Married women and the Reduced Rate of NI

jamesd

Beenie wrote: »

Are you one of the ladies, married before 1977, and who paid the Married Womans Reduced Rate NI contribution? ... The MWRR was withdrawn in 1977, but as long as you stayed in employment and remained married, you were entitled to retain the reduced rate.

As you wrote, it's estimated that only around 3,00 women in the whole country have chosen to do that all the way to flat rate introduction. The rest saw the news about all of the changes and switched to the full stamp to improve their position and many of those will now be able to get the full flat rate state pension or more in their own right.

For those 3,000 people there's transitional protection that'll get them something reasonably comparable to what the reduced rate would have paid, described on page 17 of this document.

If you contact the Future Pension Centre they should be able to confirm your situation and that you will get the transitional protection.

Don't be concerned about what state pension forecasts say, those are about only your entitlement based on your own contributions, not those derived from someone else or using transitional protections.

greenglide

For those 3,000 people there's transitional protection that'll get them something reasonably comparable to what the reduced rate would have paid, described on page 17 of this document.

I was under the impression that the safeguard amount was available to anyone who was paying the RRE when it was no longer allowed to new members, some 35 years ago. This will be considerably more than the 3,000 mentioned and seems to be potentially very generous to some - they get the safeguard amount even if they do not meet the minimum qualifying period of 10 years.

The situation for widow(er)s and divorcees is similar as well - they can get the safeguard amount, set at about 60% of the maximum nSP amount.

This "simplifies" and replaces the old inheritance and substitution which ends with nSP.

Beenie

People make financial decisions based on the legislation at that time.

I paid my 'half stamp' from 1975 to 2010 i.e. 35 years, so I expect my half pension, and not be fobbed off with a few pence per week.

Re. the possibility for me to change to a full stamp, it didn't make financial sense. I personally wouldn't have been able to work the extra 10 years required for the full state pension. To do that would have meant working for a total 45 years. Maybe others choose to do that as someone has said upthread, but as I was content with the smaller state pension based on MWRR conts, I stuck with it.

My original point was that I thought the govt. had abandoned paying this particular pension, but as several people have posted links to the transitional arrangements, then I am satisfied that I will get the pension I always thought I would!

atush

Re. the possibility for me to change to a full stamp, it didn't make financial sense.

Sure it made sense, you just didn't want to do it. You could right now be eligible for a full basic SP if you had.

greenglide

People make financial decisions based on the legislation at that time.

But many (most?) people make financial decisions based on what the current gossip is / what is the cheapest now / other random reasons.

The "small stamp" was a hangover from a bygone age when married women were assumed to only work for a short period of time before leaving work to have children and not expected to return. Since there was, at the time, a minimum number of years to get any pension (as there will be again from 6/4/2016) there were circumstances under which this was "sensible" but people who were in long term employment really need to consider whether this was the right thing to do and many didnt.