Women lose landmark legal fight against state pension age rise - MSE News

Pollycat

ffacoffipawb wrote: »

Shouldn't really refer to these bleating moaners as WASPI as they are in favour of state pension inequality. Not against it.

There is inequality in pensions, probably, but not in state pensions.

Two wrongs don't make a right. They have no right to a state pension at 60.

The inequality is not just between the sexes but between races too (e.g. black men were more disadvantaged historically, probably still are to an extent). These WASPE don't mention this because they see no pound signs in their sights with this aspect.

I refer to those women as WASPI because that is the banner under which they campaigned.

I'm not sure if my posts aren't coming across clearly enough.
I've never said that these women - and that includes me as a late 1953 woman - have any right to pension at age 60.


From my posts in the last few hours:

Pollycat wrote: »

I think you believe that I'm supporting these WASPI women.

I'm not.
And have never supported them.

Pollycat wrote: »

You will probably note from the rest of my post that I have no sympathy with WASPI.

I can find many more posts of mine over the last 3 years that make it crystal clear that I disagree with what WASPI (and back-to-60) want.


Do you anything to back up your statement about black men 'still being disadvantaged to some extent'?
I assume you mean from a pension perspective.
Are you saying that a black man who paid his NI contributions just the same as a white man wouldn't get his state pension at the same age as that white man?

thepurplepixie

I think people have to take some personal responsibility and the first lot of changes had been known about for decades. I think the impact of the second tranch of changes on a certain group of women with very little time to prepare was harsh, some adjustments were made and the increase in pension age was limited to 18 months. I think there were undertakings that in future people would have at least 10 years notice of changes which really is acknowledging that it was unfair. I have some sympathy with the second group.

Again with the married woman's stamp people really should have understood it would have an impact somewhere along the line. The thing that did surprise me, didn't affect me as I always worked, was that if a woman opted for the reduced stamp and subsequently gave up work to care for children she got no credits, a woman who paid the full stamp could take years off work and be protected. I would have assumed that if you got credits because you were in receipt of child benefit (or was it still family allowance then?) that all women would have got it.

thepurplepixie

Pollycat wrote: »

Were you affected by the 2010 change?
i.e. are you a 1953/1954 woman?
If you weren't, you wouldn't have been sent a letter.
The 'earlier affected women' i.e the 1995 Act weren't notified personally.

ETA:
Just read an earlier post of yours.
I don't think you were affected by the later (2010) Act.

I was born in 1953, I actually ran the pension scheme for the company I worked for so as pensions were my livelihood I think I would have noticed a letter about the changes. I never got one, I knew all about them because of news coverage but also because of my job. Where did my letter go? I have no idea but I don't think it is that big an issue as it was well reported in the media. My pension date changed by 18 months, it had already changed because of the earlier change, and I just worked for an extra few months which meant it made little difference to me in the great scheme of things but I do understand it might have been difficult for some. An example might be women like me who had children fairly late so my youngest ended up graduating after I retired, I was still in a position to support him but that could be very difficult in some families.

I can't imagine anyone is going to go back and do anything about it now but for the future I very much support people being given adequate notice of changes. You have to work in pensions to recognise how little trust people have in pensions of all sorts which means they don't prepare properly, restoring confidence that people will eventually get what they feel they signed up for is important.

Pollycat

thepurplepixie wrote: »

I was born in 1953, I actually ran the pension scheme for the company I worked for so as pensions were my livelihood I think I would have noticed a letter about the changes. I never got one, I knew all about them because of news coverage but also because of my job. Where did my letter go? I have no idea but I don't think it is that big an issue as it was well reported in the media. My pension date changed by 18 months, it had already changed because of the earlier change, and I just worked for an extra few months which meant it made little difference to me in the great scheme of things but I do understand it might have been difficult for some. An example might be women like me who had children fairly late so my youngest ended up graduating after I retired, I was still in a position to support him but that could be very difficult in some families.

