Fact check: There were four working age adults per pensioner in 1961

For 1948, the ONS data only covers England and Wales and is divided into bands of five years, for example grouping 16-year-olds into a 15-19 category, and rounded to the nearest thousand. Using this information, the number of working age men and women was 28,367,000. Counting men 65 and over with women who were 60 and over, the number of pensioners stood at 5,811,000. That is 4.9 workers per pensioner. While this does represent a significantly younger population, it is still nowhere near Mr Stewart’s claim.