WASPI - Women Against State Pension Inequality

BucksLady

WASPI accept that state pension age must rise as people live longer. But feel that it's unfair that women were not informed personally in 1995 and 2011 when fundamental changes were made. The group is currently getting a barrister's opinion on the viability of a legal challenge to the Government's plans.

https://www.facebook.com/WASPI-Women-Against-State-Pension-Inequality-877054125688402/timeline/

These changes affect over 500,000 women born during the 1950's.

bowlhead99

As they mention on their fundraising site:

many women were not aware at the time of these changes (1995). Although there was – not surprisingly – widespread media coverage of the issue, for women in their mid 40s at the time, pensions might not have been a subject of great interest.

Good luck with your campaign but I hope for the sake of the country's finances and fairness to everyone who isn't a woman born in the '50s, we don't go back in time 20 years and re-write the legislation to allow women of that era to continue to retire earlier than men.

Commentors on the Facebook page might enjoy ranting that "They are just rough riding regarding women as we are treated as second class citizens" but presumably if women in their 60s have have longer cohort life expectancies, perhaps there is an argument that women should generally retire even later than their male counterparts, rather than having a longer period of state support

There are also complaints that only a year difference in birthday can make quite a bit more than a year difference in retirement age. I'm sure people are sympathetic to the fact that you could have been born on 1 Jan '53 and get state pension at age 62 and two thirds, while if you had the misfortune to be born 1 Jan '54, you can only claim from age 65 and two months...

...but to get from everyone retiring at 60 to everyone retiring at 66+ in a reasonably short space of time there are always going to be relative 'winners' and 'losers'. You have to stick the date markers somewhere to stop it being fiendishly complicated.

The woman born in '54 might think they've been hard done by but really it is just the women before her got a sweet deal the country can't afford, and the deal that she now gets is the same as what the men get, despite the fact that when you both retire in 2019, the woman will statistically live another 24.7 years while the man is going to pop his clogs in 22.1 years.

Whilst it would be great in a utopia to have everyone get individually notified by letter or phone call when the changes were announced to significant media scrutiny in 1995 and further tweaked in 2011, I can't see that it is equitable that if someone claims to not have heard about it, we should wind the clock back just for them. So presumably that isn't what's sought. Which means the group is presumably saying we should wind the clock back for everyone just in case there are some who didn't hear about it or others who felt 10-15 years notice wasn't enough to put aside extra cash or line up a job to get them through part of their early 60s.

I accept that this comment probably sounds like it wasn't written by a woman born in the early '50s, because it wasn't

dunstonh

But feel that it's unfair that women were not informed personally in 1995 and 2011 when fundamental changes were made.

Whilst I have some sympathy with the accelerated time from 65 to 66 for some women, I have no sympathy whatsoever for the move from 60 to 65. That happened 20 years ago and had heavy media coverage. It also had a long lead in time where consultation took place. That was the time to campaign which is the whole point of consultation. However, the women now campaigning would have been in their 30s. So, probably had no interest in pensions. It wouldnt have mattered had they been personally contacted or not.

BucksLady

I'm actually in my 30's, but thought this campaign may be of interest to some of the women who have been affected by the changes, and others' too .

missbiggles1

"Informed personally"? How much would that have cost, just to let people know who can't be bothered to follow the news?

A pointless campaign that just makes adult women look like idiots!

ManofLeisure_2

BucksLady wrote: »

I'm actually in my 30's, but thought this campaign may be of interest to some of the women who have been affected by the changes, and others' too .

Judging from the amount of discussion on this forum about this issue - I'm sure it will be .

ManofLeisure_2

missbiggles1 wrote: »

A pointless campaign that just makes adult women look like idiots!

Well, I certainly don't agree . Good Luck to them.

missbiggles1

ManofLeisure wrote: »

Well, I certainly don't agree . Good Luck to them.

But you're a man and I'm a woman, born in the 50s and affected by the changes.

jem16

BucksLady wrote: »

But feel that it's unfair that women were not informed personally in 1995 and 2011 when fundamental changes were made.

Well I'm one of those women born in the 1950s and who has been affected by these changes.

Personally I have known for a long time that I would not get my state pension until I was 65 and certainly do not feel it was unfair that no-one wrote to me personally. After all, as a grown woman, I was perfectly capable of reading and listening to the news that it was splashed all over. Just think of all the money wasted personally informing those people who would just have ignored it in the same way they ignored what was in the news.

I am perhaps a little miffed that it was raised from age 65 to age 66 at relatively short notice and those born in 1953/4 are a bit more affected than I am but sometimes these things happen and life can be unfair.

The group is currently getting a barrister's opinion on the viability of a legal challenge to the Government's plans.

I can't see it getting anywhere. The main change from 60 to 65 was announced way back in 1995 and didn't start happening until 2010. How much notice do people want? People really need to start taking responsibility for their own affairs.

The more recent change to age 66 was challenged and it was changed to make sure no-one waited more than an extra 18 months as opposed to the two years it was going to be.

ManofLeisure_2

missbiggles1 wrote: »

But you're a man and I'm a woman, born in the 50s and affected by the changes.

Well, I'm a chap born in the 50's, married to a woman born in the 50's and also affected by the changes. In the financial sense, we are not affected. However, I do genuinely feel for ''some'' of the women affected and who may not have been (for many reasons) as fortunate as ourselves.

Playing_with_Fire_2

I'm not affected by the changes, however I support the campaign.

The main reason is that women born at that time didn't have the same opportunities for work as men, the social expectation for staying home to raise children was much stronger, and it seems that the main assumption for women was that they would have their husbands pension to retire on.

I support that the retirement ages should be equalised, and that work opportunities should be equalised, however it is unfair to penalise the women who didn't have equal work opportunities before, by increasing their retirement age more quickly than they can plan for it.

There is still a significant pay gap between what men and women earn and what men and women can save for retirement. Once the government have fixed that they have my full support to close the gap in the state pension age, but not before, and not without enough notice.