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

jem16

mumps wrote: »

Well I was in my 40s in 1995 and I didn't read women's magazines, my sister didn't, my friends didn't so unless my particular circle of friends is unique I don't think it was particularly well targetted. I think a lot of young women, late teens and 20s read fashion and beauty magazines, a lot of older women like my gran read the Women's Weekly type magazines.

I didn't read women's magazines but I know many of my age group ( ie in 40s at the time ) who did.

However the main point here is that in 1995 there were articles on the news, TV , radio, magazines and booklets from the DWP etc. In other words it was done to try and inform as many as possible without actually sending out individual letters which would have been very costly.

I think in the 1990s alot of women who needed the information were busy bringing up kids and holding down jobs so that might explain why alot of women who were affected by the changes didn't learn about them.

Well I certainly was - two children under 10 and in a full-time job. I knew about the changes as did all my friends and colleagues. So why did the others not know - did they and have forgotten now or were they not that interested at the time in something that was 20 years away, or really just not interested in financial stuff at all?

I have never said that the change should take place overnight and mean an extra six years

That's what WASPI are campaigning for though. They want all women born in the 1950s to be compensated for up to 6 years worth of pension. 1960s women are not part of their campaign so they will just have to accept a 6 year change to their pension age and some of them didn't have the 10 year notice either.

Ros Altmann's campaign did actually get the further increase of 2 years down to 18 months for those born in 1953/54 but it seems that WASPI members are targeting her now for not doing enough.

http://citywire.co.uk/new-model-adviser/news/why-its-wrong-to-make-altmann-the-state-pension-scapegoat/a868040?ref=new-model-adviser-features-list

There are many posts on Facebook complaining that their comments to Citywire's article are not being accepted and saying the article is naïve and misses the point. It appears that the point is compensation of up to 6 years and nothing less for 1950s women regardless of circumstances.

JezR

Not all women's magazines skew old - OK! and Hello for example both skew young. Nearly all though skew to a greater or lesser degree towards C2DE ​social and ​economic ​groups. I have no idea what magazines were used in 2004 though.

mumps

jem16 wrote: »

I didn't read women's magazines but I know many of my age group ( ie in 40s at the time ) who did.

However the main point here is that in 1995 there were articles on the news, TV , radio, magazines and booklets from the DWP etc. In other words it was done to try and inform as many as possible without actually sending out individual letters which would have been very costly.



Well I certainly was - two children under 10 and in a full-time job. I knew about the changes as did all my friends and colleagues. So why did the others not know - did they and have forgotten now or were they not that interested at the time in something that was 20 years away, or really just not interested in financial stuff at all?



That's what WASPI are campaigning for though. They want all women born in the 1950s to be compensated for up to 6 years worth of pension. 1960s women are not part of their campaign so they will just have to accept a 6 year change to their pension age and some of them didn't have the 10 year notice either.

Ros Altmann's campaign did actually get the further increase of 2 years down to 18 months for those born in 1953/54 but it seems that WASPI members are targeting her now for not doing enough.

http://citywire.co.uk/new-model-adviser/news/why-its-wrong-to-make-altmann-the-state-pension-scapegoat/a868040?ref=new-model-adviser-features-list

There are many posts on Facebook complaining that their comments to Citywire's article are not being accepted and saying the article is naïve and misses the point. It appears that the point is compensation of up to 6 years and nothing less for 1950s women regardless of circumstances.

I was originally responding to a post saying women had been informed, there had been articles in women's magazines, I was just pointing out that alot of women don't read them. I knew about the changes even though in 1995 I had 4 kids, two under 5 but it was my job, I ran an HR department and large payroll. Why didn't other women know? I have no idea. Did they know and have forgotten? I don't know. I do know that I didn't learn about it from women's magazines or the news, I did read about it in professional publications and newspapers and from what people are saying alot of women didn't know or have forgotten.

I have also read that we all got letters about the 2011 changes but I didn't, I would have noticed, as I said it was my job. I also know that lots of people didn't know about things like pension forecast, S2P etc. I have had several forecasts over the years and I wonder if that was why they didn't write to me as they knew I was already aware?

I had a retired bank manager working for me at one time, it was a part time job after he took early retirement. We were talking about his retirement one day and he commented on the level of his state pension, I asked him if he knew what he was likely to get and he said yes and quoted the SRP at the time. I asked him if he knew what his S2P was as he hadn't joined our company scheme. He had no idea what I was talking about so I explained how to get a forecast, he came and thanked me a few weeks later as he had discovered he had about and extra £1.5k per year to look forward to.

It has always amazed me that people don't know about such things, have no idea how tax and NI works but I promise you the level of knowledge in the general population is amazingly low.

If I had a pound for every student who has told me they don't need to pay tax I would be a very wealthy woman.

Anyone can post anything on Facebook. I could go on and say I am a member of WASPI, or MSE for that matter, and I demand my pension should be doubled. Doesn't mean anything.

