Sign the Petition for Womens state pension age going up unfair

RickyB2000

My comments really related to constant changes to pensions. If occupational pensions are tied to SPA then the sky is the limit on when you may be able to claim it. If your 50 old miner was hoping to take his occupational pension at 50, oh dear, no luck anymore. Does he have enough time to fix this? Does he even realise that he needs to plan for this? Or will he be stuck down the job centre for the next 5-7 years?

Likewise, as state pension age increases, more and more people will be getting to an age where they are no longer employable before the state pension becomes available. If they have planned well they may have decent provision up front. How many people plan well? How many just join their employer scheme and expect that to sort them in old age? How many are more focused on today? How many are taught this sort of thing? Sure, as you get older it becomes more of a focus, but this could be to late. If you look at DC plans they are significantly worse than old DB plans so it will only get worse.

The end result could be more people forced to give up work and then stuck down the job centre. At least your 30 year old footballer has time on his side. Most people easily retrain at this age. In fact, many people I know, there careers are only just getting started at this age.

I am not saying the SPA shouldn't change, it clearly must. But the government needs to both give people enough time to adjust to the changes and to teach / enforce saving early to ensure people aren't caught out by this. Otherwise they are just shifting the cost to unemployment or disability.

All this when most people would probably say they have less available to save than they did 10 years ago.

bmm78

jem16 wrote: »

Who put it out there though - the media?

Bit of both to be fair. The media relied on the government press releases, but in the main did not do any wider research into what would actually happen in reality.

Personally I see it as the media's role to report the facts rather than regurgitate press releases, but this does seem to be a dying art with financial journalists for the national newspapers. I can understand though why others may argue that the press releases should be more accurate.

Unfortunate combination of political spin and poor reporting on the whole.

bmm78

JezR wrote: »

Although to be fair to Steve Webb he did say when launching the whole thing that in the transition the single tier would be delivered some pensioners would receive less than full amount 'directly from the state pension' - the rest coming from existing top-ups from contracted out pension schemes.

Webb however was more than happy to cling to the myth of the "flat-rate" pension when justifying his Lamborghini comments.

While he does have a lot of positive qualities, Webb is a politician through and through, as well as proving himself to be quite the ****-stirrer since he left office.

Goldiegirl

jem16 wrote: »

There was some interesting activity yesterday on Facebook, especially around the new state pension with many WASPI supporters having totally the wrong idea of how it will work. According to one of the posts, Paul Lewis has been advising them on the new state pension and how most women are going to be seriously disadvantaged.

It seemed to be a common theme around that their posts that 35 years are now needed and that anyone with less will lose out. The contracted out issue seemed to be big with many complaining that they won't get the full state pension because of it, even though they won't get any less than they were always going to get under current rules.

One poster who was trying to point out what would really happen was told to stop posting inaccuracies and told she didn't know the "facts".

The whole thread has now been removed - WASPI don't appear to like negative comments on their Facebook page and there were quite a few people disagreeing with them yesterday.

Now if Paul Lewis is advising them and leading them to believe that WASPI women with less than £155pw are losing out with the new state pension, I really wonder exactly what his agenda is.

There is one main group who will lose out and that is the group who have less than 10 years NO contributions of their own. For the rest of these 1950s women they will get no less than they always were going to get under current rules - some of them may actually get more if they were not contracted out. However they all seem to be under the misapprehension that the £155pw is an entitlement and flat-rate as opposed to single tier.

Reading Paul Lewis' blog and written evidence to the pensions committee he does appear to see the £155 as an entitlement.

http://paullewismoney.blogspot.co.uk/2015/11/women-will-get-less-than-men-from-new.html

http://data.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/committeeevidence.svc/evidencedocument/work-and-pensions-committee/understanding-the-new-state-pension/written/25274.html

I've seen another blog (I think it was Savvywoman, and MSE posted a link to it), which tried to make a case that being contracted out was unfair to women.


IMO, this is not that case at all. Generally people who were contracted out were in an excellent company pension scheme, and didn't need SERPS or 2SP. They had the benefit of paying a smaller NI premium, and the prospect of a good pension from their DB schemes. That doesn't seem at all unfair - in fact it seems advantageous.


