WASPI Campaign .... State Pensions

Pollycat

saver861 wrote: »

Do you reckon? Or, do you think Mrs McCormack would be disappointed at your interpretation of her teaching skills?

Grand woman was Mrs McCormack .... mean with the cane though .... perhaps a few on here might have benefited from Mrs McCormack's attention!!!

No idea what any of your teachers would think and as it's not really relevant to the discussion, I'll ignore it.

I'm going to say this one last time.
You quote my posts and ask questions such as this

saver861 wrote: »

Why do you think it is ok for a woman born in circa 1952 to collect pension at 61 when someone born circa 1954 has to wait until nearly 66 to get pension?

which imply I think it is OK.

I've never posted anything that does indicate that my views are that it is OK.
For the record:

Pollycat wrote: »

Did I say I thought it OK?
No I didn't.

Also

Pollycat wrote: »

For (I hope) the last time - I've never said those people are not entitled to a grievance.

I've never said it's not unfair.

If I thought people were not entitled to a grievance, I would have posted to that effect.

If I thought it was fair, I would have posted to that effect.

If I thouht it was OK, I would have posted to that effect.

As I believe that you are being deliberately obtuse I have no intention of replying to any further post from you regarding this specific point.

saver861

Pollycat wrote: »

As I believe that you are being deliberately obtuse I have no intention of replying to any further post from you regarding this specific point.

Sounds like a good plan ....

I thought you had already responded in post #287, so once is good ..... but I'm with you ... rather than responding twice to my post - next best option is not at all.

bmm78

slightlymiffed wrote: »

It may now be becoming clearer to me, having read it, why so many in the pensions industry may be worried. Ian Blackford (SNP) mentioned that a reduction in pension tax relief would pay some £35 billion towards transitional relief for women.

How accurate that figure is or how likely that would ever be, I don't know as I had never made that connection.

Osborne ended up bottling the tax relief issue, as it was considered politically toxic in the run-up to Brexit. Without knowing his successor's plans, there may not be the same will to make dramatic changes with the current regime.

While tax relief reform may be inevitable at some point, it will probably take either a very strong government or a coalition (to spread the blame). It will annoy a lot of tory core voters if and when it happens.

I actually suggested prior to the budget (on a different forum) that savings from tax relief could be used to help fund transitional state pension relief. It's not an idea that has had much air time though, and it's wide of the mark to suggest that this is the reason for the widespread antipathy towards WASPI within the pension industry. It's probably more along the lines that (rightly or wrongly) the WASPI campaign is seen as embodying compensation culture, with a bit of inter-generational conflict and good old-fashioned mysogyny thrown in there for good measure.

saver861

bmm78 wrote: »

Osborne ended up bottling the tax relief issue, as it was considered politically toxic in the run-up to Brexit.

Did not quite work out as planned.

bmm78 wrote: »

Without knowing his successor's plans, there may not be the same will to make dramatic changes with the current regime.

The next budget will be most interesting .... as will the autumn statement. On the one hand it is early in this governments life, so its the time to do all the dirty stuff. Compounding that is Brexit and its uncertainty. If the man Hammond gets it wrong there will be interesting times ahead.

Thrugelmir

bmm78 wrote: »

Osborne ended up bottling the tax relief issue, as it was considered politically toxic in the run-up to Brexit.

Simply leaving the £40k annual contribution limit will erode the tax benefit in time.

Pennylane

Breaking news

http://www.peterboroughtoday.co.uk/news/politics/shailesh-vara-returns-to-backbenchers-after-prime-minister-theresa-may-reshuffle-1-7483040#ixzz4Em8AEY5l

He was arrogant and didn't even try to listen to what women were saying.

jamesd

Pennylane wrote: »

He was arrogant and didn't even try to listen to what women were saying.

He clearly did listen. But of course he also said no, so naturally that will make some people unhappy with him:

"I recently met the leaders of the Women Against State Pension Inequality campaign, and I have met many members of the campaign in my constituency, so I am very well aware of all the details and facts."

"The Pensions Minister, Baroness Altmann, and I recently met WASPI representatives to listen to their concerns. We made clear the Government’s position that we will not be unwinding past decisions and that there are no plans to change policy."

Naturally as a representative of the government it was his job to convey the position of the government, namely that 77+ billion just for the women part, plus whatever it'd cost to do the same for men (maybe men going to age 60 as well, with backdated payments to those over that age already?).

jamesd

Since I just posted it elsewhere:

House of Commons Library Number CBP-07405, 6 July 2016 research briefing "Increases in the State Pension age for women born in the 1950s: of particular interest because it gives the cost for women only of undoing the 1995 Act changes at £77 billion just until 2020-21 and without addressing the discrimination issue of increasing he age for men but not for women (page 25).

Freedom of Information request 378/2016: costs for a range of options.

To put the costs into context here are the numbers for 2014-15 from the OBR Welfare Trends Report of June 2015, as a percent of GDP, from the table on page 9:

5.5% state pensions
1.4% housing benefit
1.7% personal tax credits
1.2% disability benefits (DLA, PIP and AA)
0.8% incapacity benefits (incapacity benefit, ESA, SDA and incapacity part of IS)
0.2% income support
0.3% unemployment benefits (JSA)
0.7% child benefit
0.4% other welfare benefits

The total cost of benefits for various years has been this, from chart 2.1 in the spreadsheet:

Year	Nominal	Real	real spend	percent
	 cost	cost	per capita	of GDP
2010-11	199.3	214.4	3416.3		12.6
2015-16	217.2	214.1	3297.7		11.6

To put that £77 billion into context, in 2014-15 total UK government revenue including both Income Tax and National Insurance was about 37.7% of GDP, £648 billion. (page 4).

saver861

jamesd wrote: »

Since I just posted it elsewhere:

House of Commons Library Number CBP-07405, 6 July 2016 research briefing "Increases in the State Pension age for women born in the 1950s: of particular interest because it gives the cost for women only of undoing the 1995 Act changes at £77 billion just until 2020-21 and without addressing the discrimination issue of increasing he age for men but not for women (page 25).

Freedom of Information request 378/2016: costs for a range of options.

To put the costs into context here are the numbers for 2014-15 from the OBR Welfare Trends Report of June 2015, as a percent of GDP, from the table on page 9:

5.5% state pensions
1.4% housing benefit
1.7% personal tax credits
1.2% disability benefits (DLA, PIP and AA)
0.8% incapacity benefits (incapacity benefit, ESA, SDA and incapacity part of IS)
0.2% income support
0.3% unemployment benefits (JSA)
0.7% child benefit
0.4% other welfare benefits

The total cost of benefits for various years has been this, from chart 2.1 in the spreadsheet:

Year	Nominal	Real	real spend	percent
	 cost	cost	per capita	of GDP
2010-11	199.3	214.4	3416.3		12.6
2015-16	217.2	214.1	3297.7		11.6

To put that £77 billion into context, in 2014-15 total UK government revenue including both Income Tax and National Insurance was about 37.7% of GDP, £648 billion. (page 4).

You wanna do a sticky on this post bro?

Is it just me seeing double, treble or is this post repeated in various places?

Once is good for most of us ...

jamesd

Given how often WASPI supporters don't give costs - always - a bit of repetition seems useful. In this case, collecting together things from several different posts into one to make it easier to see the whole cost picture in context.