Sign the Petition for Womens state pension age going up unfair

Goldiegirl

Pennylane wrote: »

This article explains the plight of 1950s women very well

http://www.theguardian.com/money/2016/jan/09/state-pension-inequality-cost-women-20000-campaign

It's just the same old stuff.

jamesd

Pennylane wrote: »

This article explains the plight of 1950s women very well

http://www.theguardian.com/money/2016/jan/09/state-pension-inequality-cost-women-20000-campaign

Some truth in there but also the usual admixture of outright lies and misleading claims that seem routine among some. Here's what the story says about one woman who's unhappy:

'One woman who has given evidence to MPs on this issue is 62-year-old Linda Edwards-Shea, who says her two SPA increases “represent a financial loss of approximately £30,000 from my planned old age”. She reckons she would have to live into her mid-90s to recoup what she is set to lose. <removed by me as a courtesy> says she left employment in 2001 and retrained as a freelancer with the expectation that she would get her state pension on her 60th birthday in 2013, which is no longer the case.'

The story links to her testimony to MP in response to the recent consultation. At the start of her evidence to Parliament she makes this claim, as in the Guardian:

"If I had been notified of the delay of 3.5 years to my SPA after the 1995 Pensions Act I would have acted differently: I would not have become self-employed in 2001."

Moving on with her evidence submission:

"In 2008, five years before I expected to retire, a female relative told me about the SPA changes ... After talking to my relative I requested a pension forecast (or possibly a statement, I’m still not sure what the difference is). The statement (or forecast) arrived and I was stunned to discover that I was on course to delay my SRP by 3.5 years"

"Some time later, presumably in 2011, I heard a mention of a further delay to SPA. I think it was the Radio 4 News headlines and it was a very brief mention. I continued to listen out for news of the further change but heard nothing so thought I was mistaken."

What other conclusion can we come to other than that she deliberately made false claims in her evidence submission and to the Guardian, hoping to mislead both Parliament and the readers of the Guardian?

jamesd

Pennylane wrote: »

This article explains the plight of 1950s women very well ... http://www.theguardian.com/money/2016/jan/09/state-pension-inequality-cost-women-20000-campaign

Moving on to her financial loss claim that doesn't seem to be a loss at all: '“represent a financial loss of approximately £30,000 from my planned old age”. She reckons she would have to live into her mid-90s to recoup what she is set to lose'.

"At current rates these State Pension Age increases represent a financial loss of approximately £30,000 from my old age."

It's hard to work out her true position accurately. It appears that she's using the state pension money she would have got if the state pension age hasn't changed as the basis for her claim and is using current rates only.

Lets start with one easy problem: "I have lost pension income not only by SPA delay but also by the raising of the required years of National Insurance Contributions (NICs) from 30 to 35. I have 31 years of NICs."

She already had 30 years so we know that she was already entitled to a full basic state pension. This means she can't have lost any part of that because the transitional rules protect it all, giving her the best of both systems as of 6 April 2016. Similarly she can't have lost any of her additional state pension, since that hasn't been reduced by the change to 35 years either. The claim about losing out due to the change from 30 to 35 years is simply false.

"the expectation that she would get her state pension on her 60th birthday in 2013"

So on that basis she would have been entitled to a combination of basic state pension and some additional state pension and not in the single tier scheme had she reached state pension age as she originally expected. Under that system the basic state pension portion benefits from the triple lock while the additional state pension part gets CPI increases only. By reaching state pension age under the single tier system all of it up to the single tier amount benefits from the more generous triple lock.

But what will she get from her NI contributions?

"I am eligible for the new Single Tier State Pension (STSP) that begins in April 2016.
I will receive significantly less than the ‘Flat Rate’ or ‘Single Tier’ State Pension of approximately £155 per week when I reach my SPA in March 2018. The amount will be closer to £119 per week.
...My current State Pension Age (SPA) is 64 years 5 months and 6 days."

First, this is obviously misleading. She had at least 30 years and the basic state pension rate for 2016-17 is £119.30 a week. On top of that she has some additional state pension, though perhaps not much because of being contracted out. What she will get may well truthfully be closer to 119 than 155 but is it making her better off or worse off, as she's claimed?

Under the previous system she would have reached SPA in she'd get no more basic state pension for extra years of contributions. Under the flat rate system she will for convenience I'll take March as a full tax year and that's two more years of contributions that she either can or must make, depending on her income and work choices. Each year will produce an increase of 1/35th of the flat rate so using that 155 rate it'd be an increase of 8.85 a week.

So where does that get us so far? A claimed loss of £30,000. An increase that we know ignoring tripe lock is likely to be at least 8.85 a week. 30,000 / 8.85 / 52 = 65 years to break even yet she's saying she'd break even in her mid 90s.

So looking further into her numbers she seems to be saying £30,000 loss from 4.5 years would mean 128.19 a week of state pension under the old system. That implies that she was expecting at least 128.19 - 119 = 9.19 of additional state pension under the old system. This is also now under the triple lock.

I don't know how she got to mid 90s break even on a claimed 30,000 loss. Not enough information given. It might be some assumption about the effect of the triple lock but we just don't know.

What we do know of of course is that she isn't entitled to a pension at 60 after all and it appears that she'll be getting a pension at least 8.85 a week plus better inflation linking as a result of the delay. Still, it'd be nice to know how she got to her numbers.

And back in a somewhat more real world, she's not losing out at all since she's still reaching state pension age before a man born at the same time would. She's just less better off than she would have been, gaining less from gender discrimination that has been reduced.

Pollycat

slightlymiffed wrote: »

You really wanted me to 'admit' to being a WASPI - because 'they' are your preferred target. I most definitely support most of their concerns, for which I don't apologise nor feel any further need to defend.

