WASPI - Women Against State Pension Inequality

ManofLeisure_2

catnose wrote: »

Finding some of the comments here quite upsetting. No wonder women still don't have equal pay and opportunities.
Seems women are more interested in riding each other down than to show solidarity and ask for common sense fairness. I see a lot of 'neh neh', 'should have done like I did', and 'I'm alright Jack'.

This is not so much about raising the pension age for women, but about the way it was done.

I was not aware of any legislation passed 20 years ago regarding my pension age. To inform people properly would have been common decency and the costs negligible considering the impact this has on people's lives. Of course it would have made a difference in the way I planned the future. It is hardly compulsory to watch the news or believe all you read in the papers. Governments, policies and goal posts change at the drop of a hat. Definite decisions about pension age should have been confirmed and clarified in writing to those affected.

It is unfair how the changes have been implemented and it is unfair that some have to bear the brunt of these changes more than others and we should be helped in bridging the gap.

I was born in 1954. No equal opportunities here, I'm afraid. Just years of low paid back breaking work. 3 children. Worked up to a semi professional job, which was then taken away in the name of austerity in 2011. I'm left with a physically demanding low paid job again which is not suited for a woman of my age, health gradually failing and very worried how I'm gonna get through the next few years. I'd sooner have less money in my 'retirement' and not be forced to keep on slogging my tired body.
Women should stop putting the fingers up each other, recognise an unfairness when they see one and stick up for each other

I'm surprised at your comments. There are many people who have contributed to this particular thread, who understand how the system has been particularly unfair towards certain groups of women.

Life can be extremely difficult for many people. You sound as if you've worked extremely hard during your life and in my opinion should receive the support and understanding you deserve. The pension changes in your case, weren't fair, and I can understand your anger.

p00hsticks

surfsister wrote: »

well when i began paying ni contributions my pension age was 60 then it became 65 and now 67. i will get 7 years less pension and pay 7 years more in so how can I not get less!!

But the chances are you WON't be getting 7 years less pension that you could have originally expected, as your life expectancy has increased over that time, which is the whole justification for why the SPA has to be increased.

My pension age was also 60 when I began paying NI. As a woman, my life expectancy at that time would have been around 71 years.

Now my pension age is 66, but due to health improvements over that period average life expectancy for someone my age is now around 77 years - so assuming that I have average life expectancy, I expect to be claiming my state pension for exactly the same time period of 11 years (and therefore getting exactly the same amount) as what I could always have expected.

In addition, when I first started paying NI, I expected to have to pay it for 39 years in order to claim a full state pension - now it's only 30, meaning that if I can afford to I can retire nine years earlier and pay nine years less NI contributions whilst still receiving the same weekly amount of pension money when I do reach SPA. (Before anyone jumps in, I know this is going to rise back up to 35 in a few months).

And with the new State Pension, if I carry on working until my State Pension Age (or just decide to buy additional NI years) , I'll end up with a weekly State Pension of around £155 rather than the £119 (inflation adjusted) I would have expected at the start of my working life.

So in total I'm in a similar position to you. Obviously individual cases will vary but on average, I don't believe the total amount of money you or I will be receiving in state pension is less than what we would have expected at the time we originally started paying NI (in my case, in the mid 1970's).

Bells68

Whilst most people can empathise with the campaign, my biggest issue is that it only focuses on one very specific area of inequity. What about all those men who worked to 65 whilst their female counterparts retired 5 years earlier? Or men who have to wait until the same age to retire despite their life expectancy being 2-3 years less? Or young people excluded from defined benefit pension schemes that people born in the 50's had widespread access to? Or those contracted out of SERPS via final salary schemes who won't get a full state pension? Or....... The list goes on...... Pension changes have had a huge impact on many groups.

Bogof_Babe

I wonder whether the inequality in SPA was historically due to the fact that *most* (i.e. the majority of) people married and lived as a couple, and whereas when a man retired he expected to put his feet up for the rest of his life, perhaps looking after the garden and car as his major or only responsibilities, whereas the wife continued to run the household and do the lions share of the chores, virtually until she was too decrepit to manage.

Nowadays things are different, many people live alone, (some) men are just as capable of cooking a meal as women, but it's not so long ago that women were expected to continue with domestic work well into their retired years.

JezR

The 'official' reasons from the DWP for the drop in pension age for women enacted in 1940 are:

• There was a desire to improve pensions generally and this provided an opportunity which was less costly than other options;
• The fact that wives tended to be younger than their husbands mean that a common pension age was seen as problematic. It was felt that wives should qualify for their pensions at the same time as their husbands;
• Women’s domestic responsibilities on top of their paid work were felt to leave them ‘tired’ at 60.

This ignores the contributory factor of the campaigning through the 1930s of the National Spinsters' Pensions Association who had demanded women's pensions at 55.

State Pensions then were very different - the insured scheme was based on contributions made 5 years before being 65, and not a lifetime record. The majority of those represented by the NSPA were textile workers in the Midlands and North who as their 50s and 60s went on were no longer physically capable of the work, and failing the contribution test had no pension and only public assistance to fall back on (the institution formally called the workhouse) until qualifying for the non contributory pension at 70 - which wouldn't support them either on its own.

ManofLeisure_2

Well, this subject will be debated in parliament on Feb 1st, and anyone who signed the petition will receive a video link and transcript. Should be interesting

BucksLady

ManofLeisure wrote: »

Well, this subject will be debated in parliament on Feb 1st, and anyone who signed the petition will receive a video link and transcript. Should be interesting

Very interesting and probably a hot topic on these boards . Over 118,000 signatures when I last checked.

nationaldubin

You are probably not aware that 1950 women started working at 15 there was no equally opportunities then and we were expected to get married and have kids not a career this is what it was like for working class women. So many have no privat pension and will not be able to stop workin till they are 65. There was no maternity pay either you just left when you had a baby and weren't expected to come back.

Bogof_Babe

nationaldubin wrote: »

You are probably not aware that 1950 women started working at 15 there was no equally opportunities then and we were expected to get married and have kids not a career this is what it was like for working class women. So many have no privat pension and will not be able to stop workin till they are 65. There was no maternity pay either you just left when you had a baby and weren't expected to come back.

Women born in 1950 reached State Pension age when they were 60. Even someone born on 31st December 1950 would have reached it at 60 years and 8 months, so I don't know what you mean about not being able to stop working until they are 65.

If they were receiving Child Benefit for raising a family, they should have had credits towards their pension, I think it was called Home Responsibilities Protection, so they should still have been eligible for a pension based on the years they raised children plus the years they worked.

jem16

nationaldubin wrote: »

You are probably not aware that 1950 women started working at 15 there was no equally opportunities then and we were expected to get married and have kids not a career this is what it was like for working class women. So many have no privat pension and will not be able to stop workin till they are 65. There was no maternity pay either you just left when you had a baby and weren't expected to come back.

I do begin to wonder if I really was born in the 1950s when I read comments like this.

Yes it does apply to some of the earlier born 1950s women, all of whom have a state pension age of less than 65. From 1956 on it didn't apply to any as school leaving age rose to 16 in 1972.

As to the rest, again it applies to some but not all. My friends and I ( born 1953, 54, 55 and 56 ) all stayed at school till age 18 and 3 went onto college, one to nursing. All four had Public Sector pensions. Two of them had Maternity leave and returned to work after having children.

Which is why compensation back to age 60 for ALL 1950s women as WASPI asks for is totally unrealistic. It's also losing support for the main issue which is the acceleration in 2011. Government now digging its heels in.