How the Retirement Living Standards are built

The Retirement Living Standards are published by Pensions UK and researched by the Centre for Research in Social Policy at Loughborough University. They describe three levels of retirement, Minimum, Moderate and Comfortable, each as a yearly cost for a household of one and a household of two.

The method is the part worth knowing. The figures are not an average of what pensioners spend, and they are not an expert’s opinion. Groups of the public across the UK, retired or close to it, talk through what a household at each level would have to be able to afford. They go item by item until they agree, and researchers then price the agreed basket.

The Minimum level rests on the Minimum Income Standard, the same participatory method used to define an acceptable minimum for working households. The basket is split into six areas: the house, food, transport, holidays and leisure, clothing and personal items, and helping others. Each level says what it buys in each area, so a reader can see a life and not only a sum.

Three things frame every figure. They are costs, not income, so tax comes off a pension before it meets them. They assume a home owned outright. And they are researched again as prices and habits change. So Landfall holds them with their source, publisher and reading date, as it holds a tax figure, and reads them again each year.