Should 1950s WASPI women be compensated?

Paul_Herring

jimi_man wrote: »

Also the tax raised through smoking goes back to the state. I'm fairly sure that even taking into account the NHS care they may need, smokers pay their way and more besides.

Indeed: https://iea.org.uk/publications/smoking-and-the-public-purse/ (2017)

We estimate a net saving of £14.7 billon per annum at current rates of consumption, with the costs smokers incur significantly outweighed by the sum of tobacco duty paid and old-age expenditures avoided due to premature mortality.

[...]

In the absence of smoking, the government would spend an extra £9.8 billion annually in pension, healthcare and other benefit payments (less taxes forgone). Duty paid on tobacco products is £9.5 billion a year. In total, the gross financial benefit to the government from smoking therefore amounts to £19.3 billion. Subtracting the £4.6 billion of costs (above) produces an overall net benefit of £14.7 billion per annum.

Dorian1958

My sister in law is a year younger than me. She stopped part time work at age 52, 8 years ago, the same year her husband retired which was planned to coincide with when the last of their privately educated children left school for university. In her eyes, she no longer needed the torment of working in the education system, and their living costs took a boost as school fees were a lot higher than uni costs. At age 55 she accessed her DB pension. Since then, she and her husband have lived a very comfortable life, no mortgage, foreign holidays 2/3 times a year, several UK short breaks a year, new cars etc. I am happy for them, they are likeable people and are making the most of their freedom and have the financial means to achieve their aspirations. Using Labour's calculator, she will get just shy of £6K. She has no need to claim benefits, nor will this windfall push her Into the higher rate of tax. Over the years we had several conversations about the equalisation of the SPA, she and her husband factored this into their planning. They are short of NI years needed for the full new SP, but are not bothering to buy years because they can't be bothered and don't need to. Make your own mind up if she should be compensated, but in my mind "putting right a historic wrong" in her case is ludicrous. There must be countless similar examples.

Triumph13

Paul_Herring wrote: »

Indeed: https://iea.org.uk/publications/smoking-and-the-public-purse/ (2017)

We estimate a net saving of £14.7 billon per annum at current rates of consumption, with the costs smokers incur significantly outweighed by the sum of tobacco duty paid and old-age expenditures avoided due to premature mortality.

[...]

In the absence of smoking, the government would spend an extra £9.8 billion annually in pension, healthcare and other benefit payments (less taxes forgone). Duty paid on tobacco products is £9.5 billion a year. In total, the gross financial benefit to the government from smoking therefore amounts to £19.3 billion. Subtracting the £4.6 billion of costs (above) produces an overall net benefit of £14.7 billion per annum.

So maybe if we paid WASPI their compensation in free cigarettes...

PasturesNew

Most ideas of compo are bad. There is some middle ground easily achievable.... how about: For anybody aged 60 or above, they can give up their job, or stop job hunting and just claim JSA, any housing benefit, council tax.... to exactly the same rules as any other job hunter's rules would be, BUT, they don't have to 'sign on', they don't have a work coach, or have to apply for jobs at all.

Come 60, you can, if you wish, just 'go on basic JSA benefits' without being questioned about getting a job.

That'd fee up some jobs that'd trickle down to somebody on the dole getting a job + it'd stop 60+ people being mithered/monitored to apply for loads of jobs they'll never get.

Those having to job hunt for a further 5-7 years can just stop doing it.
Some who are working will feel "I can live on that (£73/week) + other top ups".
Those with large household incomes can give up work and not get any JSA/benefits as they'd not qualify because their household income's too high, but they don't have to keep turning up to work for 5-7 years plodding on....feeling they have to.

And this could be applied to male and female....

Middle ground.

nigelbb

PasturesNew wrote: »

Most ideas of compo are bad. There is some middle ground easily achievable.... how about: For anybody aged 60 or above, they can give up their job, or stop job hunting and just claim JSA, any housing benefit, council tax.... to exactly the same rules as any other job hunter's rules would be, BUT, they don't have to 'sign on', they don't have a work coach, or have to apply for jobs at all.

