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

Mistermeaner

Lots of bad things happen to lots of people

I feel sorry for those people

thepurplepixie

molerat wrote: »

I have deleted my post as I misread what you said, my reading was that you actually received less under the new scheme than you had earned under the old

That's OK, I realise it could be read either way. I just wanted to point out to previous poster that the single tier pension isn't necessarily better than the old one so they might not have missed out on anything.

sammyjammy

Juebrads wrote: »

It has been accepted the government could have done more, like change the information on their own website in a timely fashion. I did not have tv nor a radio, nor did I buy papers, I was too busy being a single parent through no fault of my own, trying to do two jobs, as being a woman I was paid less than a man, for equivalent work. Unlike married people single parents have better things to worry about than their pension which they can not afford to save into anyway. They mostly just get by and have to fight to be able to afford things for their children.
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. I want my life back. But face poverty for the rest of it because of discrimination, part time working and being a housewife for ten years, single parent for 15 years.
It is life, but anyone saying we women of the 50’s did not suffer discrimination take a look at the law where a man could rape his wife until 1991 legally, then the old boys in the House of Lords decided it was time to sort this out bless em.

Wow. Bitter much? You need to knock that chip off your shoulder.

thepurplepixie

Silvertabby wrote: »

My point is that those 1950s women who paid reduced NI can hardly claim that 'We paid in, Government must pay out'.

Some of us 1950s women were smart enough to pay the reduced NI for years and still get enough years to get the full state pension. I worked from 15 to 63 so didn't need the full stamp for all the years I worked. I don't even feel guilty about it as I know loads of women who took 10, 15 or even 20 years off with children and got credits for all those years. At least I was paying something.

colsten

Pollycat wrote: »

I guess from your latest post you may have flounced off...but I would say that some women whose stories were recounted in various Parliamentary debates and some women who have talked to newspapers are a discredit to their gender.
I've posted ( and reposted) about either downright lies or misrepresentation of the truth from women who clearly seek to make out their situation is worse than it actually is.

Here is another one for you: a well-known WASPI was on a BBC Regional Radio programme last week, commenting on the JR outcome. At one stage, she said she had lost her financial independence as a result of the SPA increases.

The same WASPI had inherited £250K from her father in 2008, when she was 52. Leaving aside that she now lives in a well-appointed 6-bedroom house with gardens open to the public for a few weeks in the summer and with a husband who had an Executive position in the industry, if she is now financially dependent, that appears to be of her own making rather than as a result of the SPA increases.

Many people can only dream of ever having £250K, let alone 14 years before reaching their state pension age. That's almost £18,000 a year, every year to her SPA, nearly as much as the average net annual UK salary, and more than many families have to get by on. Not to forget that, at 52, she was still in the prime of her working life. But let's assume she didn't have any income from work: £18,000 net a year is a nice sum to have, for anyone. If SP, at max £8,770 a year, would - according to what she said on radio - provide her with financial independence, then surely twice that amount would do the same? Even in the unlikely event that she had had massive debts at the time of her inheritance and had had to use half of it to pay off her debts, she'd still be left with more than the SP amount until her SP kicks in.

But taking it further and let's assume she has spent the entire £250K and is now without any income: it is not the rise of the SPA that took away her financial independence, but her own spending. Aged 64 now, she'd then still have the same option a man her age has for income: #GetAJob.

ian1246

Juebrads wrote: »

It has been accepted the government could have done more, like change the information on their own website in a timely fashion. I did not have tv nor a radio, nor did I buy papers, I was too busy being a single parent through no fault of my own, trying to do two jobs, as being a woman I was paid less than a man, for equivalent work. Unlike married people single parents have better things to worry about than their pension which they can not afford to save into anyway. They mostly just get by and have to fight to be able to afford things for their children.
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. I want my life back. But face poverty for the rest of it because of discrimination, part time working and being a housewife for ten years, single parent for 15 years.
It is life, but anyone saying we women of the 50’s did not suffer discrimination take a look at the law where a man could rape his wife until 1991 legally, then the old boys in the House of Lords decided it was time to sort this out bless em.

Wonderful. Fortunately, society and the law has moved on. Not really sure how it has anything to do with the state pension debate however. But since you want to cry about how discriminating society is for woman and how that somehow justifies woman getting given a pension 6 years earlier than men, I'd just like to draw to your attention some of societies gross inequalities for men:

Such as how in the 21st century, as in - today - a male is 3 times more like to commit suicide than a woman, is far more likely to be homeless and is almost twice as likely to face a custodial sentence for the same crime as a woman, whilst receiving a substantially lengthier sentence. They are also likely to die 5 or 6 years earlier than a woman. They are also far less likely to be awarded custody of their children in the event of a divorce vs. a woman with the same circumstances.

Using your argument to justify in-equal state pension ages - does that mean men in my generation - born in the 1980's - should be allowed to retire 6 years earlier than woman born at the same time as myself, given the clear inequality which exists in terms of the support available (NHS, Social Services) to men vs. women, and the general injustice/inequality of the UK justice/court system (Likelihood of Custodial Sentences, length of sentences, outcome of divorce proceedings tec...).

I also note you haven't even given a 2nd thought to other discriminated groups - LGBT, Different Races, Disabled people etc...

