MSE News: Women's state pension petition gathers over 50,000 signatures

bmm78

mumps wrote: »

I'm not that bothered about the facebook and petition being worded differently. I am sure the people who are debating it can throw out the more extreme demands and at least it gets it debated.

I think it depends on whether the campaign is based on the changes being illegal, or whether they are unfair.

If it's about the legality of the changes, it shouldn't be a factor.

However, if the campaign is based on fairness, it is very risky if they are seen to be misrepresenting their aims on a public petition, and if the position they are taking is perceived as extreme and ultimately unfair to others (eg 1960s women). If WASPI are concerned about the moral high ground and obtaining widespread public sympathy, this could potentially undermine that.

patanne

The trouble is that it is not going to really get debated. All they will talk about is the 'too expensive to change' 1995 changes. When it should all have been about the too rapid changes in 2011. This is always the trouble when you get extremists involved in anything, people only look at their extreme attitudes and not those which most of us would agree with.

I would have signed up to one about the 2011 changes but not to 1995 changes. Why should a man have to work 5 more years for his pension, just because 70 years ago the 'average' man married a woman 5 years younger than himself, when this is no longer the case.

jem16

saver861 wrote: »

Nope - they are referring to the same thing.

Nope - one is talking about fair transitional arrangements and one is talking about unfair compensation going back to age 60.

saver861 wrote: »

Many of the 1950's women did not have 10 years and would have been as few as 6 years in some cases. Therefore, the government will have to justify why these women should not be allowed the 10 years that everyone else had, and will have in the future.

Should be very easy for the 1995 changes which is why the campaign should have been about the 2011 changes for those born up to April 1955. Everyone else had the 10 years notice.

jem16

mumps wrote: »

It could be more than £36k for some women if we went back to age 60. Take me as one example. I retire at 64 years and 9 months so 4.75 years extra pension and my current forecast is £150 and some pence, this is the old pension plus S2P I get less on the new system as I was contracted out for some years so I get the higher of the two. My rough calculation is that I would get an extra £37k or thereabouts, some women would have more S2P than me and some would have more than an extra 4.75 years. It would be a very expensive exercise.

Exactly - which is why it's doomed to failure before it even starts.

I still think the transition should be a bit fairer but don't think there could be enough money to go back to the pre 1995 figures.

Regardless of whether there is enough money or not, the 1995 changes have had 20 years notice so for the last 20 years age 60 has never been the state pension age for the majority of the 1950s women.

Concentrating on the 2011 changes for fairness will attract more sympathy and is more likely to lead to some degree of success.

JezR

patanne wrote: »

Why should a man have to work 5 more years for his pension, just because 70 years ago the 'average' man married a woman 5 years younger than himself, when this is no longer the case.

Incidentally this had very little to do with why the woman's pension age was dropped in 1940 - it was done more to pacify the call for a general rise in the pension as inflation in the first year of the second world war started to bite. There were two fairly strong campaigning groups at the time - the National Federation of Old Age Pensioners Associations and the National Spinsters' Pensions Association, the latter dedicated to the single woman's pension being paid at 55.

Goldiegirl

It's very frustrating that so called experts can't even get it right


Taken from this blog by Paul Lewis


http://paullewismoney.blogspot.co.uk/2015/11/women-given-just-2-years-notice-of.html


Quote

'It is important not to forget another group who got very little notice that their state pension age would be 66. They are the women born from 6 October 1954 to 5 April 1959. Most of these women only heard about the changes at the age of 56 or 57, two or three years before they expected to reach state pension age at 60. Even the very youngest got no more than five years' notice.'

Actually, Paul, it's women born up to April 1960 who were told their pension age would rise to 66


Even if it was up to 5/4/59, in 2011 a women born in 1959 would have been 52 years of age.... so getting much more than 5 years notice


It's shockingly bad that these so called experts throw their weight behind these campaigns, and can't even get the facts right

saver861

jem16 wrote: »

Nope - one is talking about fair transitional arrangements and one is talking about unfair compensation going back to age 60.

Yes but they are not mutually exclusive in the overall context. The 1995 was about raising the spa for women to 65. The debate on that is whether the communication was effective enough for those impacted. That may come down to a matter of judgement if it cannot be agreed. It is an easy assumption to make that it was 20 years ago so 'everyone' should have known. If it can be proven reasonably to the contrary then the government will have to answer.

That's really not any different to any other policy regardless of what it is about. In the same way an employee might fully expect an employer to fully inform their employees of an employment policy change. If it can be shown that it was done fully, fairly and correctly then there is no case to answer. In the same way, if the government can demonstrate they engaged all impacted women on the changes in 1995 fully, fairly and correctly then there is no case to answer.

jem16 wrote: »

Should be very easy for the 1995 changes which is why the campaign should have been about the 2011 changes for those born up to April 1955. Everyone else had the 10 years notice.

It will be a more difficult case for the government to justify why they made the rules that impacted those with less than 10 years to spa. As I have said, why should those women have had less than 10 years and a greater increase to their pension age when others had more than 10 years and only 12 months increase to spa.

saver861

bmm78 wrote: »

However, if the campaign is based on fairness, it is very risky if they are seen to be misrepresenting their aims on a public petition, and if the position they are taking is perceived as extreme and ultimately unfair to others (eg 1960s women).

You really do need to get past this bro. A petition is simply that, a petition to get the MP's to debate it. Even, if a petition reaches the 100,000 it does not automatically mean it will be debated.

You can't misrepresent it. It is merely a petition to get the MP's to agree to debate it.

I can start a petition to abolish Monday's. If it gets to 100,000 then it will be considered for debate. They may even agree to debate it. Even if they do debate it, we may still have Monday's long after the debate has concluded.

bmm78

saver861 wrote: »

You really do need to get past this bro. A petition is simply that, a petition to get the MP's to debate it. Even, if a petition reaches the 100,000 it does not automatically mean it will be debated.

You can't misrepresent it. It is merely a petition to get the MP's to agree to debate it.

I can start a petition to abolish Monday's. If it gets to 100,000 then it will be considered for debate. They may even agree to debate it. Even if they do debate it, we may still have Monday's long after the debate has concluded.

Your posts are getting increasingly bizarre.

zagfles

saver861 wrote: »

You are continually comparing this to men - the unfairness in this is not just comparing men and women. A certain group of women have had a greater deal of unfairness from this compared to other women.

Yes, some got their state pension at 60. That's very unfair. My wife gets hers at 67. Any change is unfair when you carefully select who you're going to compare. You think one comparison is unfair, I think another. You are no more right than me.

As for Mr Smith - his spa was always 65. It was then changed to 66, 67, etc. There was just one change for men.

Rubbish there were 2 changes in my SPA. Originally it was going to be 65, then 66, then 67.

You are comparing apples and pears again ....

The personal pension is optional. Everyone had a choice on whether they paid into it or not. There was no loss of money as a result of this change. It only impacted those who chose to retire before 55.

It's a perfectly valid comparison. Someone may have made plans to retire at 50 by contributing lots to a private pension. As a result of the rule change, they may have no longer been able to retire at 50 since their money wasn't accessible till 55. So they have to work 5 years longer than planned. But you reckon it's unfair that some women will have to work 18 months longer than planned.

The current agreement is that any state pension changes should be more than 10 yrs from spa. The women being impacted most severely were 6-8 years from their 1995 spa.

Err...how many years ago was 1995?