News Service from Weird House

Fed: Financial crisis leads to a boost in pensions

CANBERRA, Nov 7 AAP - Many pensioners will receive increased welfare payments following a re-evaluation of their hard-hit financial assets.

Centrelink has updated the value of pensioners' listed securities and managed investments, in the wake of the financial crisis.

The assessment used market data from mid-October and updated the records ofmore than 840,000 pensioners.

More than 40 per cent of pensioners who own shares andor have funds in managed investments would receive an increase in their welfare payments, the government said.

About 370,000 of them will receive an average increase of4 a fortnight, but some of them will be paid more than100 per fortnight.

Payments to about 440,000 people won't change, and 30,000 - or 3.5 per cent - will lose less then2 per fortnight.

The new payment rates apply from this week.

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