MSE Guest Comment: WASPI campaign responds to Pensions Minister's advice to take...
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she has said that 1950's women only found out a year before retirement that they weren't retiring for a further 6 years - were these women living in dark rooms with no tv, radio, newspapers for the last 20 years while sticking their fingers in their ears going la la la I can't hear you? How on earth did they miss the changes Posted by haras_nosirrah
Sarah - I'm fully convinced that they did hear about the changes, but chose to ignore them because 'retirement is a long way off' and/or 'this only applies to pensioners, not me'.0 -
Silvertabby wrote: »Sarah - I'm fully convinced that they did hear about the changes, but chose to ignore them because 'retirement is a long way off' and/or 'this only applies to pensioners, not me'.
The DWP surveys suggest that most women knew something was changing, although they were a bit foggy on the detail.
Ultimately it doesn't really matter at this point who knew and who didn't. There was no legal compulsion on the government to send unprompted information about the changes, and the initial plans for 1995 (Budget Statement) and 2011 (Conservative Manifesto) were announced in on very visible platforms.
Regardless of who knew and who didn't, it is a reasonable expectation that people should have taken personal responsibility and planned their retirement with upto date information.I work for a financial services intermediary specialising in the at-retirement market. I am not a financial adviser, and any comments represent my opinion only and should not be construed as advice or a recommendation0 -
haras_nosirrah wrote: »she has said that 1950's women only found out a year before retirement that they weren't retiring for a further 6 years - were these women living in dark rooms with no tv, radio, newspapers for the last 20 years while sticking their fingers in their ears going la la la I can't hear you? How on earth did they miss the changes
Too right! We were affected but well aware of the changes - we even discussed it at the time with other people also affected.
The sensible ones took any action necessary, but the rest just ignored it with the usual "I'll worry about that when it happens".
There's no reason on this earth for taxpayers to bail out people who are just bleating because they took the easy 'ignore' option. Any more than we should bail out people who don't bother to take out insurance.
There will be fury if WASPI get their selfish way on this!0 -
In hindsight, the re-equalisation of State pension age should have been part of the 1975 Sex Discrimination/Equal Pay acts. That way, the increases could have started from - say - 1990 - and would have been much more gradual.. I can only suppose that Harold Wilson thought that whilst the equalisation of pay would be a ladies vote winner, the re-equalisation of pension ages wouldn't.
The Women's Lib/Dagenham Ladies etc campaigns for equal rights and equal pay were a little before my time, but I've done a bit of research on them. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I can't find any mention of State pension ages being included in the women's demands for full equality with men........0 -
In hindsight maybe it should have been dealt with at the same time as the introduction of SERPS (taking full effect 20 years later so the full benefit of SERPS would have been made), combined with a complete ending of reduced rate National Insurance for married women. However, all of these measures may have been painted in the short term as taking more money from women.0
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Aw, this is getting very DMish. Attack the message - and it needs to be attacked - not the messenger.
But WASPI's one and only card is personal need, which means the messenger is the message. They have no legal or moral reason to demand an earlier State Pension than a man of the same age or a woman born in 1960 - their sole argument is "we really need the money". So "they don't really need the money" is a perfectly legitimate counterargument. You can't moan about ad hominems when your whole argument is the ex hominem "look at my weeping sores".Silvertabby wrote: »In hindsight, the re-equalisation of State pension age should have been part of the 1975 Sex Discrimination/Equal Pay acts.
No doubt, but everyone knew at the time that the 1995 Pension Act was long overdue, and that it still didn't go far enough, which is why we got the 2012 Act. And the 2012 Act didn't go far enough either, which is why we will get the 20?? Act within the next decade or so. Every measure by the Government has been a piecemeal effort to buy time rather than a genuine attempt to bring spiralling State Pension costs under control.0 -
Too right! We were affected but well aware of the changes - we even discussed it at the time with other people also affected....
