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

Goldiegirl

saver861 wrote: »

That's red herring.

The fact is those who found out in 2011 the retirement date they had been working towards is moved - 18 months in some cases. They lose out, its not about not knowing the changes were coming. It is about having enough time to adapt - and for many women born in the 50's, they have been impacted more negatively than many others.

Why would we say - ah well, that's ok - tough luck for them. It should have been smoothed out fairly so that a certain group does not shoulder a bigger burden than others.

Although my pension age didn't change by 18 months, I found out in 2011 that my SPA would go from 65 to 66, so I'm in the group of people that have been affected by these changes.

The trouble is, a line has to be drawn somewhere - and there will always be people who unfortunately fall just the wrong side of the line.

How would you have made the changes - so that everybody would have been impacted the same?

mumps

Pollycat wrote: »

In fairness, my decision to retire wasn't in any part dependent on receiving my state pension so it wasn't really a gamble.

You're right, my mistake.
That just makes it worse.

I'd anticipated my pension being paid earlier for 8 years instead of 7 and had even less time to get used to the idea it was going to be 15 months later. :cool:

It does make it worse, hope I haven't depressed you.

mumps

Goldiegirl wrote: »

Although my pension age didn't change by 18 months, I found out in 2011 that my SPA would go from 65 to 66, so I'm in the group of people that have been affected by these changes.

The trouble is, a line has to be drawn somewhere - and there will always be people who unfortunately fall just the wrong side of the line.

How would you have made the changes - so that everybody would have been impacted the same?

I don't think you can make it so that everybody is impacted the same, the problem most people are concerned about is how long they had to change their plans. There has to be a certain amount of notice but I guess people will have different views about what it is.

If my mother had got a move on and had me before midnight instead of waiting till after midnight I would get my pension 4 months earlier. If only she had known she could have tried harder.:rotfl:

mumps

gadgetmind wrote: »

I know at least two people whose retirement plans involved moving overseas where their private pensions could cover most of their needs from age 50. With almost zero notice, their plans were totally scuppered, and one of them was already building a property with their PCLS being required for a fair bit of the construction.

Labour raised the age to 55 in 2010 as part of their departure "poison pill" for the coalition (the other big part being 50% tax!) with zero consultation and almost zero notice.

That's unfortunate but as I said at least they do get the money. Personally I would never spend money before I have got it but everyone is different.

missbiggles1

saver861 wrote: »

That's red herring.

The fact is those who found out in 2011 the retirement date they had been working towards is moved - 18 months in some cases. They lose out, its not about not knowing the changes were coming. It is about having enough time to adapt - and for many women born in the 50's, they have been impacted more negatively than many others.

Why would we say - ah well, that's ok - tough luck for them. It should have been smoothed out fairly so that a certain group does not shoulder a bigger burden than others.

Although it obviously doesn't balance out completely, it's also worth bearing in mind that the group affected (those women who'll retire before April 2016) will benefit from needing only 30 years' contributions for a full pension rather than 39. Even those retiring after 2016 will benefit from the reduction from the expected 39 (women ) or 45 (men) to 35 for everybody.

Of course the group that's benefited most from these changes is men retiring between 2010 and 2016 whose contributions needed fell sharply from 45 to 30.

JezR

Indeed. I'm not sure that WASPI understands what the full consequence would be of its demand to "put all women born in the 1950's (on or after 6 April 1951) affected by the changes to the State Pension Age in exactly the same financial position they would have been in if they had been born on or before 5 April 1950”.

missbiggles1

JezR wrote: »

Indeed. I'm not sure that WASPI understands what the full consequence would be of its demand to "put all women born in the 1950's (on or after 6 April 1951) affected by the changes to the State Pension Age in exactly the same financial position they would have been in if they had been born on or before 5 April 1950”.

I argued the exact point on another forum and nobody understood what on earth I was talking about.:(

jem16

saver861 wrote: »

I'm not sure this is correct.

Well lets look at the specific information from the horses mouth i.e. the government website. https://www.gov.uk/calculate-state-pension/y/age

Take the case of a women born in mid June 1954. She had expected to pick up her pension at age 64 under the 1995 changes. Then in 2011 that was moved again and according to the website her new spa is now 65 yrs, 8 months and 20 days. That is 21 months after the original expected date, i.e. nearly two years.

As Snowman has shown you, it is indeed correct as you hadn't got the correct age from the 1995 changes.

This article shows what happened.

http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/pensions/article-2048619/Reprieve-33-000-women-state-pension-age-rise-delayed-months.html

Paul_Herring

JezR wrote: »

However, it was not the normal action of the DWP and predecessor departments to individually directly notify people about each individual change. Culture today seems to expect this action much more

Given that the current attitude of government these days is to infantilize everyone and nanny (or bully) them by interfering with the minutæ of everyone's private lives (eat this, don't drink that, lets make a new law to make hurting other peoples' feelings illegal) is this really surprising?

Mr_Costcutter

With a population of approx 64 Million, 50,000 signatures is extremely small considering the campaign has been running for some time. Bound to fail.