MSE News: Guest Comment: Why women may lose out under the new state pension

saver861

Goldiegirl wrote: »

Products were available in the 1990's. Personal pensions were available. If you were in a company pension you could pay AVCs.

If people had have bothered to look into it, they would have more options today. The information was out there.

Who is to blame that nobody bothered?

No I don't think thats the right response. Its true that each individual is responsible for their own affairs and some have been more proactive than others.

However, turn back 40 years ago or so, there was nowhere near as much information, advice etc on such matters. If the majority of people did not have sufficient information etc to take decisive action then, collective, they cannot be at fault.

I know of a woman who worked at Asda in the 70's and was advised to pay the married womans stamp as that was the cheapest option and that's what the majority of married women done at the time.

You may be an exception and dug deeper to assess your needs but in a general sense, regardless of the situation, if the information provided is not transparent enough for the masses, then it is insufficient for the purpose intended.

jem16

saver861 wrote: »

Well I stand to be corrected but my understanding was that the married womans stamp did not contribute to their pension.

It didn't. However the same married women are able to claim on their husband's NI contributions and get 60% of his basic state pension. That was the whole point.

LHW99

I began work in the 70's, and have been 'caught' by the double raise in pensions. I don't grudge it since pension ages would probably be around 80 now if they had gone up with life expectancies since state pension was introduced.

Information that the reduced stamp was not the best idea was out there, and didn't need too much digging for - I was certainly not financially savvy at that age, but was still aware of it.

Also, women with families are likely to be the ones with credits for HRP on their records, as it was rarer for child benefit to be paid to the male partner - perhaps another 'discrimination'?

dunstonh

he gripe should be about the lack of pension products available at that time to fill the gap. No one bothered in the nineties. New freedom regulations mean that women in their fifties should now be packing their pension

Personal Pensions were introduced in 1988. The changes to the women's state pension age was 1995. So, the products were there.

saver861

jem16 wrote: »

It didn't. However the same married women are able to claim on their husband's NI contributions and get 60% of his basic state pension. That was the whole point.

... except ...... if they divorced and remarried then they counted for naught ... which impacts on a considerable number ....

Goldiegirl

Linton wrote: »

You cant blame people for not foreseeing circumstance 25 years later.

It is indeed true that none of us have a crystal ball, and can't see into the future.


But, we are all going to get older (we hope), so this is something that we should all foresee and make provision for our retirement. Back in the 90's when the increase in the state pension age for women was first announced, it shouldn't have taken too much joining up of the dots for women to think they needed to do something if they still wanted to retire at age 60.

saver861 wrote: »

No I don't think thats the right response. Its true that each individual is responsible for their own affairs and some have been more proactive than others.

However, turn back 40 years ago or so, there was nowhere near as much information, advice etc on such matters. If the majority of people did not have sufficient information etc to take decisive action then, collective, they cannot be at fault.

I know of a woman who worked at Asda in the 70's and was advised to pay the married womans stamp as that was the cheapest option and that's what the majority of married women done at the time.

You may be an exception and dug deeper to assess your needs but in a general sense, regardless of the situation, if the information provided is not transparent enough for the masses, then it is insufficient for the purpose intended.

But in subsequent years, the information has become more and more easily available..... shouldn't the individual have the responsibility to seek out this information and apply it to their situation, to rectify, as much as possible, things that happened in the past.

saver861

LHW99 wrote: »

Information that the reduced stamp was not the best idea was out there, and didn't need too much digging for - I was certainly not financially savvy at that age, but was still aware of it.

But ... I'm not sure the majority were aware of it, and thus the information was insufficient.

In a similar context, it's for that reason that the 'small print' era is gradually being addressed. It is necessary to cater for the varying degrees of intellect of the masses when conveying information.

I have always been reasonably financially savvy, but I'm a lot more so now than I was in my 20's and 30's - simply down to education and experience.

saver861

Goldiegirl wrote: »

But in subsequent years, the information has become more and more easily available..... shouldn't the individual have the responsibility to seek out this information and apply it to their situation, to rectify, as much as possible, things that happened in the past.

Absolutely, and I would expect most have done so. But I don't think that in itself corrects any previous wrongs. There may be circumstances where people were not able to make up the shortfall due to individual personal circumstances etc.

greenglide

Information that the reduced stamp was not the best idea was out there, and didn't need too much digging for -

The MWRRE was aimed, primarily, at woment who would work for a year or so and then leave to have children - in those days that is what was expected. Then when they were older they "might" do part time work for which there was another category of stamp - less than 14 hours?

The point was that because you needed 10 years contributions to get anything (that comes back next year) married women were not expected to achieve the 10 years so the MWRRE made sense.

Things have changed.

Jack_Griffin

Al. wrote: »

An article written by someone who purports to embrace equality, who then requests preferential treatment. I wonder if the supporters of this campaign would have been equally measured in their response if discrimination legislation that sought to help and which had as much of a languid timeframe was as objectionable.

Dead right. The details have been online for some time. https://www.gov.uk/search?q=pension+ages
It has been possible to get a government pension forecast for many years, I got one in 2002 when I was ~45 & again in 2013