What of WASPI’s complaint about a failure to communicate directly with individuals? This is not unproblematic. Firstly, many legislative changes are made which have consequences for individual finances but are not individually communicated. Secondly, neither WASPI nor the Select Committee acknowledge widespread media coverage of the 1995 decision to equalise state pension ages (the Financial Times’ correspondent Josephine Cumbo presented the committee with a list of 600 newspaper articles between 1993 and 2006 on equalisation and its implications for women).
http://www.historyandpolicy.org/opinion-articles/articles/women-against-state-pension-inequality-a-distraction-from-deeper-problems
Presumably you read one or more of those 600 articles.0 -
Malthusian wrote: »No doubt, but everyone knew at the time that the 1995 Pension Act was long overdue, and that it still didn't go far enough, which is why we got the 2012 Act. And the 2012 Act didn't go far enough either, which is why we will get the 20?? Act within the next decade or so. Every measure by the Government has been a piecemeal effort to buy time rather than a genuine attempt to bring spiralling State Pension costs under control.
Point of order, if I may.....
There was no 2012 Pensions Act. Only A 2011 one.
There was also a 2007 Pensions Act, which was partly un-done by the 2011 Act as the rise to 66 was brought by it.
Then there was a 2014 Pensions Act, which partially brought the increase to 67, first legislated in 2007, forward a bit more.
The remaining rise to 67, and the rise to 68, remains for the time being as legislated in 2007. A statement from Government on optentially bringing these forward is overdue.
This table summarised the increases nicely:
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/310231/spa-timetable.pdf0 -
MSE_Jason_Mills wrote: »Last Wednesday (5th July), cross-party MPs spent more than an hour describing the financial hardship caused to some 3.5 million women born in the 1950s who have been affected by the changes made to the State Pension Age.
MSE Jason Mills, one of the key issues there is that is a straight-forward lie that some 3.5m women born in the 1950s are in financial hardship. To be honest, I can't recall that any of the MPs in last Wednesday's debate has actually claimed that this is the case.
There is no evidence for this from elsewhere, either. WASPI themselves have less than 3,500 paid up members, and less than 71,000 'likes' on their Facebook page. Their e-petition, which could also be signed by people not directly affected by the increases, had less than 195,000 signatures after several months of hard lobbying for signatures.
By whatever measure, there is no evidence whatsoever that would support that the number of affected women in financial hardship is significant, and definitely it isn't anywhere near all the 3.5m women born in the 1950s.
Nor is there any evidence whatsoever that the WASPI campaign have ever put those in financial hardship first. They haven't even seen it fit to officially communicate Guy Opperman's specific offer that he and his team will listen to hardship cases that MPs bring to him. Nor has MSE, unless I have overlooked it. Why is that?0 -
I would agree, it is very appropriate that MSE report on the state pension age increases which directly affect every woman born after 5/4/1950, and every man born after 5/12/1953, and indirectly also men born between 6/4/1950 and 6/12/1953 as the Pensions Credit Age rises in line with women's SPA. It is, however, most disconcerting that you do not provide a comprehensive account of the effects of the state pensions age rises legislated in 1995, 2007, 2011 and 2014. In particular, I find it distressing that you are not reporting about the millions of tax payers who would have to fund the payments WASPI are demanding for themselves. Why are you excluding those consumers from your WASPI coverage?MSE_Jason_Mills wrote: »First and foremost, MSE is a consumer champion website and given the large number of consumers affected by these changes, it is editorially appropriate that MSE reports and provides its users with WASPI coverage.
This remark was very clearly in the context of Guy Opperman explaining "that the Government have done a massive amount on a progressive basis to get people back into employment or retraining in their pre-pension years". He never said apprenticeships were "a key solution" for WASPI.MSE_Jason_Mills wrote: »
On reading the transcript of the debate, there’s no doubt that Pensions Minister, Guy Opperman MP put forward apprenticeships as one of the key solutions to those women affected by the changes state pension age:
“Thirdly, we have also extended apprenticeship opportunities—one of the best routes into skilled employment—for people of all ages and gender. For example, in England in 2014 to 2015, 12% of those starting apprenticeships were aged over 45.”
As an important aside, MSE should be aware that WASPI are making a misrepresentation when claiming that they represent 3.5m women born in the 1950s. They do not have permission from most of those women to speak for them, nor have they ever sought such permission from most of them.0
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