Martin Lewis tells people born between 1951 and 1979 'they stand to gain £50,000'

Martin Lewis has urged people born in these years to add £50k to their state pension. The BBC Sounds and ITV star Lewis said the potential boost is only 'worth it' for those over a certain age - between age 45 and 73, so born in 1951 to 1979.

The full 'new' state pension is currently £221.20 a week – however how much you receive depends on how many 'qualifying' full national insurance (NI) years you have. You need around 35 full NI years to get the maximum state pension, though some will need a lot more.

Normally you can buy back up to six years, but when the 'new' state pension was introduced, transitional arrangements were put in place to let you plug gaps all the way back to 2006. This was due to end on 5 April 2023, and then 31 July 2023, but because so many people were trying, the date has been extended to 5 April 2025.

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For every £800 a person has contributed, they could get £6,100 per year added to their pension pot. Martin said: "If you have gaps between 2006 and 2018, you need to think about this this year because you can only do it until next April. If you're nearly at the state pension age it's easy to see, it's pretty obvious that you should be buying them.

"The older you are, the more likely you should be. If there are no gaps after 2019, then you could buy those so you could wait and see." Martin continued: "If you're under 45 this probably isn't worth doing, unless you've got very cheap partial years, if you've got a year available for £16 just go and buy it because it's so cheap just in case you miss years in the future because it's so cheap for what it could be worth."

"If you've only got three years, and you've got three years missing, there's no point buying those three years because you'll still only be on six years and you still won't get the state pension," he said. He continued: "If however you're on nine years and you can buy a year, suddenly you'll have 10/35ths of your pension and it will be massively lucrative, worth £3,000 a year for £800. So if you've got very limited years it could either be very lucrative or not lucrative."

MSE said: "You've got until 5 April 2025 to buy back any missing national insurance years from 2006 to 2016. This can be prove very lucrative, as some are on course to make over £50,000 in boosts to their state pension by following this guide."

One viewer managed to add as much as £74,000 to his pension pot but most people stand to gain at least £50,000.