Written question asked by Rachel Reeves (Labour) on Tuesday, 6 September 2011, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Friday, 9 September 2011. It was answered by Steve Webb (Liberal Democrat) on Friday, 9 September 2011 on behalf of the Department for Work and Pensions.

Pensions: Inflation

Question: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions whether his Department has estimated the average rate of inflation experienced by pensioner households.

Answer: There is no official estimate of the average rate of inflation experienced by all pensioner households.The pensioner prices indices produced by the ONS are based solely on households who receive 75% or more of their income from the state, equating to around 20% of retired pensioner households according to ONS. Therefore those indices do not reflect the entire pensioner population.As variants of the RPI measure of inflation, the pensioner indices also employ the same methodology, which does not allow for a substitution effect and which arguably overstate inflation as a result.

Secondary information