revert the pension age to 60/65

mumps

margaretclare wrote: »

No, many of them didn't know they had a choice. Especially the older ones, to whom it applied from 1948 onwards. In early 1957, for instance, I was told that 'it was just what you did' and I wouldn't have known otherwise except that I went to claim unemployment benefit (as it was called then) that summer and I had it explained to me by knowledgeable friends. Bless them both!

By the 1960s, especially the later years of that decade, women began to be better-informed.

I thought that the original poster could have made himself/herself clearer as to what he/she felt he/she had had 'stolen' from him/her. Many people might feel that paying income tax, which may be spent on things they don't approve of, might feel it was 'stolen' from them in that they didn't have a choice, it just went. No, I was not being 'a bit sarky'. I'm not the one who has been 'sarky' in this discussion - look a bit closer to home, Mumps!

My granny paid the full stamp in the 40s 50s and 60s. So did my mother. They both left school at 14 and wouldn't have claimed to be particularly well informed but they wouldn't have signed up to something without checking out what it meant. Their SRP was something they viewed as important.

So in fact I was right, you didn't understand.

If my sarcasm refers to socks I admit it, I found the obsession with me buying socks on a Sunday quite funny, particularly as I clearly stated I don't even wear socks. It seemed to be the whole issue of Sunday trading revolved round my (imaginary) socks. Hilarious.

mumps

OldBeanz wrote: »

I certainly worked with a female in the early seventies who saw getting married and paying the married woman's stamp as money in her pocket. No thought went into whether there was any downside in the long term. This was after equal pay legislation.
The true inequity of pensions was that women were allowed to draw the pension 5 years before men although they lived longer. Now men drawing their pension at sixty and women at 65 sounds fairer.

Yes lots of women just looked at it in the short term and sometimes that was right if they needed the money then, they would probably have along time to work when children were older and life a bit more sorted to change back, they could change back any time they wanted. I was doing payroll in 60s and 70s, we had a form women had to sign but I can't remember if it was our form or a government one but an employer couldn't just change it without agreement.

You are right about men's retirement, I feel particularly sorry for men like miners and men in very heavy physical work who would really would be burnt out by 65 and have very little time to enjoy their retirement. Much harder for them than women who didn't want to pay the full stamp but now want a full pension.

I suppose this has changed with lots of heavy industry gone but still an issue for some. We had an old friend who had worked in the Yorkshire coalfields all his life, he did in fact have over ten years retirement but for most of it was only able to work short distances and had real problems with his breathing. Fifty one years real hard work.

Just had a look around and it seems it was a government form that women had to sign to pay the reduced stamp not just one my firm made up.

mumps

Baroness Hollis of Heigham (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department for Work and Pensions; Labour)
My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for making that point. Women first entering the labour market in the 1960s and 1970s had to sign to elect to receive the reduced stamp; secondly, in 1977–78, they had all the information described by my noble friend; thirdly, they received further information in 1989; and, fourthly, they were given further information in 2000 associated with the changes in the lower earnings limit. So, on four occasions, married women paying the reduced stamp received fairly straightforward—I do not say that it was brilliant—accessible information on which to make an informed choice.


Just found this from a debate in 2002, I don't understand how people are still saying they didn't know about it.

From the same debate when it was suggested that women should be able to go back and pay the extra.


Baroness Hollis of Heigham (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department for Work and Pensions; Labour) "My Lords, the noble Baroness has a proud record, particularly on issues such as inherited SERPS. However, I cannot help her on this issue. This is a pay-as-you-go scheme. Most married women who continued to enjoy the reduced stamp after 1977-78 did well financially out of it. Obviously, that was not the case for some individuals. To recalculate now on a PAYE basis and decide whether there were adverse consequences would be difficult practically, and I am not sure that it would be fair. It would be like saying that a married woman who opted to pay the full stamp in 1978 but who, over the next 25 years, had low or intermittent earnings—with the result that her state pension was no higher than she would have got on her husband's contribution—should also be allowed to revisit her choice. We cannot do that."

I think she explains it very well, we had a choice sometimes the choice worked out well, sometimes less well. In my case I paid full stamp by the time I can draw me SRP I will have paid 49 years, I could have paid reduced stamp for 19 years of lower stamp and got the same pension. Should I be able to go back and ask for a refund? Should the many men who will have paid 50 years or more? Sometimes we have to live with the consequences of our decisions. People would do better to encourage the women still paying the reduced stamp to change.

margaretclare

People would do better to encourage the women still paying the reduced stamp to change.