I don't want you to admit to anything.
I don't care if you are or aren't a WASPI.

bigadaj wrote: »

You have received logical, rational and calm responses to your hysterical ranting silver many pages.

You've also promised to leave the sad people on here several times, but it looks as though you just want the last word, so will await your next response.

This post reflects my thoughts ^^^

jamesd

Pennylane wrote: »

This article explains the plight of 1950s women very well ... http://www.theguardian.com/money/2016/jan/09/state-pension-inequality-cost-women-20000-campaign

There's one area where I initially have some sympathy for her:

"As well as increasing SPA, Parliament increased the number of years of National Insurance Contributions (NICs) for eligibility for the full state pension from 30 years to 35 years. This is contrary to two letters received by me from the DWP both of which stated that I had accrued 31.5 years of NICs and therefore no longer needed to contribute as I’d satisfied the requirements necessary to receive a full pension. At the time I was low-paid and self-employed and I decided to stop paying NICs on the basis of these letters. According to these letters if I stopped paying NICs I would lose Bereavement Benefit but my SRP would remain intact. I believed these letters and assumed I would receive the full state pension. Unfortunately this is not the case."

Last bit first, her belief that she would receive the full state pension. It's true that she would receive the full basic state pension and that hasn't changed, but it has never been true that 30 years would get the full flat rate state pension for a person contracted out extensively. to do that takes some income-related contributions and while S2P provided some of that for those contracted out it's not close to enough. So she just had the wrong belief and there was plenty of information around that would have told her so if she'd asked anyone who knew much about it, here or at the DWP.

Now moving on to where I might have sympathy for her position, that choice not to pay in more because she had 31.5 years. If she'd asked here everyone including me would have told her not to buy more years until there was some news about the change to 35 years happening.

So, when did she decide not to pay to get more years, given that she had available to her dirt cheap contributions at under £3 a week? We don't know for certain but we do know that she was already self-employed and we know that she made the decision to do that in 2011. We also know that the single tier plan was known by January 2013 so she's had at least three years now to change to buy extra years, that time between January 2013 and now. Those years which she could have paid in would have left her capable of getting to 35 years and a potential full single tier flat rate pension before the deduction for being contracted out. So a good deal of my sympathy evaporates because she did have time to know and already had ample reason to know that things were changing.

She actually potentially had more time than that because the Green paper was introduced in 2011 and my recollection about that is that posts here started to add cautions about reaching 35 years soon after the plan became known, so if she asked here it's entirely possible that she would have been told to pay in, depending on just how much she'd have deducted from being contracted out. But this doesn't matter because even in 2013 she still had time to act.

But did it actually make her worse off not to buy those years? The deduction for being contracted out complicates that since the new rules calculation can take the state pension entitlement lower than the basic state pension floor under the old rules can. It's possible that she would not gain if she had bought the extra years. We don't know enough about her contribution record to be sure either way.

But we also know that a person can buy six years of past contributions so she is today entitled to buy those years. Not at the low self-employed rate, though.

So at this point my sympathy has essentially evaporated: while the story about her being misled by DWP sounded good it's not actually good when you look at what happened, when and how.

She is today able to get a state pension statement that will tell her something close to her flat rate level, it's missing one year until autumn when the 2015/16 contributions are added. If she hasn't been paying in she'll be able to get her accurate Foundation Amount under the single tier. Then she can choose to buy extra years if she wants to and is able to afford it.

And that's what I'd suggest she do at this point, since there is still apparently time to significantly improve her position.

Pollycat

jamesd wrote: »

What other conclusion can we come to other than that she deliberately made false claims in her evidence submission and to the Guardian, hoping to mislead both Parliament and the readers of the Guardian?

I listened to the first parliamentary debate some months ago.

Some of the 'cases' that MPs stood up and told about were clearly lies.
I know my age and I know my original state pension age and revised pension age.
Some constituents had clearly misrepresented their positions to their MP.

I made this same point at the time of the debate - either on this thread or one of the others alos running.

To have to resort to lies to make your position worse than it actually is shows those women in a very poor light.

jamesd

Sadly so and to the extent that the MPs believed and repeated those claims it doesn't say much about the fact checking by the MPs or their staff.

missbiggles1

What's also interesting is the fact that the woman quoted (and others like her) seem to have known that the number of years needed for full SRP had dropped to 30 and yet not to have known about the raising of the women's pension age, despite the fact that the changes were part of the same legislation.

It also ties in (a point I've made several times before) that the Waspi demand to be given the pension they had expected would mean a return to needing 39 years' contributions rather than 30 or (post 2016) 35.

This selective ignorance gives the lie to many people's stories and just highlights how illogical many of the demands actually are.

mazzy

I did see my MP purely on the basis that the second rise was unfair due to short notice of it and as they have now said 10 years notice should be given it proves it was unfair to us. Unfortunately the genuine argument gets lost in those claiming 1995 was unfair. I know a lot of people here support those of us that come under the second rise. Personally I can get by until mine finally kicks in, it does niggle me a bit that my savings are having to provide the shortfall but that's life and you have to plan for the unexpected. I have lost two of my brothers in their sixties, I shall be happy to make it to my SPA.

Goldiegirl

missbiggles1 wrote: »

What's also interesting is the fact that the woman quoted (and others like her) seem to have known that the number of years needed for full SRP had dropped to 30 and yet not to have known about the raising of the women's pension age, despite the fact that the changes were part of the same legislation.

It also ties in (a point I've made several times before) that the Waspi demand to be given the pension they had expected would mean a return to needing 39 years' contributions rather than 30 or (post 2016) 35.

This selective ignorance gives the lie to many people's stories and just highlights how illogical many of the demands actually are.

That's a good point - I wonder how WASPI would answer it.
(They'd just ignore it, like they do any other difficult question!)