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

thepurplepixie

molerat wrote: »

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 6 years for a woman born in December 1953 and expecting to retire in September 2017, with 18 years notice from their age 60 retirement, but pushed back a further 18 months to March 2019. 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.

I'm not sure about the dates, I was born in 1953 but earlier than December (only by a few weeks) and I was definitely affected by the 2nd change. I said earlier if I had been born a day earlier, if we want to be accurate 8 hrs earlier, my SRP would have started 3 months earlier, I've just checked and it was actually 4 months earlier. So I didn't have to wait till I was 66 but my SRP definitely changed with both changes and I ended up with my pension just before my 65 birthday, I definitely had decades to prepare for the first change but not for the second.

The govt has committed to giving at least 10 years notice of further changes, that gives some certainty which is needed as the last thing we need is for people to decide it isn't worth preparing because the goal posts will move.

molerat

I have edited my post as I forgot about the acceleration to 65 but it makes little difference to the overall picture, the minimum notice was 5 years. Both myself and MrsM were affected by the 2011 changes, the biggest problem to us was that we had already retired so had no option to stay on working but our plan was robust enough to cope. A lot of the complaints from those affected is not that they could not carry on working but rather why should they. In life the only guarantee is that there is no guarantee, if you fail to plan for a !!!! happens scenario your plan will fail.

colsten

thepurplepixie wrote: »

The govt has committed to giving at least 10 years notice of further changes, that gives some certainty which is needed as the last thing we need is for people to decide it isn't worth preparing because the goal posts will move.

"The Government" that has published an intention to give 10 years notice was the Coalition Government. Long gone now. Nothing was put into law about the 10 years, and even if it were, new Governments can change legislation - to what we might consider is to our advantage, or to our detriment.

molerat wrote: »

I have edited my post as I forgot about the acceleration to 65 but it makes little difference to the overall picture, the minimum notice was 5 years.

Worth noting that the min 5 years was for no more than 18 months increase. The first women directly affected by the second increase had less than 12 months added to their 1995 SPA, some just 2 months. It is those born 6 Dec 53 and 6 Oct 54 who had 18 months added, and they had at least 6 years notice (I am one of them myself). Men did not have more than 12 months added, as they were already at 65.

A good table showing the increases is here: http://www.web40571.clarahost.co.uk/statepensionage/SPA_changes.pdf

thepurplepixie

colsten wrote: »

"The Government" that has published an intention to give 10 years notice was the Coalition Government. Long gone now. Nothing was put into law about the 10 years, and even if it were, new Governments can change legislation - to what we might consider is to our advantage, or to our detriment.

Worth noting that the min 5 years was for no more than 18 months increase. The first women directly affected by the second increase had less than 12 months added to their 1995 SPA, some just 2 months. It is those born 6 Dec 53 and 6 Oct 54 who had 18 months added, and they had at least 6 years notice (I am one of them myself). Men did not have more than 12 months added, as they were already at 65.

A good table showing the increases is here: http://www.web40571.clarahost.co.uk/statepensionage/SPA_changes.pdf

It might not be legally binding but a commitment to a minimum of ten years has to be a good thing. The cynicism about pensions is very worrying, it does not bode well for the future but young, and even middleaged people, just think it isn't worth planning and saving as it will just be taken off them or the goalposts changed. I don't agree with them, as a young working mum I often thought I could make good use of the money but I am glad now, but you can't really blame them.

thepurplepixie

colsten wrote: »

"The Government" that has published an intention to give 10 years notice was the Coalition Government. Long gone now. Nothing was put into law about the 10 years, and even if it were, new Governments can change legislation - to what we might consider is to our advantage, or to our detriment.

Worth noting that the min 5 years was for no more than 18 months increase. The first women directly affected by the second increase had less than 12 months added to their 1995 SPA, some just 2 months. It is those born 6 Dec 53 and 6 Oct 54 who had 18 months added, and they had at least 6 years notice (I am one of them myself). Men did not have more than 12 months added, as they were already at 65.

A good table showing the increases is here: http://www.web40571.clarahost.co.uk/statepensionage/SPA_changes.pdf

That is interesting, it shows how the changes jumped. I am one of the 500,000 women whose pension age increased by over a year in the second changes. I actually retired before my SRP age as my works pension kicked in at 60 I went part-time after that and gradually reduced my hours until I finally retired about 6 months before my SRP. I do feel for the women who were struggling and think something could have been done for them.

Malthusian

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.

But gained all their support and political momentum. (To be pedantic, the original campaign was called "Reverse the State Pension Law", it was renamed WASPI when they escalated to demanding the reversal of the 1995 act for 1950s women only.)

The 2011 change was opposed at the time and watered down from 24 months to 18. The political consensus was that that was enough. There was no will to water it down further at the expense of younger and older taxpayers, which is why proto-WASPI flopped.

Things were done for those who were adversely affected. Those who found themselves impoverished by the change because they became unable to work 18 months earlier than a healthy human normally would could claim the disability benefits they were entitled to.

