AIBU in thinking the government have made the correct decision not to blanket pay all WASPI women £3k? This goes against the Ombudsman recommendations to pay between £1k-3k to every WASPI women.

Something people seem to be missing is that there was no equal pay and not all jobs were open to women. There was also the expectation that women did all the wifework.

A woman couldn't get a credit card without their husbands signature until 1974 etc.

Many of these women did work but they were underpaid, they still paid their stamp etc. They have been treated poorly.

The issue is that many of the women affected immediately also had to leave their jobs because there was no maternity leave, they needed the state pension. I'm at the other end of the cohort as it was announced in my 20's so whilst I do have a private pension maturing at 60, At least I got 35 years to make arrangements, my mother did not

I agree OP, but it's not a popular opinion.

They have ignored the Ombudsman though, what if every company just thinks now that doesn't matter, we will just ignore it. The banks, the energy companies.

The differences of opinion on here and the comments that have been made, for me, highlight the reality that the WASPI issue is far more complex than most people seem to believe.

There is one group of Waspi women who had their pension age put back, but were able to plan for it over a reasonable (albeit relatively short) period. I am one of this group. There is a subset of this group who then had a further delay in their pension with only a couple of years' notice. This left them with the impossible task of making (for example) what they thought would be adequate income for three years, stretch over five. Whatever they did or didn't know, the reality is that no one can stretch three year's income over five. People outside this subgroup had to stretch five years' income over seven, or ten years' income over twelve, or whatever, all of which are difficult but attainable. But this particular subgroup got a very raw deal. And it's not just a question of somehow surviving those two years and then picking up where you left off. In order to survive people had to cash in assets that were essential to their future plans. When they were gone the whole future was different.

I'm less certain about compensation for most of the Waspi women but I support the idea of compensation for the subgroup who were shafted. It's not about 'they should have known' or 'they should have taken responsibility'. Even women who were in full possession of all the facts would have been unable to reorganise their financial affairs in order to plug a gap of that size in that short a period.

Nobody’s retired at 60 for a decade. Do keep up.

Younger generations are already over-funding older ones and it is not sustainable.

Why should someone who won't retire until they are 70 (if they retire at all) pay for someone else to retire at 60?

Another case of the 'me' generation taking as much as they can with no thought for those to come.

Did they work full time? I hear a lot of older women say "I've always worked" and then you find out they worked about 10 hours a week nearly all their lives or something.

There are those people in every generation. We wouldn’t have in work benefits otherwise.

Quite. There are many areas in life where claiming ignorance of a matter just doesn't cut it. Take some personal responsibility and find out.

I do think that some members of the older generations see the state as someone to look after them, and don't think too much about how it's going to be paid for.

Exactly!

My grandmother was born in 1926. She worked - as did my mum

No it was mad. It was incremental in the most lunatic way you can imagine. What they should have done was create eligibility on a specific birthday in the same way as qualification for state pension is for everyone else. The transition for 300,000 WASPI women was an absolute buggers’ muddle.

I think it's the right decision. I'd rather the money is spent on something else. I found the amount of lying from people (some of whom I'm friends with) saying they didn't know, sickening.

Taxwatch think Amazon have avoided tax of approx 339million, in 2022/23 so where does the other 10billion come from?

Also, Amazon reject this.

Anyway, how do you prove beyond reasonable doubt, that you genuinely had no idea & weren't contacted?

The fact that it would increase was talked about for years before it was officially announced. As a group, pensioners haven't been the poorest in society for years.

Well, if that were the case then the WASPI women cause would not have been set up, nor would the parliamentary and health service ombudsman’s have found that the DWP had failed to communicate the changes adequately. Those are the facts, agreed by all, but what annoys me, is if this were a Bank or Insurance Company, the government would be telling them to pay up...

Is that not how cut offs usually work though? Someone's always just on the wrong side of it.

I don’t understand why you’re picking out a small group of women who have been treated so unfairly. I’ve been reconciled to the injustice for a while but it still irks me that I’d have got my state pension three months sooner if I’d been born eight hours earlier - that’s how bonkers the transition was!

@Cableknitdreams It doesn't upset me. I think late 60s is about right given how long we are living on average now. I just have very little sympathy for this group of women.

”the government don’t have the money…”

funny that.
They always have plenty of money to fund foreign wars…

Well how about campaigning for a lower retirement age for all, if that upsets you?

Honestly some of these posts are ridiculous!

No the waspi women are not the poorest in society
And No they aren’t trying to sell out their grandchildren to go on a cruise.

Yes it’s wrong. It’s a principle thing. When we allow the gov to do this type of thing and change the terms/ move goal posts then don’t even think about quietly breathing a sigh when they do it to you.

It’s not the kind of society I want to live in. So I’m with the waspis and think they should get paid.

Perhaps they were ill, run down, struggling with bereavement, exhausted, going through trauma, homeless, trying to survive domestic abuse, caring for disabled children and/or elderly parents, holding down 2-3 jobs as well, not computer or generally literate, struggling with addiction, etc..

There are many, many good reasons why someone might not be able to spend their time regularly seeking government administrative information they had no reason to think had changed.

That isn’t the issue. What is the issue is that moving women’s retirement age from 60 was fine in 1996 when there was time to prepare was well and good. Moving it again several years further in 2011 when 300,000 women had little or no notice was unfair - and DWP didn’t even write to us.

@Cableknitdreams perhaps because going on and on about the deep tragedy of not being able to draw a state pension at 60 to those who have to work a whole lot longer is a bit tone deaf?