The government should be proactive in helping pensioners in poverty, the Centre for Ageing Better has said, amid concerns that the Spring Budget will increase the "already significant" levels of poverty amongst older people in the UK.

According to the Centre for Ageing Better's research, the state pension leaves pensioners short every week of the minimum socially accepted standard of living, with couples short by £80 and single pensioners short by £50.

Since the start of the cost-of-living crisis, this has more than doubled for pensioner couples and almost quadrupled for single pensioners.

The impact of this financial strain on day-to-day decisions is also evident, as the research found that nearly two in five (39 per cent) are eating less than they should, while 61 per cent are reducing the number of showers and baths they have, and almost three quarters (73 per cent) are using the cooker or oven less.

The report detailed that over the past 10 years, pensioner poverty rates have risen after two decades of decline, with 2.1 million pensioners currently living in poverty.

Of all pensioners in poverty, more than half (55 per cent) are in deep poverty and almost three in 10 (29 per cent) are in very deep poverty.

The poverty rate for the growing number of single pensioners (25 per cent) was almost double the rate for pensioners in a couple, at 25 per cent compared to 14 per cent.

Regional differences were also highlighted, as the report showed that the number of pensioners in relative poverty range from more than one in seven (15 per cent) in the South-West of England to almost one in four (23 per cent) in London.

More broadly, the report found that 2.9 million pensioners have no private or workplace pension including more than two in five of the poorest pensioners (almost 1 million) with the lowest 20 per cent of incomes.

More than one in 10 pensioners (1.3 million people) have no savings at all, with one in three pensioners (almost four million people) holding less than £3,000 in savings.

Further increases could be seen in future, as the Chancellor’s decision in the Budget to freeze income tax thresholds saw 8 million pensioners with a tax rise of almost £1,000 per year by 2027/28, according to analysis by the Resolution Foundation.

Centre of Ageing Better chief executive, Dr Carole Easton OBE, commented that it is “extremely concerning that pensioners are the biggest losers financially” in the Budget due to the “very dire financial position many retirees are in already”.

“We desperately needed a Budget that offered a helping hand to the very poorest pensioners, not pushing them deeper into financial trouble,” she continued.

Easton noted that “clearly we have an awfully long way still to go” as, “the government have said they want this country to be the best place to grow old in, but we currently have the worst state pension offering among OECD countries”.

“The highest poverty rate among adults in this country is now among adults aged 60 and over who are heading towards retirement which indicates the worst may yet be to come,” she added.

Given this, the the Centre for Ageing Better urged the government to be proactive when it comes to pensioners in poverty by encouraging them to establish an independent commissioner to champion the rights of England’s ageing population.

It also encouraged the government to pause proposals to raise the state pension age so pensioner poverty does not increase, and increase the uptake of pension credit.

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