WASPI Campaign .... State Pensions

GibbsRule_No3

Pennylane wrote: »

Men have always known there official state pension age would be 65, women haven't and women born 53/54 have been hit twice.

Yes I agree, as a woman when I started work on 31st August 1971 my retirement would have been 60. Did I know it would be later after a few years at work, yes, as did my female friend born in January 1952 but she is now in receipt of her SP, has been for two years, when will I get mine? May 2020. I accept that the government is not going to do anything now, so have opted for a three day week, salary sacrifice on a new company pension and will take it as a lump sum in 2020 and those extra years will now boost my SP, because I was opted out, so did not qualify for a full SP under the old pre April 2016 scheme. I wasn't a woman who stopped to have children, so have already completed 45 years full service with another 3 1/2 to go. I am now trying to look on the bright side regarding the extra SP, extra lump sum for another company pension, while still earning money from employment and as I had always thought of part time work, not feeling as driven to provide a service on the three days I do work. For my situation this is probably a good compromise, not sure I was ready for full time retirement as a single person, having said that filling the extra two days was easy and I could still do with extra, at least from the month of April when I started, not sure about Winter months but since I live in the South we might not get such bad winter weather as other 60+ females.

Silvertabby

I've just checked for both man and woman born on my birth date and there is only approx 3 months difference in the dates they get their SP. women getting it earlier.

I think James was referrring to the old rules when, in the case of a man and a woman born on the same day, the woman would have got her State pension at 60 but the man not until he was 65.

In hindsight, the changes to women's State pension age should have been part of the 1975 Sex Equality Act. A one year increase per decade from 1985 would have been fair, and we wouldn't have the problem of the 2011 acceleration.

PensionTech

In hindsight, the changes to women's State pension age should have been part of the 1975 Sex Equality Act. A one year increase per decade from 1985 would have been fair, and we wouldn't have the problem of the 2011 acceleration.

It's an interesting idea, but the delayed onset of the increases did achieve one thing that could be argued to offer more equality: it meant that the women affected were the same women whose pay had been (theoretically) equalised during their working lives. If the law didn't ensure that women had to be paid as much as men until the 70s, a woman retiring in 1985 would have spent most of her working life with unequal pay and therefore would suffer the negative effects of equality in retirement at the same time as the negative effects of inequality in employment.

A very idealistic argument that relies on the idea that pay equality was immediately and successfully implemented in the 70s - which, of course, it wasn't - but that, it could be argued, is somewhat besides the point for lawmakers.

I don't say this in defence of WASPI - I make no secret of my opposition to their campaign - but I think you make an interesting point about timescales, and wanted to weigh in.

Of course, any justification for the delay in the timescale to implement doesn't necessarily mean that it shouldn't have been put in the Equality Act to start with - that would have been a logical place, I agree. But certain information e.g. mortality trends may not have been as apparent then, so the benefits of introducing a possibly controversial policy like this may not have been deemed sufficient.

xylophone

Yes I agree, as a woman when I started work on 31st August 1971 my retirement would have been 60. Did I know it would be later after a few years at work

Twenty four years.....

http://www.web40571.clarahost.co.uk/statepensionage/SPA_changes.pdf

The 1995 Act would have changed your SPA to January 2019 and the 2011 Act adds another eighteen months - not fair to your cohort.

However, on the brighter side, you are already in receipt of two DB pensions (taken at 60 presumably), are still employed ( and in a DC pension scheme)

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.php?p=71100965#post71100965

and will be able to "work off" some part of the Rebate Derived Amount deduction from your new state pension, all of which (as far as is known at the moment), will revalue under the triple link.

It is probable that some part of your two DB pensions is pre and post 88 GMP - how is your scheme treating increases in payment on these?

GibbsRule_No3

xylophone wrote: »

Twenty four years.....

http://www.web40571.clarahost.co.uk/statepensionage/SPA_changes.pdf

The 1995 Act would have changed your SPA to January 2019 and the 2011 Act adds another eighteen months - not fair to your cohort.

However, on the brighter side, you are already in receipt of two DB pensions (taken at 60 presumably), are still employed ( and in a DC pension scheme)

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.php?p=71100965#post71100965


and will be able to "work off" some part of the Rebate Derived Amount deduction from your new state pension, all of which (as far as is known at the moment), will revalue under the triple link.

It is probable that some part of your two DB pensions is pre and post 88 GMP - how is your scheme treating increases in payment on these?

Like I said in my post, I am looking on the bright side from the PPOV, still does not make it any fairer for those not as fortunate as me that were born 53/54. I have decided to make the change work to my benefit, I probably earn, while doing the three day week, double what the SP would have been paying me. It also means I don't have to use the lump sum part of my company pensions yet. I know I will also not have much less, than say £150-£200 per month when I do finally start to receive the SP than I get with the pensions and monthly wages now. BTW None of this was planned by me, I just got lucky in the career I chose to follow at 17, straight from school. Paying rent, first for my parents and now just me, did mean I never had money to save though, so not able to buy a house/flat.

