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

missbiggles1

monkeyspanner wrote: »

The notice provided for both men and women following the decision to accerate equalisation and increase the pension age by a year in 2011was inadequate. Plus due to the overlaping effect of these measures many women were more affected than the equivalent age man. Waspi is not disagreeing that equalisation was necessary but that the process was mismanaged.
This has been admitted by the then pensions minister Steve Webb who described it as a bad decision http://citywire.co.uk/new-model-adviser/news/webb-we-made-a-bad-decision-on-state-pension-age-rises/a866283

Compare the introduction of these measures to the alteration to public service pensions which protected those workers from any changes to pensions within a 10year period.

As regards the notification of the changes originally proposed in 1995. Some (but not all) women affected received individual letters informing them of a change to their retirement age. These letters started to be sent out in 2009 and the process continued until 2011 BUT this was discontinued in 2011 when the 65-66 and accelerated equalisation were proposed. It is not clear how many women were informed.

There was so much information about this in the media you'd've had to be sleepwalking not to have been aware of the changes introduced in 1995.

monkeyspanner

missbiggles1 wrote: »

There was so much information about this in the media you'd've had to be sleepwalking not to have been aware of the changes introduced in 1995.

That may be true but even if you had been aware of the 1995 changes and had made appropriate plans this was then changed with insufficient notice in 2011.

patanne

Certainly men got (& still do get) a much better return from their graduated pension contributions than women do & with benefits for their wives. Women had to contribute £9 to receive the same as men did for a contribution of £7. I'm all for equality but that doesn't look very equal to me.

And for those who quote women's life expectancy as being higher than men's. this is now slowly beginning to equalise and interestingly it is women's that is dropping not men's that is growing. I fully expect that by the time the SPA is 67, that lower paid workers who have struggled to stay employed because they cannot afford to retire, will have a lower life expectancy which will reduce average life expectancy.

Just don't expect the value of your annuity to go up, now you pretty much have to have a pension the only way that is going is down.

saver861

missbiggles1 wrote: »

There was so much information about this in the media you'd've had to be sleepwalking not to have been aware of the changes introduced in 1995.

I don't think there is any expectation that the 1995 rule will be changed.

However, I don't see why you would object to those women born in the 1950's who have been adversely affected by the 2011 changes. Someone who thought they were getting their pension at 64 now has to wait until nearly 66 which is almost two years in many cases.

Some women who are 63 are able to pick up their pension at that age. A woman a year or so younger has to wait until almost 66.

It's not just a case of comparing men versus women. There are a certain selection of women who are being impacted much more negatively than others, just simply because they fall into a certain birthdate bracket.

That's simply unfair to these women.

Pincher

I am expecting the council tax to go up, to pay for care homes.
If they take any notice of this, it's another hike on something else.


I was supposed to get state pension at 65, now it's 67.
I expect this "new" state pension is just another way to diddle what I get, i.e. less. Do I complain? What's the point? George Osborne can only rob Pete to pay Paul, I will just end up paying more on something else.


Cut hormone replacement therapy on NHS, and charge women lots to stay peppy, to pay for this. So it's rob Roxanne to pay Jill. Keep us guys out of it.

brewerdave

Pincher wrote: »

I am expecting the council tax to go up, to pay for care homes.
If they take any notice of this, it's another hike on something else.


I was supposed to get state pension at 65, now it's 67.
I expect this "new" state pension is just another way to diddle what I get, i.e. less. Do I complain? What's the point? George Osborne can only rob Pete to pay Paul.

...absolutely ! There is only a finite amount of money - and there are LOTS of "special interest" groups eg what about the shameful way pre 1988 GMP has been dealt with ??

bowlhead99

There's only so much money in the pot. If the petition were to somehow succeed where others have failed and pension ages were re-calibrated yet again, presumably everyone who wasn't a woman in that particular age bracket could petition for it to be re-done yet again - on the grounds that they were losing out by having to budget to pay more tax or reduce public services in order to fund what the 0.1% of the population who so far signed the WASPI petition had demanded.

The amount of money isn't a huge amount in the grand scheme of things but the same could be said for the requests of any special interest group. I'm not entirely devoid of sympathy for those affected by the most recent goalpost-changes but it happened long enough ago now (2011, and we are just about to go into 2016) that the arguments have been floating around for ages and so there is nothing 'new' which requires debate?

zagfles

patanne wrote: »

Certainly men got (& still do get) a much better return from their graduated pension contributions than women do & with benefits for their wives. Women had to contribute £9 to receive the same as men did for a contribution of £7. I'm all for equality but that doesn't look very equal to me.

Indeed, but of course graduated pension was accrued between 1961-1975, well before any talk of equalising the SPA, and before even the sex discrimination act. So men got a better annual return but in general paid for fewer years.

missbiggles1

monkeyspanner wrote: »

That may be true but even if you had been aware of the 1995 changes and had made appropriate plans this was then changed with insufficient notice in 2011.

That's what I've been saying - campaigns should concentrate on this aspect of the changes and not make themselves look foolish by arguing that the 1995 changes didn't give adequate notice.

missbiggles1

saver861 wrote: »

I don't think there is any expectation that the 1995 rule will be changed.

However, I don't see why you would object to those women born in the 1950's who have been adversely affected by the 2011 changes. Someone who thought they were getting their pension at 64 now has to wait until nearly 66 which is almost two years in many cases.

Some women who are 63 are able to pick up their pension at that age. A woman a year or so younger has to wait until almost 66.

It's not just a case of comparing men versus women. There are a certain selection of women who are being impacted much more negatively than others, just simply because they fall into a certain birthdate bracket.

That's simply unfair to these women.

Then why is that the headline point in the petition?

For the rest, see my answer above.