As Buenchico says, only people who attain pensionable age in 2016/17 will be affected by the new £144 pw pension.
Strange that today's Sun Newspaper shows a picture of a lady pensioner followed by the quote:
RETIRED nurse Rita Squire, 78, will not see any immediate change.
She will be £59.65 per week better off once the single flat-rate pension is brought in, but this is not expected to be until 2016/2017.
Rita, from Baguley, Gtr Manchester, who now has a state pension of £84.35 per week, said: “A flat-rate pension is a much fairer way to go about it.
“The thing is, if the cost of living keeps increasing at the current rate, we’ll need even more than that by 2016.”
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/politics/4852430/Budget-2013-juggling-act-by-George-Osborne.html