Mortgagefreeman

Having been kicked out in a bloodless coup, the WASPI three have now re grouped. They've started a Facebook page that actually allows people to comment and make suggestions, unlike the WASPI two who gag those that disagree with them.:rotfl:

https://www.facebook.com/waspivoice/?ref=ts&fref=ts

Silvertabby

“

In hindsight, the changes to women's State pension age should have been part of the 1975 Sex Equality Act. A one year increase per decade from 1985 would have been fair, and we wouldn't have the problem of the 2011 acceleration.

”

It's an interesting idea, but the delayed onset of the increases did achieve one thing that could be argued to offer more equality: it meant that the women affected were the same women whose pay had been (theoretically) equalised during their working lives. If the law didn't ensure that women had to be paid as much as men until the 70s, a woman retiring in 1985 would have spent most of her working life with unequal pay and therefore would suffer the negative effects of equality in retirement at the same time as the negative effects of inequality in employment.

A very idealistic argument that relies on the idea that pay equality was immediately and successfully implemented in the 70s - which, of course, it wasn't - but that, it could be argued, is somewhat besides the point for lawmakers.

I don't say this in defence of WASPI - I make no secret of my opposition to their campaign - but I think you make an interesting point about timescales, and wanted to weigh in.

Of course, any justification for the delay in the timescale to implement doesn't necessarily mean that it shouldn't have been put in the Equality Act to start with - that would have been a logical place, I agree. But certain information e.g. mortality trends may not have been as apparent then, so the benefits of introducing a possibly controversial policy like this may not have been deemed sufficient.

I see your point, pensiontech, but if you go even further back in history you could argue that the re-equalisation of State pension age for women should have started even earlier, perhaps in th 1970s. When the State pension was introduced over 100 years ago, it was 70 for both sexes and strictly means tested. As most of the very poor who would have qualified probably didn't live to 70, the funding would have been minimal. Then from the 1920s, the State pension age for both sexes was reduced to 65 and was paid to all without the needs for a means test. Roll on to the 1940s, and the Welfare State identified a problem. That was, married men couldn't receive the married man's rate of State pension until their wife was also State pension age. Then, as now, wives tended to be 3 to 5 years younger than their husbands, and so they would have to struggle on just the single man's pension until the wife reached 65. The important point here is that the intention wasn't to give women their pensions from 60 - because in those days married women HAD to give up work when they got married or at least when the kiddies came along. No, the only reason for reducing the State pension age for women was simply to pay their husbands the married man's State pension from his 65th birthday. Apparently, there were some objections to this on the grounds that single women/widow's who had to work would benefit by getting their pensions at 60 - but this was overruled on the basis that the benefit to men was the most important factor. This should have been re-visited from the time - probably the 70s - when married women could and did continue to work after marriage thereby accruing pensions in their own right. The 2011 rush through apart, we've probably been quite lucky with the actual timescale.

bmm78

The reasoning behind the original differential in pension ages, and the delay in equalisation following the Equal Pay/Sex Discrimination Acts (as well as the EU Social Security Directive), was assessed in Stec and Others v United Kingdom in 2006 (http://www.rightsnet.org.uk/pdfs/Stec_v_UK_06.pdf):

61. Differential pensionable ages were first introduced for men and women in the United
Kingdom in 1940, well before the Convention had come into existence, although the disparity
persists to the present day (see paragraph 32 above). It would appear that the difference in treatment
was adopted in order to mitigate financial inequality and hardship arising out of the woman's
traditional unpaid role of caring for the family in the home rather than earning money in the
workplace. At their origin, therefore, the differential pensionable ages were intended to correct
"factual inequalities" between men and women and appear therefore to have been objectively
justified under Article 14 (see paragraph 51 above).

62. It follows that the difference in pensionable ages continued to be justified until such time that
social conditions had changed so that women were no longer substantially prejudiced because of a
shorter working life. This change, must, by its very nature, have been gradual, and it would be
difficult or impossible to pinpoint any particular moment when the unfairness to men caused by
differential pensionable ages began to outweigh the need to correct the disadvantaged position of
women. Certain indications are available to the Court. Thus, in the 1993 White Paper, the
Government asserted that the number of women in paid employment had increased significantly, so
that whereas in 1967 only 37% of employees were women, the proportion had increased to 50% in
1992. In addition, various reforms to the way in which pension entitlement was assessed had been
introduced in 1977 and 1978, to the benefit of women who spent long periods out of paid
employment. As of 1986, it was unlawful for an employer to have different retirement ages for men
and women (see paragraph 33 above).

