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

ffacoffipawb

ArcticRoll wrote: »

Anyone who isn't in favour of this ruling needs to complete the following sentence:

"I think it's right that a white woman should continue to be able to retire 5 years earlier than a black man born on the same day because..."

The most compelling statement against these entitled women. The hardship could be overcome by carrying on working to 65/66 like men have to, unless they have other pensions available earlier.

ArcticRoll

The argument that the change was unfair and unlawful because everyone affected wasn't written to personally is a strange one too.

I'm going to check my correspondence to see the last time any Chancellor wrote me a letter informing me of changes to National Insurance contributions. Presumably it'll mean I'm entitled to a rather big rebate if nobody took time to personally write to me advising of changes to the contributions.

Dad will be thrilled too, as it'll surely mean he can go back to paying 60p for a packet of cigarettes.

grnglide

I find the title odd in the extreme?


What, exactly, makes this a landmark legal fight? It is merely a small group of people making noise.

Bogof_Babe

There’s another group of women, of which I am one, who might be miffed for a different reason...

I was born in Feb 1952 and received my pension when I was two months short of 62. So lost out on nearly two years worth. That’s fair enough given the age equality process.

However I am receiving the old rate (currently £131 a week), while women born a year or so later are on the new rate, currently £168.60. I will be stuck forever on the lower rate despite having a full NI record.

I worked it out once that if I draw my pension for something like 17 years I will have been penalised compared with women born later, even taking into account the extra time they have waited for theirs.

Doesn’t seem right that if the government calculates that people need £168 to have a comfortable life, some of us will be stuck forever on £37 less, and this gap will increase with each annual pension increment.

zagfles

Bogof_Babe wrote: »

There’s another group of women, of which I am one, who might be miffed for a different reason...

I was born in Feb 1952 and received my pension when I was two months short of 62. So lost out on nearly two years worth. That’s fair enough given the age equality process.

However I am receiving the old rate (currently £131 a week), while women born a year or so later are on the new rate, currently £168.60. I will be stuck forever on the lower rate despite having a full NI record.

I worked it out once that if I draw my pension for something like 17 years I will have been penalised compared with women born later, even taking into account the extra time they have waited for theirs.

Doesn’t seem right that if the government calculates that people need £168 to have a comfortable life, some of us will be stuck forever on £37 less, and this gap will increase with each annual pension increment.

This only applies to those who were self employed. Those who were in normal jobs paying class 1 NI will have either built up a second state pension or if they were contracted out a deduction will be applied to the higher rate.

There is a myth that the 2016 changes increased the state pension, but they didn't, they combined the basic and second state pension into a flat rate with transitional rules. The self employed were the main gainers as they never got the second state pension but did get the new flat rate.

For most people the 2016 changes made them worse off not better off.

Bogof_Babe

zagfles wrote: »

This only applies to those who were self employed. Those who were in normal jobs paying class 1 NI will have either built up a second state pension or if they were contracted out a deduction will be applied to the higher rate.

There is a myth that the 2016 changes increased the state pension, but they didn't, they combined the basic and second state pension into a flat rate with transitional rules. The self employed were the main gainers as they never got the second state pension but did get the new flat rate.

For most people the 2016 changes made them worse off not better off.

Really? All I know is that my sister who is nearly two years younger than me gets the new rate. She was employed for 30 hours a week and has a fairly modest pension from the local authority (she was a teaching assistant). I’m not jealous, but I am a bit puzzled as to why we’re not all on the new rate.

I have an employment pension, about the same amount as I get from my state pension. Presumably I was contracted out - it was never really explained to us at work.

LHW99

Bogof_Babe wrote: »

There’s another group of women, of which I am one, who might be miffed for a different reason...

I was born in Feb 1952 and received my pension when I was two months short of 62. So lost out on nearly two years worth. That’s fair enough given the age equality process.

However I am receiving the old rate (currently £131 a week), while women born a year or so later are on the new rate, currently £168.60. I will be stuck forever on the lower rate despite having a full NI record.

I worked it out once that if I draw my pension for something like 17 years I will have been penalised compared with women born later, even taking into account the extra time they have waited for theirs.

Doesn’t seem right that if the government calculates that people need £168 to have a comfortable life, some of us will be stuck forever on £37 less, and this gap will increase with each annual pension increment.

But if you had pre-2016 SP, deferring it would increase it by 10%+ per annum, the NSP is only increased by about half that in deferral.

Rich2808

Men were getting their pensions at 65 and on average died five years younger than women who were getting theirs at 60 - so despite paying the same NI contributions women were getting state pensions for 10 years longer than men on average. Many men doing tough manual jobs never lived to see their state pension either.

Today's young may never be able to retire as they may have to rent for the rest of their life - unlike many of these retirees who will typically own homes worth far more than they paid for them.

Pity women (and men) in their 20s and 30s now and the men who never lived to see their pension in the past! In the end equality works both ways.

zagfles

Bogof_Babe wrote: »

Really? All I know is that my sister who is nearly two years younger than me gets the new rate. She was employed for 30 hours a week and has a fairly modest pension from the local authority (she was a teaching assistant). I’m not jealous, but I am a bit puzzled as to why we’re not all on the new rate.

I have an employment pension, about the same amount as I get from my state pension. Presumably I was contracted out - it was never really explained to us at work.

Yes, if you hadn't been contracted out, you'd have some second state pension (SERPS/S2P) as well as the basic pension. For most people retiring at your time this would be more than the new flat rate in total.

If you were contracted out, you don't get the SERPS/S2P element as it's paid by your occupational scheme instead.

For people reaching state pension age shortly after April 2016 who were in a contracted out scheme, the new flat rate is reduced such that even with 35 or more years, you are unlikely to get the full flat rate. It depends on lots of factors like how long you were contracted out for, what your earnings were etc.

Your sister getting more state pension than you is almost certainly because she was contracted out for less time, or her earnings were less, so the reduction due to contracted out was less. But that also means she gets less from her occupational scheme, so overall she's likely to be worse off.

This is a bit oversimplified, but the essential point is that the reason your sister gets more state pension isn't because she retired after April 2016, it's almost certainly because she was contracted out for less time or earned less.

Bogof_Babe

Thanks very much zagfles for taking the trouble to explain all that. I think I sort of get it now.

My sister had about eight years not working due to child rearing, and presumably would have had NI credits for that time. Before the kids she worked full time for several years so I guess it all adds up.

I thought it would be strange that when we are in our 90s (haha if we’re lucky) there would still be quite a big difference, but if it’s due to occupational pensions then it may well work out about the same.