A new analysis has discovered that more than one million pensioners were underpaid £530 million last year due to governmental errors.
It's been revealed that the procession errors saw that just over 10% of state pensions were underpaid, hitting around 1.3 million pensioners with the average amount underpaid £400 per person.
According to the Daily Express, underpayments were found due after the government began actively carrying out checks instead of estimating.
This means that there could also be mass underpayments of higher value in previous years.
Millions of pensioners underpaid £530 million
The underpayments were discovered after government documents on fraud and mistakes in the benefits system were found.
Analysis by the Labour Party found that one in 10 pensioners were left out of pocket last year.
Altogether, the data suggest that government errors cost state pensions and benefits claimants £1.1 billion from 2021-2022.
The figures also found that 10.7% of state pension cases were underpaid impacting 1.3 million pensioners.
Speaking of the underpayments to pensioners, ex-pensions minister Sir Steven Webb said that £530 million was an "extraordinary" amount of money.
He added: "It’s an extraordinary amount of money to miss out, especially during a cost of living crisis. It is all the more shocking that proper checks have not been done for more than 15 years.
“These figures are the first year that checks have been done properly - they’ve actually been phoning people up - and unsurprisingly the underpayments are very high.”
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