimed-a-year\/","title":{"rendered":"\u00a32.8 billion of benefit credits available to pensioners are not claimed a year"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gov.uk\/government\/statistics\/income-related-benefits-estimates-of-take-up-financial-year-2019-to-2020\/income-related-benefits-estimates-of-take-up-financial-year-2019-to-2020\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Department for Work and Pensions<\/a> has just published this data:<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-61758\" src=\"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/Screenshot-2022-02-24-at-10.48.07-465x1024.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"465\" height=\"1024\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/Screenshot-2022-02-24-at-10.48.07-465x1024.png 465w, https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/Screenshot-2022-02-24-at-10.48.07-136x300.png 136w, https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/Screenshot-2022-02-24-at-10.48.07-768x1690.png 768w, https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/Screenshot-2022-02-24-at-10.48.07-698x1536.png 698w, https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/Screenshot-2022-02-24-at-10.48.07-931x2048.png 931w, https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/Screenshot-2022-02-24-at-10.48.07-182x400.png 182w, https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/Screenshot-2022-02-24-at-10.48.07.png 996w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 465px) 100vw, 465px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>What this suggests is that significant sums that could relieve pensioner poverty are not being paid by the government, even though it has good reason to believe that they are owing. They quantify the sums unpaid as follows:<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-61759\" src=\"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/Screenshot-2022-02-24-at-10.48.17-550x574.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"550\" height=\"574\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/Screenshot-2022-02-24-at-10.48.17-550x574.png 550w, https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/Screenshot-2022-02-24-at-10.48.17-288x300.png 288w, https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/Screenshot-2022-02-24-at-10.48.17-768x801.png 768w, https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/Screenshot-2022-02-24-at-10.48.17-384x400.png 384w, https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/Screenshot-2022-02-24-at-10.48.17.png 982w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 550px) 100vw, 550px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>This is \u00a32.8 billion unpaid that could make a massive difference to people's lives.<\/p>\n<p>My question is a simple one. It is why aren't we seeing national television advertising campaigns to encourage people to claim these benefits they are due? Surely that is the least that the government should be doing if it really cared about those in need in the UK?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Department for Work and Pensions has just published this data: What this suggests is that significant sums that could relieve pensioner poverty are not<br \/><a class=\"moretag\" href=\"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2022\/02\/24\/2-8-billion-of-benefit-credits-available-to-pensions-are-not-claimed-a-year\/\"><em> Read the full article&#8230;<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,106,97],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-61756","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","category-politics","category-tax-justice"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61756","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61756"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61756\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61756"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61756"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61756"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}