Pensioner income
Published
1. Main facts and figures
- in the 3-year period to March 2023, pensioner families received an average of £653 a week in total income before deductions (‘gross income’)
- pensioner families from the white ‘other’ ethnic group had the highest gross income (£731 a week)
- Asian pensioner families had the lowest gross income (£500 a week)
- white British pensioner families were the most likely out of all ethnic groups to receive income from occupational pensions (66%), investments (60%), and personal pensions (17%)
- black pensioner families were most likely to receive income from income-related benefits (37%) – white British pensioner families were least likely (19%)
- in the 15 years to March 2023, gross weekly income for pensioner families in the white ‘other’ ethnic group went up from £604 to £731 – the biggest increase out of all ethnic groups
- gross weekly income went down for pensioner families in the Asian (from £516 to £500), mixed (from £540 to £523), and ‘other’ (from £591 to £583) ethnic groups
- the biggest increase in State Pension income was for white British pensioner families (from £197 to £237)
2. Things you need to know
What the data measures
The data shows how much income pensioner families in the UK receive from all sources before taxes and other deductions, by ethnicity.
A ‘pensioner family’ is either a single pensioner or a couple (married or living together) that includes at least one pensioner.
The data does not include income from other people in the household (such as adult children), except for the benefit income of dependent children.
The data only covers private households.
Percentages are given to the nearest whole number. Income is rounded to the nearest pound. Population sizes are rounded to the nearest 100,000. This means some figures may not add up to the totals shown.
Not included in the data
The data does not include people living in communal accommodation (such as care homes) or with no fixed address.
The ethnic groups used in the data
The data uses the ethnic group categories from the 2011 Census.
Data is aggregated for each of the Asian, black, mixed and ‘other’ ethnic groups. This means estimates are shown for these groups as a whole. Data is shown separately for white British and all other white people (white ‘other’ ethnic group).
Some households contain people from different ethnic backgrounds. The ethnicity assigned to the household is that of the head of the household, usually the person with the highest income. The data does not account for people of different ethnic backgrounds who live in the same household.
Methodology
Read the detailed methodology document for the data on this page.
The data is a time series of 3-year averages. The latest is from April 2020 to March 2023. This is to make sure there are enough pensioner families to be able to make reliable generalisations. You can read more about combining multiple years of data and some of the issues involved.
Confidence intervals have not been worked out, so comparisons between ethnic groups may not be reliable.
Household income has not been adjusted (or ‘equivalised’) to take into account the number of people who live there.
All income is adjusted for inflation using variants of the Consumer Price Index. This allows us to see how income has changed over time in real terms.
The Family Resources Survey has been shown to under-report the number of people receiving benefits compared with the Department for Work and Pensions’ administrative records. For this reason, the percentage of people receiving benefits shown here is likely to be slightly lower than the real percentage.
The data is based on survey data. Find out more about:
- interpreting survey data, including how reliability is affected by the number of people surveyed
- how weighting is used to make survey data more representative of the whole group being studied
In the data file
Download the data for:
- gross and net income figures for the 3-year periods between April 2008 to March 2023
- data by type of income
3. By ethnicity over time
| 3 year period | All | Asian | Black | Mixed | White | White British | White Other | Other |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| £ | £ | £ | £ | £ | £ | £ | £ | |
| 2008/09 to 2010/11 | 614 | 516 | 485 | 540 | 618 | 618 | 604 | 591 |
| 2009/10 to 2011/12 | 621 | 535 | 486 | 623 | 625 | 625 | 611 | 597 |
| 2010/11 to 2012/13 | 615 | 539 | 454 | withheld because a small sample size makes it unreliable | 619 | 620 | 587 | 659 |
| 2011/12 to 2013/14 | 613 | 559 | 445 | withheld because a small sample size makes it unreliable | 617 | 618 | 576 | 666 |
| 2012/13 to 2014/15 | 624 | 524 | 460 | 547 | 629 | 630 | 571 | 756 |
| 2013/14 to 2015/16 | 632 | 493 | 462 | 593 | 638 | 640 | 575 | 701 |
| 2014/15 to 2016/17 | 642 | 491 | 466 | 613 | 649 | 650 | 586 | 746 |
| 2015/16 to 2017/18 | 642 | 466 | 447 | 584 | 650 | 652 | 577 | 687 |
| 2016/17 to 2018/19 | 645 | 471 | 500 | 651 | 652 | 654 | 573 | 612 |
| 2017/18 to 2019/20 | 643 | 452 | 476 | 595 | 651 | 654 | 555 | 627 |
| 2018/19 to 2020/21 | 652 | 477 | 582 | 584 | 658 | 659 | 642 | 747 |
| 2019/20 to 2021/22 | 652 | 466 | 546 | 501 | 660 | 660 | 664 | 711 |
| 2020/21 to 2022/23 | 653 | 500 | 572 | 523 | 660 | 658 | 731 | 583 |
Download table data for ‘By ethnicity over time’ (CSV) Source data for ‘By ethnicity over time’ (CSV)
4. Data sources
Source
Pensioners' Incomes: financial years ending 1995 to 2023
Type of data
Survey data
Type of statistic
National Statistics
Publisher
Department for Work and Pensions
Publication frequency
Yearly
Purpose of data source
The Pensioners’ incomes series is based on data from the Family Resources Survey (FRS). The main purpose of the FRS is to give the Department for Work and Pensions data to develop, monitor and evaluate social welfare policy.
The survey is also used by other government departments, including for tax and benefit policy modelling by HM Treasury and HM Revenue and Customs. The FRS is also used by academics and research institutes for social and economic research.
5. Download the data
This file contains the following: measure, ethnicity, year, geography, measure type, value.