63. According to the information before the Court, the Government made a first, concrete, move
towards establishing the same pensionable age for both sexes with the publication of the Green Paper
in December 1991. It would, no doubt, be possible to argue that this step could, or should, have been
made earlier. However, as the Court has observed, the development of parity in the working lives of
men and women has been a gradual process, and one which the national authorities are better placed
to assess (see paragraph 52 above). Moreover, it is significant that many of the other Contracting
States still maintain a difference in the ages at which men and women become eligible for the State
retirement pension (see paragraph 37 above). Within the European Union, this position is recognised by the exception contained in the Directive (see paragraph 38 above).

64. In the light of the original justification for the measure as correcting financial inequality
between the sexes, the slowly evolving nature of the change in women's working lives, and in the
absence of a common standard amongst the Contracting States (see Petrovic, cited above, $5 36-43),
the Court finds that the United Kingdom cannot be criticised for not having started earlier on the
road towards a single pensionable age.

65. Having once begun the move towards equality, moreover, the Court does not consider it
unreasonable of the Government to carry out a thorough process of consultation and review, nor can
Parliament be condemned for deciding in 1995 to introduce the reform slowly and in stages. Given
the extremely far-reaching and serious implications, for women and for the economy in general,
these are matters which clearly fall within the State's margin of appreciation.


It appears the government's position was that sufficient time was needed for society to align with the changes in legislation, and that a gradual phasing in of the changes with a long run-in period was the fairest way to do it.

This may be a smokescreen, and the parliamentary debates in the early 90s indicate that the Barber judgement was a strong catalyst for equalisation and effectively forced the government's hand. The lengthy notice period (1995-2010) may have had more to do with political convenience than anything else, as it kicked the impact so far into the long grass that the people affected were less sensitive to the changes.

JezR

The quotation above shows that there had been little to no consideration of the actual political considerations made in 1940 but only a relatively uninformed guess ('it would appear that').

In reality the reduction of the women's pension age to 60 in 1940 was a cynical move made to alleviate as cheaply as possible the main categories of severe adverse circumstances under the 1925 Act and avoid raising the rate for all. In particular these were:

1 - Unemployed men receiving benefit: at 65 this would be replaced by the pension meaning a drop from 27/- to 10/- a week if they were married to a woman under 65 but 20/- if she was 65 or over. Reducing the wife's age requirement to 60 for these helped approximately 250,000 people at a cost of £4M pa overall.

2 - Payment to spinsters at a younger age as those physically unable to work had no other means of support apart from public assistance (the politer term used by then for the workhouse). There had been a campaign to lower this as far as 55 which would have cost an additional £4M or so.

Paying pensions to all from 60 would have cost £40M, and the other option of relieving pensioner poverty of increasing the rate to say 15/- keeping the existing qualifications would have cost even more, around £46M.

So the reduction in the women's age was all about making as few and as inexpensive spending concessions as possible to damp down 1940 public political opinion on pensions, and little at all to do with 'woman's traditional unpaid role' etc, although it may have been presented in such terms to disguise the manoeuvring .

Incidentally domestic service which was in the 1920s and 30s even more dominated by women than in earlier decades was excluded entirely from the 1925 Act (as were some other manual occupations such as the railways and farming).

Pollycat

Pennylane wrote: »

Had I got my pension this July like my friend who is just 6 months older than me it would have made a terrific difference to me. Had I got it at 60, which I always believed I would, that would have been even better! As it is I have to wait until July 2018. . Of course I'd still be a carer but I'd be a lot better off. I have 43 years NI contributions.

Pennylane wrote: »

I agree about male carers but with regard to pensions, men knew all about retiring at 65. I was always told I'd retire at 60. That was then changed to 62.5 and now it's 65. Many of us had no chance to prepare and I know you'll all start stamping your feet and say we were told about this .... Many of us weren't and the DWP have actually admitted that they didn't inform women properly.

jem16 wrote: »

Where did the 62.5 come from? If it's now 65 for you it would never have been 62.5 as the maximum increase from the 2011 Act was 18 months. There seems to be many mentioning an increase to 62 which appears to be some sort of misunderstanding.

I too think Pennylane is mistaken in her 1995 expectation of 62.5 years being changed to 65 in 2011.

I am an October 1953 woman.
I will - like Pennylane - get my state pension on 6th July 2018, aged 64 years 8 months and 26 days.

My 1995 state pension age was April 2017 (can't remember the eact date) and my age would have been 63 years and 6 months.

Maybe Pennylane could provide the same information so we can see how her date has increased from 62.5 years to 65 years.

THB, during the parliamentary dates, I heard a lot of MPs detailing how their constituents had been affected and I knew that either the MPs had misunderstood what they had been told or the women were embellishing the impact on them based on what I knew for certain about my own situation.