State pensioners are being told exactly when the state pension will reach a bumper £43,000 a year thanks to annual triple lock increases.

Right now, state pensioners are just weeks away from another boost to their state pension income, when the triple lock increases the DWP benefit for old age people by another 4.8% to £12,548 per year for pensioners on a full new state pension.

The increase is due to the triple lock, a system introduced by the Tories in 2011 which guarantees that pensions must increase by one of three metrics each year: inflation, wage growth or a flat 2.5%, whichever is highest.

Indeed, there has been hand wringing about the future of the triple lock due to the cost. Reform UK leader Nigel Farage says the triple lock is ‘up for debate’ in a clear signal that its days could be numbered if he became PM. Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch ruled out scrapping it ‘for now’ while Labour has pledged to support it until at least the end of this Parliament, with no guarantees beyond that yet.

Fidelity International’s Ed Monk issued a guide on how and when the state pension will reach the dizzying heights of £43,000 a year, from its current base of around £11,973 per year for a full new state pensioner, if the triple lock does stay in place in the coming decades.

He wrote: “This is the promise, first introduced in 2011, to raise the state pension each year by the highest of either inflation, wages or 2.5%. The triple lock guarantees that increases in the state pension will never lag any of these measures – not just over extended periods but in each and every individual year as well.

“Its effect has been dramatic. The full state pension has been set at £230.25 a week, or £11,973 a year, for the 2025/26 tax year. We now know that, for 2026/27, the payment will rise by 4.8% – that’s the increase for wage rises which this year is the highest of the three measures.

“That will take the state pPension in 2026/27 to £241.30 a week or £12,548 a year. Consider that as recently as the 2022/23 tax year it was just £185.15 a week – meaning it’s risen more than 30% in four years.”

He added: “You can’t know for certain what the state pension will be if you are still many years from claiming it. But some simple modelling can show us what the payment will rise to if different assumed annual increases are applied.”

Based on the minimum floor 2.5% annual increase, the state pension will hit £25,042.02 per year by 2054-55.

But the pension rarely rises by such a small amount. Taking a higher ceiling, 4.5%, Fidelity’s modelling pegs the pension at a blistering £43,035.88 by 2054-55.

Of course, this amount only applies to new state pensioners on a full National Insurance record. But old state pensioners need to have retired aged 65 before 2016, so those on the old state pension would be older than 103 by 2054.

Mr Monk adds that the triple lock could become more at risk because of the ballooning cost to the taxpayer: “The government has been cutting costs elsewhere in the system. The state pension age has been rising, delaying the point at which future generations will be able to claim theirs.

“The government has announced that the state pension age will increase from 66 to 67 in stages between April 2026 and April 2028. Then from 67 to 68 between April 2044 and April 2046.

“Further, or more rapid, rises cannot be ruled out but it would be hard to justify because improvement in life expectancy seem to have stalled.

“Reforming the triple lock is another potential cost-saving measure – although all the major political parties promised to keep the measure for this parliament.”