Come 60, you can, if you wish, just 'go on basic JSA benefits' without being questioned about getting a job.

That'd fee up some jobs that'd trickle down to somebody on the dole getting a job + it'd stop 60+ people being mithered/monitored to apply for loads of jobs they'll never get.

Those having to job hunt for a further 5-7 years can just stop doing it.
Some who are working will feel "I can live on that (£73/week) + other top ups".
Those with large household incomes can give up work and not get any JSA/benefits as they'd not qualify because their household income's too high, but they don't have to keep turning up to work for 5-7 years plodding on....feeling they have to.

And this could be applied to male and female....

Middle ground.

Alternatively the government could have increased National Insurance contributions to ensure that women actually got their pensions at 60 as expected. It would only have cost an extra £20/week over a working lifetime. Male pension age could have been equalised down to 60 by the same measure.

Brilley

... I have finally twigged....Corbyn will be planting millions of money trees so as well as infinite funds he will also help end global warming....double wammy

Triumph13

nigelbb wrote: »

Alternatively the government could have increased National Insurance contributions to ensure that women actually got their pensions at 60 as expected. It would only have cost an extra £20/week over a working lifetime. Male pension age could have been equalised down to 60 by the same measure.

What a wonderfully disingenuous comment. We could indeed have equalised everyone to 60 rather than 65 by the simple expedient of everyone, including the low paid, paying an extra £1,000 a year of tax. But of course the low paid can't afford it so you have to tax everyone else more.
In the last census there were 3.38M people aged 60 to 64. Full state pension for all of them would cost £29 Billion a year or more than 4p on the basic rate of tax. And that's before you add in the decrease in tax and NI they would pay by retiring earlier and the wider knock on impacts on the economy. 60 was completely unaffordable and 65 rapidly became so.

Pollycat

nigelbb wrote: »

Alternatively the government could have increased National Insurance contributions to ensure that women actually got their pensions at 60 as expected. It would only have cost an extra £20/week over a working lifetime. Male pension age could have been equalised down to 60 by the same measure.

Is this really a genuine suggestion?
Because if it is, I wouldn't be as kind about it as this poster:

Triumph13 wrote: »

What a wonderfully disingenuous comment.

Anything to give WASPI women their 'dues'. (Shakes head in disbelief)

colsten

I have seen some DWP statistics for JSA, UC and ESA claimants for the last 6 years.

The numbers for over 60s are the highest in the most recent year - 218,088 women and 228,006 men. In all years, the number of male claimants has been higher than the number of females.

What can we take from that?

• only a small percentage, less than 10%, of the WASPI women are forced to live on / are eligible for benefits
  
  
• more 1950s men than women are forced to live on benefits (remember, they used to be able to claim Pension Credit when they reached female SPA)
  
  
• on current trend, there is no reason to believe that the over-60s claimant figures will stop rising for people born after 1959
  
  
• a sensible Government would implement measures to help all of these men and women, may be with measures like PasturesNew has suggested earlier. They could also gradually raise the JSA/ESA amounts for each claimant for each year over 60, so it is essentially the same as SP the year before a claimant becomes eligible for SP. Etc etc etc
  
  
• no socially responsible Government would spend £58bn on 100% of 1950s women when not even 10% of them would qualify for benefits, and when more men than women of the same age group depend on benefits.
  
  
• it is outrageous that 60+ men who depend on benefits and who can no longer claim Pension Credit do not get compensation payments whilst well-off women their age get potentially tens of thousands
  
  
• Labour's Angela Rayner was definitely 'exaggerating' (aka: lying) when she claimed that millions of 1950s women were plunged into poverty by the SPA increases

badmemory

I think the next campaign should be to give pensioners on the old basic state pension a rise to make it equal to the new state pension. Yes tongue in cheek I admit. But if the gov really want to chuck money away why not give it to someone who receives less than the new state pension & stop them having to (& possibly through embarrassment not) claim additional benefits. After all nobody warned me that they were going to increase the state pension - even though they did give it a new name!