Those who were fit and active had to save more money or adjust lifestyle expectations if they wanted to retire earlier, same as everyone in that position. This is not a problem the Government created. It has got more expensive to retire at a given age as the expected number of remaining years of life has risen - which is why annuity rates have fallen, which is why you need a bigger pension pot to buy the same level of guaranteed income, compared to the same income at the same age 20 years ago. (The same applies to being able to draw a given income directly from the pension without exhausting it.)

This is more than made up for by the fact you get to live longer.

Silvertabby

I have never received a letter either, but it wasn't a problem as you really couldn't fail to notice the media coverage.

However, I suspect that even if every single 1950s woman did receive a personal letter, then we would still have this carry-on. "What's this rubbish - why am I getting a letter about pensions at my age - they're only for pensioners - chuck that in the bin!".

Before the LGPS switched from Final Salary to Career Average in 2014 we flooded the system with information. Printed on the back of payslips, details in the quarterly pensions bulletin, union bulletins, personal e-mails to those on the internal internet system, info leaflets sent to team leaders to distribute to workers without e-mail access, etc etc. I really can't see how we could have done any more. Yet, time after time, when talking to pension fund members and mentioning the new CARE scheme, we were asked "what new scheme - no-one has told me about it". When told about the widely available information, the typical answer would be " but nobody bothers reading about boring pensions".

Clive_Woody

Silvertabby wrote: »

I have never received a letter either, but it wasn't a problem as you really couldn't fail to notice the media coverage.

However, I suspect that even if every single 1950s woman did receive a personal letter, then we would still have this carry-on. "What's this rubbish - why am I getting a letter about pensions at my age - they're only for pensioners - chuck that in the bin!".

Before the LGPS switched from Final Salary to Career Average in 2014 we flooded the system with information. Printed on the back of payslips, details in the quarterly pensions bulletin, union bulletins, personal e-mails to those on the internal internet system, info leaflets sent to team leaders to distribute to workers without e-mail access, etc etc. I really can't see how we could have done any more. Yet, time after time, when talking to pension fund members and mentioning the new CARE scheme, we were asked "what new scheme - no-one has told me about it". When told about the widely available information, the typical answer would be " but nobody bothers reading about boring pensions".

Absolutely this.

24 years notice, news coverage on TV, radio and in the papers and yet some folk still plead ignorance.

This raises the question, what exactly would they have done differently if they had received a letter spelling out the changes? As it appears that most of these people claiming to be unaware of the change have been living in caves for the last 24 years then I suspect they would have done little adapt their retirement plans or setting aside more cash to enable them to retire earlier.

colsten

thepurplepixie wrote: »

I do feel for the women who were struggling and think something could have been done for them.

I completely agree with you, those struggling should get more help. Struggling is not confined to 1950s women, though - women and men of all ages might find themselves in difficulties in their 60s. I think it is quite bizarre that anyone ever thought that only 1950s women, and all 1950s women, had deserved special treatment - and then mention equality and justice in the same breath!

Juebrads wrote: »

It has been accepted the government could have done more,

accepted by whom?

Juebrads wrote: »

like change the information on their own website in a timely fashion.

It's quite pathetic to still refer to the orphaned help page for the Government Gateway which nobody would have easily found, and to claim that anyone, just one single person, would have used this orphaned help page to confirm their state pension age.

Juebrads wrote: »

.....as being a woman I was paid less than a man, for equivalent work.

It has been illegal since the 70s to pay women less than men for the same job

Juebrads wrote: »

Unlike married people single parents have better things to worry about than their pension

really?!?

Juebrads wrote: »

I am now 64 having given up my NHS career due to longer shifts. I am too old to work and cannot do shifts anymore.

But men your age, or people born after the 50s, aren't too old to work at 64?

Juebrads wrote: »

It is life, but anyone saying we women of the 50’s did not suffer discrimination

It would help if you didn't try to put us all into the same category. I don't think anyone would question that some 50s people suffered discrimination but by far not each and every one of us did, and neither is discrimination limited to women born in the 1950s. Many people of colour, many migrants, many disabled people, many LGBT people, many people of different faiths, of all ages, still suffer discrimination nowadays. The problem of discrimination isn't solved by giving tens of billions to a group of noisy women, self-selected by their birth dates.

colsten

Juebrads wrote: »

I can assure you all I am 1955 birthdate, and I did not receive a letter at all warning me of the changes, I had no idea and found out when I left the NHS due to ill health at 58.

What would you have done differently if you had had a personal letter? How would a letter have prevented you from being too ill at 58 to continue working?

And are you seriously saying that in all those many years nobody at work ever talked about the state pension age increase?

Juebrads wrote: »

I accept I am a second class citizen.

Are men who have the same state pension age as yourself second class citizens, too? How would you classify those people who will pay your state pension and whose state pension age is 67 or 68 - third class citizens?