Universal Credit Calculator for Mixed-Age Couples

This Universal Credit calculator for mixed-age couples works out your joint award when one of you has reached State Pension age and the other has not. Since 15 May 2019 a couple like this claims Universal Credit together, not Pension Credit, so the award starts from the couple standard allowance of £666.97 a month and adds any housing, child, health and carer elements.

It then takes off what comes in. Take-home pay from either of you is added together and reduced by 55% above any work allowance. Savings over £6,000 count as assumed income. The State Pension, workplace and personal pensions, and benefits such as Carer's Allowance come off in full, pound for pound and before tax, which is the step a general calculator leaves out. A weekly State Pension is converted to a month by multiplying by 52 and dividing by 12.

It does not decide whether you were protected on 14 May 2019, apply the benefit cap, or count pension income DWP can treat you as having from a pension you have deferred or not drawn. It flags the cap where it may apply, and the Benefit Cap Calculator works it out.

Because since 15 May 2019 the law says so. Section 4(1A) of the State Pension Credit Act 2002 says a claimant is not entitled to Pension Credit if their partner has not reached the qualifying age, which is State Pension age. It was brought into force on that date by the Welfare Reform Act 2012 (Commencement No. 31) Order 2019, SI 2019/37, and the same order stopped new claims for pension-age Housing Benefit by a mixed-age couple. Universal Credit is normally for people under State Pension age, but regulation 3(2)(a) of the Universal Credit Regulations 2013 lets a couple claim jointly where one of them is over that age and the other is not. So the partner over State Pension age is on the claim, their income and savings count, and the household gets one couple standard allowance of £666.97 a month. Before May 2019 the older partner could claim Pension Credit for both of them, which was usually worth more. As GOV.UK puts it, if only one of you has reached State Pension age you can still claim Universal Credit as a couple, and the claim stops when you both have.

Couples who were already entitled on 14 May 2019. Article 4(1) of SI 2019/37 keeps the old rules for a member of a mixed-age couple who, on that day and as part of that couple, was entitled to Pension Credit, pension-age Housing Benefit, or both. Article 4(2) ends the protection on any later day when that person is entitled to neither benefit as part of the same couple. Continuity is what matters: while either benefit carries on, Pension Credit can stop and start again, but a gap in both, or a new partner, ends it for good. GOV.UK also says a Pension Credit award stops if you or your partner claim Universal Credit, and that you will usually be better off staying on Pension Credit. If a protected couple on Housing Benefit gets a Migration Notice, DWP's guidance says they could choose Pension Credit instead of Universal Credit, but would then get no transitional protection on either. This calculator assumes Universal Credit applies to you. If you are a protected couple, get advice before you claim it.

In full, before tax, pound for pound. Regulation 66 of the Universal Credit Regulations 2013 lists retirement pension income as unearned income, and regulation 67 gives it the Pension Credit meaning: the new and basic State Pension, workplace and personal pensions, and annuities bought with pension savings. Regulation 22 takes all unearned income off the award. DWP's decision makers' guide adds that there is no deduction for income tax or National Insurance, so you enter the gross amount. A weekly pension is converted by multiplying by 52 and dividing by 12, which makes the full new State Pension of £241.30 a week £1,045.63 a month, and the full basic State Pension of £184.90 a week £801.23. Wages are treated differently: only 55p of each pound above any work allowance comes off. That is why a mixed-age couple with no rent and no children often gets no Universal Credit at all: the full new State Pension alone is more than the £666.97 couple standard allowance. Rent changes that. With £600 of social rent and the full basic State Pension, the maximum is £1,266.97 and the award is £465.74 a month. Putting off a pension does not help. A partner over the qualifying age who has not claimed or has deferred their State Pension, or leaves a pension pot untouched, is treated as having the income they could get. For a pot, DWP uses the annuity it would buy. The pot itself is not counted as savings while the provider holds it, as the Savings and Capital Calculator explains.

No. Regulation 89(1)(a) puts anyone who has reached the qualifying age for Pension Credit in the group with no work-related requirements, so the older partner has no work search, no work availability and no work-focused interviews. The younger partner's requirements depend on their own circumstances, exactly as for any other claimant: caring, a child under 1, or a health condition can all reduce them. Age brings no work allowance on its own. The work allowance of £427.00 a month with housing costs, or £710.00 without, depends on having a child or limited capability for work. The older partner can get the health element without a Work Capability Assessment: Schedule 9 paragraph 5 treats them as having limited capability for work and work-related activity if they get Attendance Allowance, Pension Age Disability Payment, the highest care rate of Disability Living Allowance, or the enhanced daily living rate of PIP or Adult Disability Payment. That adds £217.26 or £429.80 a month, depending on which of the two health element rates applies, and brings the work allowance with it. A couple only ever gets one health element. With Attendance Allowance, £150.00 a week of State Pension and £900 of take-home pay, the award is £129.73 a month.

Three things catch people out because Pension Credit and pension-age Housing Benefit work another way. The spare bedroom reduction applies: paragraph 36 of Schedule 4 to the Universal Credit Regulations takes 14% off social rent for one spare bedroom and 25% for two or more, with no exception for the partner over State Pension age. Savings follow Universal Credit's rules: anything above £6,000 between you reduces the award and more than £16,000 ends it, where Pension Credit has no upper limit. And the benefit cap can apply. GOV.UK says that if one of you is under State Pension age, the cap may apply. The couple cap is £1,835.00 a month, or £2,110.25 in Greater London, and the State Pension is not one of the benefits added up against it. Disability benefits such as PIP or Attendance Allowance, the health or carer element, or £881 a month of earnings lift it, and the Benefit Cap Calculator checks every route.

Universal Credit ends and the two of you can claim Pension Credit. Paragraph 26 of Schedule 1 to the Universal Credit Decisions and Appeals Regulations 2013 makes the change take effect from the first day of the assessment period after the one in which the younger partner reaches the qualifying age, so Universal Credit is paid for the whole of that last assessment period. DWP's Pension Credit guide says a couple can normally apply up to four months before the younger partner reaches the qualifying age, and that Pension Credit can be backdated for up to three months. Universal Credit for that last period counts as income for Pension Credit, so the two do not double up. When it is the older partner who reaches State Pension age during a Universal Credit claim, the claim carries on: their work-related requirements stop, and their State Pension is taken off from when it is paid.