Women SPA this week

Gers

I wasn't affected by the 1995 act but was by the 2011 changes. I know categorically that I didn't receive any notification in 2011 or about the 2011 changes.

Pollycat

Gers wrote: »

I wasn't affected by the 1995 act but was by the 2011 changes. I know categorically that I didn't receive any notification in 2011 or about the 2011 changes.

I was affected by both changes.
I definitely received a letter about the later changes.

Malthusian

POPPYOSCAR wrote: »

That is not the point.

Yes it is. It is the only point.

The argument put forward is that these WASPI women should have saved and made provision for having to retire later.

Or adjusted their lifestyle expectations downwards. Or worked until they dropped if they wanted to afford their current lifestyle forever without saving for retirement. It's a free country.

If patriarchal oppression kept them unemployed or on minimum wage for their entire lives there is no issue, as around the time they become too old to work, the State Pension plus Housing Benefit and other benefits will be adequate.

If despite patriarchal oppression they managed to earn more than minimum wage, then they were just as able as a man earning the same wage to save into a pension.

nigelbb wrote: »

I think that women in the cohort who have had the goalposts moved twice have a very legitimate grievance. Initially they were told their SPA would change from 60 to 65 then years later were told it was actually going to be 66 & beyond.

It might have been nicer if they'd been told in the run up to 1995 that their SPA was going to be 66+, but that was politically unfeasible.

No politically acceptable increase to the SPA will ever be sufficient to keep pace with rising life expectancy.

A grievance was raised at the time the 2011 Pensions Act was going through that the original two-year maximum increase was too much, and a democratic compromise was reached which lowered the maximum increase to 18 months. The time to complain that 18 months was too much has been and gone. One of WASPI's founders launched a petition against the 2011 Act and it flopped with zero interest. Only when they expanded the protest to the 1995 Act, and told members that if they donated to WASPI they'd get a £30,000+ cheque in the post from the Government, did WASPI gain momentum.

molerat

And it is still all about 1950s women, obviously no men are affected

Paul_Herring

molerat wrote: »

And it is still all about 1950s women, obviously no men are affected

Or women born after 31st December 1959...

nigelbb

molerat wrote: »

And it is still all about 1950s women, obviously no men are affected

I am male born in the 1950s & wasn’t affected as I reached SPA in the week that pension age parity was achieved by women. If I had been born four weeks later I would have been nearly £2000 worse off.

Terron

molerat wrote: »

And it is still all about 1950s women, obviously no men are affected

I was born in 1959 My SPA is 66. WASPI would have it that a woman born on the same day as me would have a SPA of 60. They want to increase the inequality from the 5 it was originally or zero now to 6 years.



If they win then I would consider starting a campaign for men born in 1959.

Silvertabby

Paul_Herring wrote: »

Or women born after 31st December 1959...

WASPI seem to believe that women born on or before 31 December 1959 are justified in claiming ignorance of the re-equalisation of State pension ages, but that women born from just one day later have no such excuses and must have known about them.

fred246

It seems amazing that over 100 years after the suffragettes were fighting for equality in voting women are arguing for continued inequality in state pensions. Why have men accepted for all those years that they need to keep working longer even though they die earlier than women?

lisyloo

nigelbb wrote: »

I think that women in the cohort who have had the goalposts moved twice have a very legitimate grievance. Initially they were told their SPA would change from 60 to 65 then years later were told it was actually going to be 66 & beyond.

Well I’m in that cohort and I don’t think I’ve got a legitimate grievance at all.
In fact I’m advantaged through probably living longer.
I’ve know since 1995 it was going to be equalised so plenty of time.