The point of the petition was to get a debate and it was successful, I am sure the MPs in the debate can sort or what are reasonable concerns and what are unreasonable demands.

I think ten years notice is fair, people who got less than that do have a legitimate concern. I can't imagine they are going to go back on the plans completely but I do think the 18 months extra without proper notice should be looked at. Everyone will have their own view, the number of people who have said to me that I should be glad the qualifying years has been reduced (didn't make any difference to me) or that I should be glad I will get the new flat rate pension (no I am better off on the old pension due to S2P) but I understand that they haven't looked at how the details will affect me. Why would they? I haven't worked out exactly how a woman born in 1960 is affected in detail, I do know their retirement age has changed. It would be hard to know all the details wouldn't it? If I had been born 8 hrs earlier I could get my SRP 4 months earlier, I don't expect people to randomly know that.

mumps

JezR wrote: »

Not all women's magazines skew old - OK! and Hello for example both skew young. Nearly all though skew to a greater or lesser degree towards C2DE ​social and ​economic ​groups. I have no idea what magazines were used in 2004 though.

I thought it was 1995 when they were running these campaigns, 2004 does make more sense, it comes back to the ten year thing, somehow people think 20 years is so far away they don't take much notice. One you get to ten I think people are considering retirement more seriously.

Goldiegirl

jem16 wrote: »

That's what WASPI are campaigning for though. They want all women born in the 1950s to be compensated for up to 6 years worth of pension. 1960s women are not part of their campaign so they will just have to accept a 6 year change to their pension age and some of them didn't have the 10 year notice either.

People born between 6th October 1954 and 5th April 1960 had their State pension age increased to 66 in 2011


These WASPI's keep on going on about fairness, yet they can't even campaign for all the women in the affected age group.


I wonder if they think it's equitable that someone born on 31/12/59 could retire at age 60, and then someone born on 1/1/60 has to retire at 66. Not to mention the people born on or after 6th April 1960, when the pension age begins to rise to 67.


But I suspect the thought hasn't even crossed their mind. From reading the Facebook page, they seem to be getting carried away, and aren't thinking straight at all.


As a person born in March 1960, I'm loosing no sleep over this part of their campaign, 'cos it simply ain't going to happen

saver861

jem16 wrote: »

That's what WASPI are campaigning for though. They want all women born in the 1950s to be compensated for up to 6 years worth of pension. 1960s women are not part of their campaign so they will just have to accept a 6 year change to their pension age and some of them didn't have the 10 year notice either.

If there is a change in that the government was forced to comply with its existing rules, i.e. that changes to state pensions should have at least 10 years notice, then anyone who had changes impacted on them would have those changes reversed! However, a woman born in 1960 would have been 51 in 2011. That would have been at least 14 years from their expected spa of 65.

A woman born in 1957 would have been 54 in 2011 and may just be outside the 10 year notice period. Thus there would be no change for those as they would have had 10 years notice.

A woman born in 1953 would have been 58 in 2011 and around 6 years from her spa. However, she has had an extra 18 months imposed and has just 6 years notice.

As you and others have said you agree that is unfair - my question would be what have you done to support that unfairness being removed?

You don't have to support the WASPI campaign if you don't agree with it but you can take steps to have the unfairness smoothed for these women, particularly those in 1953 and 1954.

So what do you think should happen in relation to the 2011 changes for those women?

Goldiegirl

mumps wrote: »

I haven't worked out exactly how a woman born in 1960 is affected in detail, I do know their retirement age has changed. It would be hard to know all the details wouldn't it?

But hopefully, if you were starting a campaign, you'd have looked into it in detail, and make sure your campaign included ALL people in the affected group (see my post above) and also consider if, as a result of your campaign, they'd be a different group of people who'd feel they were getting a raw deal

JezR

mumps wrote: »

I thought it was 1995 when they were running these campaigns, 2004 does make more sense, it comes back to the ten year thing, somehow people think 20 years is so far away they don't take much notice. One you get to ten I think people are considering retirement more seriously.

2004 does tie in with it being roughly a ten year reminder in both directions almost - back to the legislation date and forward to when the difference would start to become significant.

A rule of thumb failure rate with sending people letters from a compiled database of addresses is 20% and that is only on getting the letter to the intended person not on them reading and remembering it. The DWPs database is unlikely to be significantly better than the average.

Goldiegirl

saver861 wrote: »

If there is a change in that the government was forced to comply with its existing rules, i.e. that changes to state pensions should have at least 10 years notice, then anyone who had changes impacted on them would have those changes reversed! However, a woman born in 1960 would have been 51 in 2011. That would have been at least 14 years from their expected spa of 65.

But they are campaigning for people born in 1959, and they had had at least 10 years notice too.


This part of the campaign makes little sense to me

saver861

mumps wrote: »

The point of the petition was to get a debate and it was successful, I am sure the MPs in the debate can sort or what are reasonable concerns and what are unreasonable demands.

As has been pointed out many times.

The old adage its easier to destroy than create ....

That unfortunately is the mentality of the many.