Ageism,ignorance, intolerance. class bias on mumsnet re Waspi women

Also @CAJIE … can I check I have understood this correctly:

”I did not honestly expect any compensation though I might have hoped. Iwas aware of this change but did not have the chance to make extra provision for it.I do have a professional pension but will have to wait a while longer for the state pension which is extremely challenging”

This tells me you’re not actually retired yet, how old are you - when do you reach state pension age and when did you think you would get your state pension?

…and what were you expecting compensation for?

@CAJIE back to the original point of the post.

I think what many people are frustrated by is the general handwringing of a generation which has had it better than any generation before, and will have it better than any generation that follows.

On the whole there is widespread reluctance to acknowledge the vast disparities in wealth and opportunity that have been acquired, and an insistence that the worst off people in the older generation are representative of everyone and that when they are mistreated in some way, everyone is.

WASPI and WFA are two clear examples. In the case of WASPI, staggeringly little evidence of financial hardship resulting from the change has been put forward, and no credible explanation has been offered of why more than three quarters of women were fully up to speed and planned accordingly, and why a minority were not. Yet still, advocates are claiming that an entire generation of women should be compensated at the cost of public services and working taxpayers. WFA is another, there is a more demonstrable impact on a group of people just above pension credit level but with below average income. However this group is small and does not justify the WFA being paid to an entire cohort of people, most of whom do not need it.

So while there is safety in numbers, I think what people are looking to the older generation for is recognition of where you’ve had it really good, and some sympathy for where younger generations have it much harder.

I find in general on MN that there is a much broader range of perspectives than in other parts of the press, with plenty of people coming on to say that no - they don’t need WFA, compensation etc. But if you want the “ageism, intolerance and class bias” to stop then you need to acknowledge some of why it’s there in the first place.

I suspect @MerryMaker may have been contracted out, which was where employers and employees elected to redirect some of their NI payments (the earnings related share that would have gone towards additional state pension) towards workplace pensions rather than State Pension.

From govt website https://www.gov.uk/contracted-out …

If you were contracted out of the Additional State Pension, some of your National Insurance contributions were either:

• lower than people who were not contracted out
• paid into another pension, for example a workplace or private pension

It was entirely normal and it was not the governments obligation to ensure that employees understood what they were doing.

Actually it is true that men retired under the old state pension system (before 2016 so about 73 and up today) have much higher average state pensions than women because:

1. The old state pension has two components … the basic state pension which is flat rate and based on qualifying years; and additional state pension, which is earnings realted.
2. men generally worked more years with fewer career breaks and therefore are more likely to have full qualifying years for the basic state pension
3. men are more likely to have additional state pension income through SERPS because they were more likely to be working and their ASP is likely to be higher because they were more likely to be higher earners,

Since 2016 the (new) state pension has been flat rate so any difference in income is entirely based on how many qualifying years people have. On that basis the difference between men and women has narrowed considerably but there is still a small difference which is largely due to women not working (or not being eligible for NI credits) for more years of their adult life.

@MerryMaker I don't think that is right. if you were employed in the U.K. and worked enough hours in the year, you will have paid NI and achieved a 'qualifying year' (or your employer was defrauding the Revenue).
Paying into an employers pension does not reduce your entitlement to state pension. It is in addition to it. Log onto www. Gov.U.K. and check your accrued qualifying years.

Then they don't have full contributions.

Full State pension requires 35 years NI contributions and gives the same state pension to everyone. Claiming child benefit gives automatic entitlement for the parenting years.

I'm in my early 60s, and have 44 years contributions so far, despite having raised ds alone as a single mum. I have always worked full time and don't see why anyone would find 35 years NI difficult to achieve, excepting poor health or caring for adult SEN offspring.

I will not get a full state pension. I have worked since I was 16, but paid into an employers pension. I did not know that reduced my state pension.

Well said.

I'll add that I had - I thought - been sensible. I'd been saving with the Dunfermline Building Society for 6 yrs with a view to getting a mortgage once I had a job. I had been working as a teacher for two years and had a permanent post. Apparently, that wasn't enough.

I'd been a customer with another bank for much longer than that. Again, they wouldn't give me a mortgage. I had no credit problems.

I'm still in the same house (now paid off).

It was the only mortgage available to me at the time.

If I'd left a good job because I'd calculated I could last until the state pension came in, then found I had to return to the workforce "in any capacity" (because it is not easy to get a job as a 60 year old woman), when, had I received information on state pension age, I wouldn't have left my good job, I would feel that I had suffered a detriment because of the government's lack of information.

Beg your pardon. I was irritated by the lack of understanding and the prejudice

I had a mortgage as a single woman in 1981. There were no issues whatsoever. Lloyd's Bank.

Perhaps you should have voted with your feet and got a mortgage with someone else then.

I'll add that - according to the solicitor - one of the forms that I had to sign was supposedly to prevent the bank's interest in the mortgage being harmed if I were to marry at some point. This wasn't a mansion - it was a 2 bed terraced house in central Scotland.

The solicitor emphasised that only single women were required to sign this.

Well, there certainly were when I got my mortgage with the TSB.

Lots of my friends got mortgages st that time too. They didn't mention constraints because they were women. My first mortgage was in 1989. No constraints at all.

I was able to get a mortgage as a single woman in 1986, but there were constraints purely because I was a woman - and additional paperwork which had to be filled up before the bank would grant the mortgage.

The first part is also true for anyone who had a SERPS pension until they were discontinued in 2016.

The first part is true, because women on the whole were less able to work, due to childcare and other factors.

I’m not indebted to an entire generation just because they happened to be around during the WLM.

Quite. I've done a lot of campaigning for climate action and I don't expect the younger generations to be indebted to me. If anything I expect them to say we could, and should, have done more.

Women born in the late 40s and 50s aren’t some sort of feminist collective. There were plenty of women born during that time who were indifferent to or even disapproving of the fight for those rights, just as there were plenty of women who disapproved of the suffragettes. I’m not indebted to an entire generation just because they happened to be around during the WLM.

The first part of that comment isn't true. Anyone will full contributions gets the same level of state pension. It isn't income based.
The second part is true though.

Still existed though, didn’t it?

Likewise. I have been affected (though not as significantly as women a year or two younger than me) and I don't think compensation should be paid to all WASPI women. I think there are other priorities.