I can't imagine anyone is going to go back and do anything about it now but for the future I very much support people being given adequate notice of changes. You have to work in pensions to recognise how little trust people have in pensions of all sorts which means they don't prepare properly, restoring confidence that people will eventually get what they feel they signed up for is important.

I've asked eight of my contempories.
All received a letter re the later changes.
As did I.
As did my husband whose pension age was changed to 66.
One wonders why some people received letters and some didn't.

zagfles

thepurplepixie wrote: »

I think people have to take some personal responsibility and the first lot of changes had been known about for decades. I think the impact of the second tranch of changes on a certain group of women with very little time to prepare was harsh, some adjustments were made and the increase in pension age was limited to 18 months. I think there were undertakings that in future people would have at least 10 years notice of changes which really is acknowledging that it was unfair. I have some sympathy with the second group.

Indeed - we've discussed it a lot here and that seems to be the majority view, and that's what WASPI was initially set up for. But when they expanded to whinge about the 1995 act, they lost all credibility.

thepurplepixie

Pollycat wrote: »

I've asked eight of my contempories.
All received a letter re the later changes.
As did I.
As did my husband whose pension age was changed to 66.
One wonders why some people received letters and some didn't.

Who knows why some didn't get letters, it is almost inevitable with the numbers involved that it won't be 100%. Last year someone arrived at my door with a jiffybag addressed to my husband, it was something he had ordered from ebay two years before and had been replaced by the company. They found it in a bush down the road. How had it got there? Why had it got there and why had no one else noticed it in 2 years? One thing it does show is that our local council don't do much maintenance.

Just to add I have a folder with all my correspondence about pensions, private and state, and there is no letter about this. I'm not someone who tosses these sort of letters away.

thepurplepixie

zagfles wrote: »

Indeed - we've discussed it a lot here and that seems to be the majority view, and that's what WASPI was initially set up for. But when they expanded to whinge about the 1995 act, they lost all credibility.

Sorry I haven't been following it so I didn't realise that. I do think they made a mistake in widening it out. I would never have expected the government to completely go back on the decision but I do think it could have been more gradual for that small group, I can't remember the exact details off hand but if I was a day older I would have got my pension about three months earlier, a friend of mine who is 2 months younger than me got her pension about six months after me. A releative who is a year older than me got her pension years before me, 3 years? I'm not sure of the exact dates now. The transition was quite a sharp one and definitely not decades of warning as some on here have referred, I think some people don't realise about the effects of the two changes.

fred246

I know not everyone knew what was planned but surely if only a few women heard that the government was planning this terrible injustice they would have alerted all the others affected so they could lobby their MPs and march upon parliament? It seems strange timing to protest so late. It's as if they were in the pub one day and one said "we'd be all retired now if they hadn't changed the retirement age" "Ooh yes my older sister retired at 60. It's not fair let's kick up a stink". My occupational pension was changed but the protest was when it was changed. I can't imagine protests 20 years later when it is being implemented.

colsten

Pollycat wrote: »

I think you believe that I'm supporting these WASPI women.

I don't, as I have read your posts. If my response(s) have come across as criticising you, I apologise, that was never my intention. I only wanted to add to what you had said.

Pollycat wrote: »

One wonders why some people received letters and some didn't.

There are good reasons why some people wouldn't get letters. The High Court judgment goes into quite some detail about it.

molerat

thepurplepixie wrote: »

The transition was quite a sharp one and definitely not decades of warning as some on here have referred, I think some people don't realise about the effects of the two changes.

The shortest notification in the 1995 act was 15 years for a woman born in April 1950 who had their date pushed back by 1 month. The 2011 act was a different matter but the shortest notice there was 5 years for a woman born in April 1953 and expecting to retire in May 2016, with 18 years notice from their age 60 retirement, but pushed back a further 2 months to July 2016. Some are trying to confuse the issue by stating they only had 2 years notice that their pension date had changed from, for instance, 2013 to 2019 when that 2013 date had been lost since 1995.