Pensioners got a welcome boost to their income this month with an 8.5% increase in their state pension. This brings the value of the full new state pension up to £11,502 per year and those on the full basic state pension will see it rise to £8,814 per year. With inflation finally on a downward path this rise will bring some much-needed breathing space to pensioner budgets that have been stretched to their absolute limits by the cost of living crisis. For the majority of pensioners, the state pension forms the very foundation on which we build our retirement income. However, it comes in for its fair share of criticism. Read more: How to avoid tax creep in retirement Despite two sizeable increases in recent years, it has been described as the worst pension in the developed world. These comparisons could be unfair given that state pension provision set ups differ between different countries so it’s very difficult to make direct comparisons. If you want to get a sense of the true value of the state pension, then you can look at how much you would need to save into your own pension to match it. The results are sobering....