Age Pension up 5%

Just in time for the federal election, Age Pensioners will see a couple of nice surprises in their letter box. Effective 21 September, Age Pension gets a six-monthly increase of 2.4% bringing the 12 month increase to 5.0%. Age Pensioners are now benefiting significantly from the government?s decision a few years ago to use the greater of CPI and Average Wages inflation when calculating 6 monthly increases. Over the last year CPI has increased by 2.1% (thanks to cheap Chinese imports which pensioners will not consume much of) while Wages have increased by 4.6% (more in line with food, health and transport components of the CPI).

Asset Test limits have been dramatically increased with the cut off point for no pension rising from $338,500 to $529,250 for Single Homeowners, and from $523,500 to $839,500 for Married Homeowners. This makes maximum Asset and Income Test limits equivalent to earning about 7.5%pa on Assets rather than 11.5%pa on the old Asset Test limits.

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