To be fed up with the WASPIs' renewed campaign?

I'm glad it's not just me. I thought maybe I was missing something.

This is spot on. Some women got around a year’s notice of the 2011 - and more significant - change. Women born in 1953 and 1954 got a particularly rough deal from that change. The Waspi campaign would have gathered a lot more support and sympathy if it had focused on the 2011 changes. The impact of those was sufficient for there now to be a requirement of ten years’ notice for any future change is state pension age.

I know two women well who are affected by this. Both are saying they knew nothing about the changes and that’s absolute nonsense. They did know and neither need the money.
Things change. When I started work SP age for women was 60 and I expected to retire at 60. It’s now 67 and I have to work for another 7 years. That’s life.

No they didn’t, and there was never a “contract” or a “pot”.

Totally agree.

Another Waspi here. I have no idea how you could not know about the changes. There was so much publicity about the change you would have to had no TV, radio, newspapers or mail to not be aware of the changes.

So many inaccuracies on this thread.

When you pay NICs you are NOT paying in to your pension. You build entitlement but the money pays for today’s pensioners.

The decision to raise state pension age was made in the 1990s. The Tories accelerated it, but it had already been set at a higher age.

The country also cannot afford to pay out this money.

My DM is a WASPI age woman; she thinks their demands are ridiculous.

100% agree some of these women are talking out of their WASPIs. I work with one and she'll moan about about anything, everything and everyone. She calls herself a WASPI and everyone knows it, it's like a badge of suffering.🙄 But if someone makes the mistake of mentioning anything to do with politics, COL and working a couple of extra hours. She becomes a full on banging on about "My government pension, I've paid into" blah, blah.
She just doesn't get the fact that it's a benefit contributed to from NI and that funds everyone not just the individual who has paid into it.
When I started work I was told it was 60 but have know for years it would be higher than that in the future because I watched the news and read newspapers.
I don't believe these women didn't know or they chose to ignore it and stuck their heads in the sand hoping it wouldn't happen.

I can have sympathy for being upset and shifting goalposts.

But I can't get on board with compensation. Claiming you've "paid into" a government pension isn't true, it's a tax that we all pay. Current workers are "paying" for current pensions.

I am pushing 40 and don't expect to get a state pension at all by the time I'm 68 (or 70, or 75 or whatever the new age is!). So I would find it extremely unfair to make younger people than me, who I think are already hugely disadvantaged by high house prices/stagnant wages/low growth economy, to pay yet more for older generations

I think there was long enough to prepare for the first change, some really didn't have long to prepare for the second change. It seems the first change is what they campaign about which seems odd to me.

Doesn’t mean they’re entitled to the money.

I was born in 53 but worked till 70, in many ways I regret retiring. It's over, it's done and people need to move on.

They didn’t get any money stolen from them.

I dont understand how they all claim to not have known.
I definitely knew about it! It wasn't some big secret

My understanding is that mistakes were made - as found in court, and admitted by government - but the government doesn’t fancy awarding any compensation to these women because in this one area, which just happens to focus on women, they can’t find the dosh.

I do think they have a point. They didn’t have nearly long enough to make other plans as it takes years to build pension wealth.

However .... there are loads of unfairnesses that affect young people more.

• Sky high house prices meaning many will never buy
• Poor job prospects
• Stagnant economy
• Rising taxes due to aging population
• State pension age rising

Compensation would add to this unfairness as young people will effectively be paying it.

One of the variables for setting pension age is trying to keep the proportion of life spent in retirement compared to working the same as it was for previous generations, so as we live longer, we work longer and get longer in retirement. Pegging it to a specific number of years isn't correct.

I'm a 'WASPI' pensioner.
I grew up in the era when we expected to retire at 60. I also grew up in an era when many of us stayed at home for years while the children were young, I had little choice. No help, no childcare, no wraparound, no free nursery hours etc.

By the time I went back to work I had to retrain all over again to join the job market. A subsequent divorce and single parenthood were financially difficult. No-one ever told me the goalposts had changed re. the retirement age, there were no adverts I ever saw and this idea that we all had letters ?? No-one I know ever had any letters to explain it, and I certainly didn't. Remember this was in the days when we didn't all have smart phones and didn't know everything in an instant via social media.

However, I am NOT a campaigning WASPI woman. I realise things had to change and accept that paying 'compensation' - although it would be nice, of course - is pretty impossible. And there's no money for it anyway.

I rely on a state pension alone and make it work, with a few part-time hours while I still can.
But I disagree with all the comments "we were all told", "how could you not know" and so forth...many of us really didn't know and didn't find out until it was really too late to make much provision.

This is an excellent point - whether it’s state pension, UC or any other form of state benefit. It’s the reason why people are mad to rely on public money, even if in the short term it seems a good deal. I’ve known people who are disincentivised from working, or certainly from working full time, because they rely on state funded top ups.

At the end of the day, you’re at the mercy of the government, the political choices and economic situation at any particular time.

women have been able to access workplace pension schemes on the same terms as men for the last 35 years or so at least. The fact that some might choose not to, or choose to take years out of the workplace, or spend literally years working only part time is obviously going to impact on their financial well being in the longer term. They might feel they have enough money in the ‘here and now’ but they can’t blame anyone else for their refusal to invest in the longer term

To free them up to care for elderly relatives?

Nail on the head. NIC is just another tax. And it doesn't just pay for state pension, it pays for other state benefits and towards the NHS.

The ONLY people I have sympathy for are those who paid voluntary NIC contributions as they're specifically for gaining "years" to count towards state pension. Perhaps there should be some kind of compensation for those only, as they did, specifically, pay "into" their state pension entitlement and there is a kind of implied "contract" as to what they were paying for, as they'd have had letters from HMRC/IR/DWP/DHSS (depending on the year) confirming how their extra voluntary NIC payments would affect their state pension entitlement.

Many of the WASPI women got child benefit and free Universities for their children then voted to remove child benefit and free Universities from the next generation.
If this change was made to benefit WASPI women I would like it to made cost neutral within the tax take from present pensioners. What would it take - rich pensioners paying NI? / A higher income state pension charge like for child benefit?
As a cohort the rich pensioners (not the poorer ones) have had things that won't come back for future generations so should support their poorer peers.

I won't get my state or occupational pension until 68 (something that has changed over my working life) and the mimimum age I can access my DC pensiion pot has risen and I suspect will rise again.

I also paid back student laons and some fees in my 20s, when my university planning (low income family) was based on there being higher grants available and no fees.

So my view on the WASPI campaign is cry me a fucking river.

We could all complain about every change: student fees ballooning, withdrawal of child benefit etc - I can’t see how the waspi women are a special case.

It's this kind of magical thinking that inspired their campaign. What are you talking about? Contract? You don't have such a contract with the government or even your employer. Did you even work for the same employer all your life? It's possible.

Even if such a contract existed. Are all the terms of work fixed at the point you start? Are you still working on the same salary as when you started working? Or has that gone up?