WASPI Campaign .... State Pensions

Pollycat

merrydance wrote: »

Because it is a massive change to one's life that is why. Retirement age at 60 was expected.

I'm age 63 & also have had my SPA put back twice.

I've not expected to get my state pension at 60 since the first change in 1995.

And you can retire at any age, it's the age that the state pension is payable that has changed.

Malthusian

dunstonh wrote: »

Although it was well discussed in the media and in consultation for a number of years. So, lets give it another 5 years and meet him half way

Merrydance doesn't have to as the point I was taking her up on was about not having access to a private pension scheme. So personal pensions have only been universally available for 22 years and not 30.

The general point stands that if someone has no retirement savings now it is not because they were prevented from accessing a private pension scheme from 1987 to 1995. That's 22 years in which they could access a private pension scheme and even before 1995 they were free to save in other ways.

merrydance wrote:

To be fair, women normally bear children and that does take a toll on your body. Presently I am waiting for a major operation for gynae problems. If I had my state pension, I would have left work. Now I have to go in, even though I am not really that well, but not ill enough to claim any benefits. I can't imagine any firm wanting to take me on in this state!

Best wishes for a swift recovery. Any employer would rather have someone who is willing to work and is recovering from a major operation than a fit and healthy 20-something who would rather stay in bed and on benefits. It sounds as if you would find the employment and jobseeking forum more helpful than this one.

If you are insistent that you won't ever be fit for work again then you will almost certainly be right.

merrydance

Yes Pollycat I agree. But to make it fair, everybody who got their state pension at age 60 since 1995 should have it frozen for 6 years to make it fair for the ones not getting it.

Triumph13

merrydance wrote: »

Yes Pollycat I agree. But to make it fair, everybody who got their state pension at age 60 since 1995 should have it frozen for 6 years to make it fair for the ones not getting it.

So let's get this clear. WASPI don't like the idea of a gradual equalisation in state pension ages over several years and prefer a cliff edge 6 year change for anyone born 1 Jan 1960. If you can't have that then you think there should be a retrospective 6 year cliff edge change for those born some time in 1935?

PensionTech

To be fair, women normally bear children and that does take a toll on your body

What about the huge number of men, and tiny number of women, who spend their whole working life doing hard physical labour?

And what about the empirical fact that women live significantly longer than men?

To be clear, I don't doubt your account that you are suffering from feminine medical issues - although if they're not severe enough to claim benefits then I fail to see why they justify early payment of your pension. But you will have a hard job claiming that women are less able to work than men.

In answer to your question about why some people still don't have their facts straight about the state pension age, something I've said previously on this topic. Given that more people knew about the changes than not (2004 research shows awareness of over 70% in the affected cohort, and around 60% overall), there are two possibilities:

Either it was well publicised, but a (not inconsiderable) number of people didn't pay attention to the change in SPA, or forgot about it, because it didn't interest them and they weren't all that bothered about their retirement planning;

Or it wasn't well publicised, but in some bizarre phenomenon, a huge number of people independently and spontaneously wrung the hard-to-get information out of the authorities and then lied (including on this forum) about it just being common knowledge in the circles they moved in.

Oh, and in the latter option there's also a big conspiracy across multiple governments who have fabricated multiple reports showing all the ways in which they communicated state pension age changes (yes, including unsolicited personalised letters), together with research from independent journalists showing hundreds of stories about the issue in the mainstream press.

What seems more likely?

merrydance

I just think it should me more staggered than it is at present. Reading the benefits board, you have to be really ill or disabled to pass any test for benefits, I suppose I could try.

PensionTech

But to make it fair, everybody who got their state pension at age 60 since 1995 should have it frozen for 6 years to make it fair for the ones not getting it

Er - why?

The point of the delayed, phased approach was to allow women who may have been relying on pension at 60 plenty of notice to make extra provision for themselves, and to avoid the "cliff edge" that could see people born 1 day apart receive their pensions 5 (or 6, 7, 8) years apart. Are you seriously suggesting that a woman aged 59 in 1995 should have suddenly been told, one year from retirement, that she wouldn't get her state pension for another seven years?

Or are you suggesting that the same cohort of women should have their pensions suspended now, when they are in their seventies and eighties? And if so, why not people who had already reached 60 when the legislation came in?

That is crazy. I think WASPI would have something to say about this idea.

Also, I think you'll find that SPA is still increasing - so for me it'll be 68 at least - should your pension be frozen for another two years to make it "fair" to me?

dunstonh

merrydance wrote: »

I just think it should me more staggered than it is at present. Reading the benefits board, you have to be really ill or disabled to pass any test for benefits, I suppose I could try.

A benefits board would not really be a place to gauge the norm. By definition, it will be populated by people having what they see are problems. Some of those problems will be valid. Some will not.

Benefits are meant to be for the really ill or disabled. People who may not be captured by insurance of workplace illness schemes. People who cannot help themselves. They are not meant to be a way of life. Although for some, that has been the case.

Jackieboy

merrydance wrote: »

I just think it should me more staggered than it is at present. Reading the benefits board, you have to be really ill or disabled to pass any test for benefits, I suppose I could try.

I thought you already had a job and were going to need to move offices?

merrydance

Yes looks like I'll have to just suck it up. I really do feel sorry for younger women who are going to have to wait even longer. Not everyone has the means to pay into a private pension.
Yes I have a job, and yes I had to move offices. Causing a lot of extra travel, when I am not quite up to scratch health wise. I was talking about the benefit is it DLA? that you can claim while you are working. Not sure, never claimed anything before.