WASPI Campaign .... State Pensions

Pennylane

THis is more current

Radio 4 Thought for the day .... Today :T

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p042tkv7

jamesd

Got to love this assertion "since it is women who very often in our society carry the burdens of caring for the sick the risk of particular hardship for women is especially acute."

A beautiful example of gender discrimination based on apparent ignorance of the fact that women on average live for around two years longer than men, showing that overall women have lower risk lives. It's the men who are suffering the particularly acute effect, not the women, as a gender.

He was referring to a report about the different effect of increases in state pension age on different individuals based on their life expectancy. For example, the 2011 Act discriminated against men on this basis because the one year increase for both men and women means a greater percentage loss of state pension for men than women due to paying out on average for a shorter time for the men.

Sadly he missed the bigger issue for the smaller and incorrect one.

xylophone

If you type "proportion of men to women carers" into Google you will find the full article produced by the ONS after the 2011 census.

"Full story: The gender gap in unpaid care provision: is there an impact on health and economic position?

An analysis of unpaid care throughout England and Wales, and how this varied by age, sex, general health status and economic activity. The provision of unpaid care has increased since 2001 and projections suggest the demand for such care will more than double over the next 30 years. In 2011, females were more likely to be unpaid carers than males. It has also been found that the general health of unpaid carers deteriorated incrementally with increasing levels of unpaid care provided, up to the age of 65."

jamesd

The piece was about carers, not just unpaid carers. But that's moot unless there is evidence to suggest that carers who are female have a larger loss in health and life expectancy than males doing the same work. Then the discussion might move on to whether those who have shorter life expectancy as a result of their work should have a state pension paid sooner or whether their employer, if any, should pay for the effect on their health.

jamesd

You can see what Age UK says about the research it sponsored here.

"while most people will live to 67 and beyond, there are many – particularly men in more deprived areas and lower social classes – who are unlikely to make it to state pension age in good health. In Glasgow City, for example, additional figures show that healthy life expectancy at birth is just 55.9 years for men and 58.5 years for women – nearly 10 years below the current state pension age."

They propose a range of things:

1. Allowing those who have 45 years of contributions due to a long working life doing manual jobs that make it hard for them to continue working until state pension age.
2. Fixing Pension Credit age at 65 for the same broad reason, likely to be people who are unable to continue working or find work.
3. Allowing early access to a reduced state pension.
4. Allowing early access to particular individuals, for example those with disabilities and/or caring responsibilities. That's current responsibilities, not just because in the past they did a job that involved caring, it's so they can do the ongoing caring task.

1. could presumably be very costly but provided it's constrained to those who really were in paid employment for 45 years doing hard physical labour who are suitably certified as medically unfit to work as a result of that work it might not be excessively so. Though if this has been caused by their work then presumably their employers should have liability for the occupational harm done to their employees. Which might make it cost free for tax and NI payers, with cost recouped from the employers.

2. Probably more costly than 1 but there are already working age benefits available to this group so maybe considering adjusting those would make more sense.

3. If it's actuarially neutral on an individual person basis including all benefits then this might be cost free. The WASPI style of proposal was to pass the cost on to other state pension recipients by not making it actuarially neutral for each person but for the whole state pension system, doing that passing on of cost to others.

4. This doesn't look like anything that should involve the state pension system. If a person needs a carer then that's something that should be funded out of the benefits system that already pays for benefits for carers. There already are benefits payable to carers, of course, and at least for society I don't think we want them retiring early so much as paid to continue to deliver care until they reach their own state pension age.

There's already been a good deal of discussion of this in policy circles because of the very uneven life expectancies in some parts of the country, particularly parts of Scotland and among manual labourers. Doing something about it is one of the stated objectives of the current Scottish government.

I suppose women carers are a more sympathy generating group than Scottish men in the lower social classes who do mainly manual labour and live in deprived areas who the report really described as the most adversely affected group.

colsten

Some of you will probably never forgive me for bumping this thread. I can't help it though as I have seen a couple of really revealing new blogs mentioned on Twitter today. They both talk about the apparent confirmation that the WASPI campaign still effectively demands pensions from age 60 for the 1950s women. Time someone put a lid on this "pension from age 60 for some women" business, not least since we are already over half way through the equalisation process.

http://www.cashquestions.com/entries/186-What-Waspi-really-want-the-Waspi-ask-in-full

http://www.coppolacomment.com/2016/07/the-waspi-campaigns-unreasonable-demand.html

saver861

colsten wrote: »

Some of you will probably never forgive me for bumping this thread.

well .... as you mention it ....

colsten wrote: »

the WASPI campaign still effectively demands pensions from age 60 for the 1950s women. Time someone put a lid on this "pension from age 60 for some women" business,

I would agree with that. There is no chance of any concession from 60. Only hope for any of those impacted is a change to the 2011 act. If WASPI do continue to base their campaign on getting TA from 60 then it will soon fade out, in my opinion.

There is no merit to it. Great campaign to get where it did but they are now at a turning point.

jamesd

I doubt that they will change, since it appears that the people claiming to be the current leaders are entitled to nothing if it's means tested - one was in full time work aged 60 and the other already retired at 60 back in the earlier days when the legal advice funding was being sought. So they presumably have a personal requirement to go for the £77+ billion and restoration of maximum state pension age inequality.

"Claiming to" is because just two people - Celia and Anne - are signatories and they threatened expulsion via "invited to leave" to anyone who disagrees with the objective. Not a good sign for a group that claimed to be "five ordinary women" earlier.

Maybe what's needed is the other three inviting Celia and Anne to leave instead. And I suppose that would require compulsion to get FB and Twitter to hand over the passwords for the group's accounts that I presume are known only to one or both of those two.

Pennylane

jamesd wrote: »

The piece was about carers, not just unpaid carers. But that's moot unless there is evidence to suggest that carers who are female have a larger loss in health and life expectancy than males doing the same work. Then the discussion might move on to whether those who have shorter life expectancy as a result of their work should have a state pension paid sooner or whether their employer, if any, should pay for the effect on their health.

DO you know the difference between paid and unpaid carers?

jamesd

There are many but one broad difference is that like my grandfather they may be looking after a spouse with dementia and might not be claiming benefits that they would be entitled to as carers these days.