The short and concise answer, of course, is No. Inequality should never be justified and should be challenged in all aspects.

zagfles

ian1246 wrote: »

Wonderful. Fortunately, society and the law has moved on. Not really sure how it has anything to do with the state pension debate however. But since you want to cry about how discriminating society is for woman and how that somehow justifies woman getting given a pension 6 years earlier than men, I'd just like to draw to your attention some of societies gross inequalities for men:

Such as how in the 21st century, as in - today - a male is 3 times more like to commit suicide than a woman, is far more likely to be homeless and is almost twice as likely to face a custodial sentence for the same crime as a woman, whilst receiving a substantially lengthier sentence. They are also likely to die 5 or 6 years earlier than a woman. They are also far less likely to be awarded custody of their children in the event of a divorce vs. a woman with the same circumstances.

Using your argument to justify in-equal state pension ages - does that mean men in my generation - born in the 1980's - should be allowed to retire 6 years earlier than woman born at the same time as myself, given the clear inequality which exists in terms of the support available (NHS, Social Services) to men vs. women, and the general injustice/inequality of the UK justice/court system (Likelihood of Custodial Sentences, length of sentences, outcome of divorce proceedings tec...).

I also note you haven't even given a 2nd thought to other discriminated groups - LGBT, Different Races, Disabled people etc...

The short and concise answer, of course, is No. Inequality should never be justified and should be challenged in all aspects.

It's symptomatic of the constant media narrative that women, and only women, are the victims of sexism. Just look at the BBC website - virtually every single day there's a story about sexism or inequality between the genders, but hardly ever about issues like suicide, child custody, prison population, homelessness etc, real issues where there is massive gender inequality where men are the victims by a large majority.

So even when a law that directly discriminates against men is changed so it no longer discriminates, it's not the law that is criticised as sexist, it's the change to the law!

Pollycat

colsten wrote: »

Here is another one for you: a well-known WASPI was on a BBC Regional Radio programme last week, commenting on the JR outcome. At one stage, she said she had lost her financial independence as a result of the SPA increases.

The same WASPI had inherited £250K from her father in 2008, when she was 52. Leaving aside that she now lives in a well-appointed 6-bedroom house with gardens open to the public for a few weeks in the summer and with a husband who had an Executive position in the industry, if she is now financially dependent, that appears to be of her own making rather than as a result of the SPA increases.

Many people can only dream of ever having £250K, let alone 14 years before reaching their state pension age. That's almost £18,000 a year, every year to her SPA, nearly as much as the average net annual UK salary, and more than many families have to get by on. Not to forget that, at 52, she was still in the prime of her working life. But let's assume she didn't have any income from work: £18,000 net a year is a nice sum to have, for anyone. If SP, at max £8,770 a year, would - according to what she said on radio - provide her with financial independence, then surely twice that amount would do the same? Even in the unlikely event that she had had massive debts at the time of her inheritance and had had to use half of it to pay off her debts, she'd still be left with more than the SP amount until her SP kicks in.

But taking it further and let's assume she has spent the entire £250K and is now without any income: it is not the rise of the SPA that took away her financial independence, but her own spending. Aged 64 now, she'd then still have the same option a man her age has for income: #GetAJob.

Precisely.
And that's why a lot of people don't feel like this:

Mistermeaner wrote: »

I feel sorry for those people

All those women like the one you mentioned above and the ones who had clearly misrepresented their circumstances to their MPs (or they had deliberately lied to them) when they spoke in the first debate makes a lot of people - including me - feel exactly like this:

colsten wrote: »

I need to be quite open and brutally honest here: over the years, I have seen way too many WASPI sob stories that turned out to be totally untrue. This now leads me to the default reaction to treat all WASPI sob stories as untrue to start with. I am sick and tired of the lies about not knowing about SPA increases, too (delighted to see one of them - called Julie Delve - got found out in this regard by two High Court judges).

Women like these ^^^^ are contemptible.

Add to that the fact that what WASPI put into their 2015 e-petition was nothing like what their 'ask' was on Facebook - I think WASPI were incredibly duplicitous about what was included in the petition and what they actually wanted.
And they removed reference to that 'ask' on Facebook in January 2016.

It's little wonder that people like me - affected by both the 1995 and 2011 Acts - are not more sympathetic.
Maybe Juebrads could have a think about why she's maybe not getting the sympathy she might have expected.

fred246

I just hope she wasn't delivering a baby when she decided to walk out in the middle of a shift.

jamesd

Re JD the evidence showed she was wrong about not being notified earlier but suggests that she genuinely missed it, with her being praised for her "engaging honesty". Best not to suggest that she knowingly made a false statement when the judges seem to disagree:

'77. The Claimants rely on their own lack of knowledge as illustrative. The first Claimant's case is that she decided to leave her employment in April 2012 to care for her mother who was ill. She did so on the understanding that she would receive her state pension on her 60th birthday on 21 May 2018. Sadly, her mother died in July 2012, but the Claimant had agreed to "voluntary exit" from her employment, and so left in any event in August 2012. Since her date of birth was 21 May 1958, the effect of the 1995 Act and the 2011 Act together was that the First Claimant’s SPA became 66, not 60. She is thus not entitled to a state pension until 11 May 2024. The first Claimant states that she "became aware of the changes to the state pension age in around 2010/2011. However, I was led to believe at the time that nothing would change until 2020 and I would, therefore, be unaffected…". The first Claimant’s statement does not explain what led her into this belief. It was only in 2014 when, through conversations with a colleague, that she realised she would receive her state pension only at age 66.

78. With engaging honesty, the first Claimant has produced two letters she received from her occupational pension provider, dated 4 August 2006 and 28 April 2011. In each case the letters advise her:

"“The DWP has assumed that your State Retirement pension will
be payable when you reach the age of 65 Years. If you have any
queries you should contact the DWP on 0845 3000 168. A leaflet
is available giving more information about your State Pension
statement at www.thepensionservice.gov.uk/pdf/cpf/cpf5jun05.pdf."'