Should 1950s WASPI women be compensated?

hugheskevi

I am one of the women who was told 18 months before my 60 birthday that I had to work a further 3 years to get my pension.

Despite the widespread assertion, there is no connection between State Pension age and having to work.

The 3 years in which you did not receive State Pension simply meant you received less from the Exchequer than you would have done prior to the rules changing in the 1995 Pension Act.

If entitled to the full basic State Pension of £129.20 p/w that is a shortfall of about £20,000. So there was about 20 years of notice that you would receive £20,000 less than the pre-1995 rules.

The other issue is that at the same time as governments were making all the changes to State Pension Age, we were under austerity measures, so a lot of people will have found it hard/impossible to make financial plans for a later State Pension Age and this does not just apply to 1950s women, but to all women born afterwards and men have also had their State Pension Age increased.

Those who retire early need to take responsibility to ensure their plans are financially sound. Those still in work can simply carry on longer to fill the gap - in the case of an 18 month delay to State Pension that would be about £10,000 so about 4 months of work for someone on average wage.

Something like 7 years of notice that you will need to work 4 months longer does not seem disproportionate when you take into account the changes made to tuition fees, a decade long (and counting) period of pay restraint for public sector workers, changes to public sector pensions and so forth.

badmemory

It amazes me that the number of people who were illiterate in the early 1990s are now able to post fluently on here. The adult literacy scheme my father first started many years ago is obviously bearing fruit!

Pollycat

It's no surprise to me that the highest numbers and percentage of votes are from women of the affected age (59-69):
91% for compensation (9117 votes)

and from men aged 59-69
66% for compensation (1040 votes)
as these are the groups who would benefit.
Women directly and men possibly indirectly as a result of their partners receiving compensation.



That would be a nice little earner then.


As an 'affected' woman born late 1953, I have not voted for automatic compensation.

Pollycat

Holly100 wrote: »

I am one of the women who was told 18 months before my 60 birthday that I had to work a further 3 years to get my pension. My husband and I had planned to retire together, he being 5 years older than me. I was lucky enough to get my very small NHS pension at 60 and decided that I had paid enough into Government coffers over the years and they were not going to scupper my retirement plans. I left my job on my 60 birthday and went out cleaning making sure that I earned the same amount each week as I would have got in my state pension. It was hard going after sitting in an office all my working life but I did it. I feel angry that we were given such short notice and that it has affected a vast amount of women - I have a cousin who is just over a year younger than me and she has only just got her pension having to wait until she was 65 so I count myself as being lucky. Also lets not forget the men in all this who have also had to wait longer for their pensions after believing all their working lives that they would get it at 65.
Compensation would be nice, however the country is in a bad way regarding NHS, Education and Policing. To sort this out and pay us women compensation the coffers would need to be overflowing which we all know they are not. The only way that Jeremy Corbyn could afford to compensate us women would be through borrowing and we all know where that left the country last time the Labour government was in power and that is why we have been in austerity over the last 8 years.

Hi Holly100
Was your cousin also unaware of the changes to the women's state pension age until you found out about the change?

Didn't either of you hear about the first change way back in 1995?
It was discussed widely at the time in all sorts of places.
I'm surprised that as you were working for the Government it wasn't being discussed in the workplace.
It certainly was in my workplace.

ffacoffipawb

Pollycat wrote: »

Hi Holly100
Was your cousin also unaware of the changes to the women's state pension age until you found out about the change?

Didn't either of you hear about the first change way back in 1995?
It was discussed widely at the time in all sorts of places.
I'm surprised that as you were working for the Government it wasn't being discussed in the workplace.
It certainly was in my workplace.

Selective amnesia.

MK62

Should 1950s WASPI women be compensated?

In any state pension scheme where the benefit qualification age rises, there will inevitably be losers.....unavoidable. However every woman born after 1950 is in that boat, not just those born in the 1950s.

The change had to be made....period (the UK is not alone here).

The method of that change could be argued endlessly, but, as far as HMG is concerned, for the phased changes they proposed, they took the view that media, TV coverage and word-of-mouth at the time would have been sufficient (though personally I don't really fully buy into the claim that in 1995, personal notification wasn't possible....more difficult, and not cost free, perhaps, but not impossible).

I might have more sympathy with the WASPI cause, if they agreed that any help should be means tested - after all the claim is that the change, and their lack of awareness about it, has caused hardship. If that's the case, then why is means-testing the help being so bitterly resisted?
Not, by chance, because that means many would not qualify?
The thought of relatively well off women being given up to £30k+ of taxpayers money, and spending it on a fancy car or holiday etc, is, I find, particularly nauseating when that money, should HMG decide to spend it, could be far better spent in other ways, such as helping people who actually need help.

I have no problem with the state helping any 50s born woman who has been put into genuine hardship because of her unawareness of this change, but that is as far as I think the state should go, and as far as I think is reasonable to expect the younger generation to pay for......it's already a pretty hard sell telling them they should compensate some people who could not retire at 60, when they themselves will not be able to retire until 67 or 68.

molerat

As a man I was told 2 years after I retired that I would not get my state pension at 65, where is my compensation ?

SonOf

I feel that if there is to be compensation, those born on or after 6th April 1960 should be included. 1950s women talk about notice in the form of letters, but in fact, a woman born after April 1960 may have received a letter at the same age as a woman born in the 1950s, as the DWP only sent letters to some women 2 to 3 years before their 60th birthdays.

Therefore I feel 1960s women should not be disregarded, especially as they have to wait until after their 66th birthdays.

If you are going to go that far then you need to include 1970s women as well as the state pension age would have been 60 at the start of their working life.

As I have said on the many many many threads on this subject, the 1995 changes were fair and had a long lead time. The 2011 changes were short notice and did leave some people in a bad position. I would be sympathetic to some of those getting means tested help.

I am one of the women who was told 18 months before my 60 birthday that I had to work a further 3 years to get my pension. My husband and I had planned to retire together,

You say you planned to retire together. How can you have planned if you claim you didnt know about the 1995 changes? Planning means looking at what you have got and what you need to do.

I feel angry that we were given such short notice

Over 15 years is longer notice then men have been getting about the age increases to 66. If 15 years is not long enough notice, how long should it be?

colsten

in_my_wellies wrote: »

I was aware it would change.
Before stopping work I checked that I had contributed sufficient NI years and have a letter to say I had 31 years and as 30 were needed I would be entitled to a full state pension pending any changes in the rules.
Six months after I stopped work they changed the rules to 35 years. I realise I was warned in the letter but I feel more cross about that as I had done everything I could by checking and already had 30 years but the rules changed AFTER I left.

You fail to mention that the 35 years came into effect on 6 April 2016 - alongside the New State Pension - and that transitional arrangements mean that you get the better of the old and the new rules. You also fail to mention that people can continue to add NI years up to their SPA, either by working, by getting NI credits or by making voluntary NI contributions.

In the light of this, what is it you are complaining about?

Brewer20

holly100
"I was lucky enough to get my very small NHS pension at 60 and decided that I had paid enough into Government coffers over the years and they were not going to scupper my retirement plans. I left my job on my 60 birthday and went out cleaning making sure that I earned the same amount each week as I would have got in my state pension."



So you didn't actually retire then?