Given that the 'choice' to pay the smaller amount was withdrawn for any woman who married after 6th April 1978, those who may be still paying it are unlikely to benefit from changing back now. Although, of course, they could have done so at any time in those intervening years. They will have been paying it for at least 35 years and cannot now regain what they've lost.

mumps

margaretclare wrote: »

Given that the 'choice' to pay the smaller amount was withdrawn for any woman who married after 6th April 1978, those who may be still paying it are unlikely to benefit from changing back now. Although, of course, they could have done so at any time in those intervening years. They will have been paying it for at least 35 years and cannot now regain what they've lost.

They might have another ten years at work and had contributions before marriage so they need to work out how it would affect them, pretty much what they should have done in the first place really.

margaretclare

I could have paid reduced stamp for 19 years of lower stamp and got the same pension.

But if you had been unfortunate enough to need to claim unemployment benefit or JSA or any of the other names it has gone under, you would not have been able to. And no, you were not right. I simply felt that the original query was worded in such a way as to make an intelligent response more difficult.

mumps

margaretclare wrote: »

We didn't get the OP back to explain what he/she means, what has been stolen, why he/she wants a backward step.

margaretclare wrote: »

But if you had been unfortunate enough to need to claim unemployment benefit or JSA or any of the other names it has gone under, you would not have been able to. And no, you were not right. I simply felt that the original query was worded in such a way as to make an intelligent response more difficult.

I have never been unemployed and it was not something I ever considered. I was brought up by parents who moved country to ensure they worked. My husband always worked until he was injured at work and was no longer able to work. As I care for and support him he would have done the same for me. If that wasn't possible we would have had family support just as we have supported family when they needed it.

So if you understood what the OP was asking why did you want to know what had been "stolen" as you knew?

mgdavid

mumps wrote: »

I have never been unemployed and it was not something I ever considered. I was brought up by parents who moved country to ensure they worked. My husband always worked until he was injured at work and was no longer able to work. As I care for and support him he would have done the same for me. If that wasn't possible we would have had family support just as we have supported family when they needed it.

So if you understood what the OP was asking why did you want to know what had been "stolen" as you knew?

God you do go on, don't you?
<Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition>
:rotfl:

seven-day-weekend

I must admit I find it hard to understand WHY people didn't understand the consequences of paying the 'small' stamp, I always did, my employer explained it to me. However, I must not dismiss the testimonies from older women who said they didn't know they had a choice, whose employers apparently did not make the information available, who thought that they had to pay the small stamp, that it was what happened after you got married.

I have a friend, only a few years older than me, who worked in a Government office before she was married and she did not know you could continue to pay the full stamp. I have no reason to disbelieve her.

So it appears that some women didn't know initially . However I still don't see why they should get the same as those of us who DID pay the full stamp. They did have ample chances to change, as quoted above. They have got what they paid for.

(And actually, having read the OP again, I don't understand what they are asking, either).

mumps

seven-day-weekend wrote: »

I must admit I find it hard to understand WHY people didn't understand the consequences of paying the 'small' stamp, I always did, my employer explained it to me. However, I must not dismiss the testimonies from older women who said they didn't know they had a choice, whose employers apparently did not make the information available, who thought that they had to pay the small stamp, that it was what happened after you got married.

I have a friend, only a few years older than me, who worked in a Government office before she was married and she did not know you could continue to pay the full stamp. I have no reason to disbelieve her.

So it appears that some women didn't know initially . However I still don't see why they should get the same as those of us who DID pay the full stamp. They did have ample chances to change, as quoted above. They have got what they paid for.

(And actually, having read the OP again, I don't understand what they are asking, either).

I think people do forget things over 40 odd years so they may have been told and should have signed to say they wanted to pay the smaller stamp. The thing is when we are young we don't imagine being a pensioner, I did it because of family advice but I don't suppose everyone gets that and even though the saving was small some people might have needed the extra. It is hard to say now.

I wonder what happens when the new pension comes in, is it 2016? I'm sure I read they are doing away with the pension for a spouse who hasn't paid their stamp, I think its 60% for them now but what happens if it is stopped?