Nobody is losing anything - they are just getting what they paid for


The younger contracted out WASPI's now have the added benefit of a chance to improve their state pension, by making NICs after April 2016, and build their single tier pension towards the maximum £155


So, an excellent company pension, a lifetime of low NI premiums and a full (or nearly full) state pension - that's pretty good from where I'm sitting.


I think WASPI struggle with answering any comments that don't agree with their stated aims, as they haven't got any arguments that can paper over the flaws in their campaign.

Goldiegirl

jem16 wrote: »

Who put it out there though - the media?

It certainly wasn't what was written in the actual green paper.

When I first read the media reports, I thought, 'great, I'm going to get a much bigger pension than I thought'


But, after digging around a bit, I realised this wasn't the case at all - having been contracted out for many years, I'd be getting what I'd always be getting (although with the chance to increase the amount after April 2016)


However, most people don't dig around for facts like I do - most people rely on the media for their information


The announcement of the single tier pension has been around long enough now for the media to do additional reporting to make things clearer for people.


But with the likes of Paul Lewis allowing factually incorrect information to be published on his blog, it's not surprising that the media have allowed the 'flat rate' pension myth to perpetuate.

saver861

Goldiegirl wrote: »

I've seen another blog (I think it was Savvywoman, and MSE posted a link to it), which tried to make a case that being contracted out was unfair to women.

I've not seen that. Can you post the link and the reference in the article?

Goldiegirl wrote: »

When I first read the media reports, I thought, 'great, I'm going to get a much bigger pension than I thought'

However, most people don't dig around for facts like I do - most people rely on the media for their information

So, the minister herself admits they have mis-sold the new pension - see post 197 above - yet we seek to apportion the blame elsewhere? One thing is for sure and without debate - if a politician admits they made a mistake, you can bet your very last dollar that there is nobody else they could find to pin it on!!

The pension estimate statements caused such confusion they were revised two or three times - the media had no input into that mess.

Some people need to wise up to the fact that there is an expectation that the Government will get things right and make correct decisions etc. There is a certain level of standards required to achieve those goals. These are the people that are charged with making decisions on the country's economy, national security etc.

Be happy, if you will, that their mistakes can be pinned elsewhere.

JezR

bmm78 wrote: »

Webb however was more than happy to cling to the myth of the "flat-rate" pension when justifying his Lamborghini comments.

While he does have a lot of positive qualities, Webb is a politician through and through, as well as proving himself to be quite the ****-stirrer since he left office.

That's why I was being 'fair' by quoting that particular comment from early in the process. He hasn't really given a very good account of himself recently - oddly he doesn't seem to have a problem raising his own past failings considering his current position.

Altmann also seems to have a lot to learn at being a politician which she now is.

Goldiegirl

saver861 wrote: »

I've not seen that. Can you post the link and the reference in the article?

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/news/protect/2015/11/guest-comment-why-women-will-lose-out-under-the-new-state-pension


She appears to imply that more women were contracted out than men, fails to mention the positive implications of being contracted out, which could give her readers that being contracted out was bad, and therefore unfair to women as she reckons more were contracted out

saver861

Goldiegirl wrote: »

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/news/protect/2015/11/guest-comment-why-women-will-lose-out-under-the-new-state-pension


She appears to imply that more women were contracted out than men, fails to mention the positive implications of being contracted out, which could give her readers that being contracted out was bad, and therefore unfair to women as she reckons more were contracted out

The only quote I can find relating to that is:

Some women and men won't get the full flat rate state pension because they've been 'contracted out' of National Insurance. 'Contracting out' means you paid a lower rate of National Insurance and you either got a rebate paid into your private pension, or you got a bit extra from your work pension when you retired.

But although this affects both women and men, you're more likely to be contracted out if you work in the public sector – and around two thirds of those who work in the public sector are women.

This would be correct. Around two thirds of the public sector employees are women thus, in relative terms they will be more likely to be contracted out.

That is factual. It may even be a shade more than two thirds women in public sector. It was two thirds in 2012-13. See:

The proportion of public sector workers who are female has increased steadily over time to reach two thirds in 2012–13.

http://www.ifs.org.uk/bns/bn145.pdf

Goldiegirl

But in the context of an article called 'why women will lose out under the new state pension', the implication is that being contracted out is somehow a negative.