To be fed up with the WASPIs' renewed campaign?

One of my children has just got a mortgage. It has a 40 year term. This was unheard of when I applied for one.

Off track but were Personal Pensions introduced in 1987? I bought into a private/personal pension in 1982/83. I remember as I hadn't been able to join company pension scheme until 25 and when I turned 25 the scheme was crap so I went elsewhere

It's cute that people think anyone under 40 will be able to retire at 67. They'll still be paying off their mortgages, if they're lucky enough to be able to get a mortgage at all. Many will have to work out how to cover private rents indefinitely. Some will be lucky enough to inherit, but the generational divide between those whose parents own property/assets and those who don't is widening, and care costs will vastly limit the extent of any family helping hand.

To them, this argument must read a bit like complaining that you were promised a horse for your birthday but only got a pony.

The state pension is a benefit and has always been - the fact it is contributions based does not change that fact. The contributions are qualifying, they don't actual count towards your state pension amount like a private pension. TBH I would rename it "retirement support payment" or something like that to try and kill this misapprehension that paying NI is somehow paying in to a personal pension pot.

Don't tar us all with the same brush. I know my 1955 born mum struggled. I also know she got free university education and could get a mortgage without taking my self-employed father's income into account. She wasn't exactly a high earner either. I'm fairly convinced because the current setup is unaffordable and effectively a Ponzi scheme. More than one think tank has suggested that the solution is to means test the state pension. Given I've got a workplace pension and a private pension it's plausible I won't qualify.

It wasnt suddenly brought in. Maybe the penny dropped with some on this thread at the last moment that actually it meant THEM.

My Mum was a teacher but I remember her telling me that she had to tell my Father what she earned as he filled in the Household Tax Return. She never knew how much he earned. Its laughable now to think that sort of thing happened. I went to a retirement seminar recently and there was one women who went on and on about paying the Married Womens Stamp and although it was less couldnt understand why she would get less on retirement.

If they were born before 1955, they would have been (at youngest) 19-20 when that Act was passed so may have been working, and things in reality didn't change that fast for women in terms of employment rights afterwards. I don't think it's helpful to downplay what women faced in the workplace until relatively recently, however irritating you find the WASPI women.

Yes sympathy is always limited, mainly because people of this age are utterly convinced that no one has ever suffered and struggled they way they do.
On what basis are you so sure you won't get a state pension?

Exactly so really didn’t affect the WASPi women. They would pretty much been getting married after that act came in.

My sympathy is limited as I'm in my mid-30s paying sizeable NI contributions for something I won't get until I'm at least 68 and, given I'm making private provision, probably won't get. If the state pension isn't means tested by the time I retire I'll be very surprised.

I don't think anyone is interested in hearing the argument tbh.
This thread is very much 'I have to retire at 67 so why shouldn't they?' with a side helping of snide comments about boomers having more than they have.
I also note a complete misunderstanding about how different things were for women regarding pensions back then.
I am not a Waspi and I don't know how I feel about them tbh, but you won't get any sense on here, just pages of nasty comments.

Vehicle duty hasn't ever been ring fenced for roads. Hence the name change from road tax in 1937.

Many UK employers had 'marriage bars' requiring women to resign when they married up until it was made illegal thanks to the Sex Discrimination Act 1975.

The Employment Protection Act 1975 introduced the first statutory maternity protections including the right to return but if you were part-time, a newer employee or lower-paid, you might not have qualified for these protections. And you only got 6 weeks paid leave plus additional unpaid depending on service length. It was only in the early 2000s that paid leave expanded significantly.

All of this mitigated against women being able to continue to earn and contribute to another kind of pension.

The part I have no sympathy with is married women who did not pay full NI contributions and then want the benefits. I always paid full NI even though I was low paid.

Ridiculous, I hope they are not expecting the slightest bit of sympathy from anybody younger. Really hope this is the last time we have to hear about this.

And the same goes for now. We are all doing the same thing but let’s face it, if the pension isn’t means tested in 30 years I’d be very surprised

It wasn’t a benefit. It was a right. We were told if we paid our NI etc it entitled us to a pension. you could pay less , there were 2 rates, but you wouldn’t get the full pension, either , if you paid the smaller amount. My first job took only the small rate off my pay packet, but I complained and they changed to the full NI. And payment of pension depends on full years of NI.

But I guess it’s like the road Fund tax we used to pay as car owners, to fund roads. Govt wanted that money for other things, so they changed it.

If it was to be a benefit, they should not have restricted how much we could pay into a private pension.

Im a bit younger so my pension age is now 67 although it was 60 when I started work but it didn’t suddenly change from 60 to 66. That is a myth, it was announced in 1995 that it would be rising to 65 for women. It was later brought forward and a change from 65 to 66 that was accelerated and affected Waspi women. All women have known of at least an extra 5 years since the mid 90s and for many it is more than 5.

I really think Waspi women are campaigning on the wrong thing. Otherwise I and others would also be campaigning for the 7 years or more we think we’re owed.

Oh..and I did have a private pension but the amount I was allowed to put in was very small, having lived off grid from age 18 to 28 . On an island with no access to jobs..just what we could make cutting seaweed at first. You’d could only pay in a very small amount /percentage of pay and nothing if you weren’t working. I had to put in , say 1000 a year aged 30 to get 1000 a year back when 60 …that’s what the company wrote..and 1000 in 30 years is not worth the same. Anyway, the max I was allowed to put in was £ 800. So, it’s gone..it was a handy buffer in the 6 years but was gone in 4 years. If they want us to take less, they should not hamper saving for the future like they did

those polices were rare in the boomer generation. My parents are born in late 1940’s/early 1950’s and my mum worked all the way through to retirement. She had terrible maternity benefits for sure (had to go back to some work when I was only a month old) but there would have been very few people who were getting married in the 1980s who had to leave work upon marriage and pregnancy.

It is not a benefit in the usual sense of the way that word is used.
It is something people contribute to, can check their contributions, and be encouraged to buy more years.
Quite different.

Yes, you get back as per your contributions.
But I so disagree with you that people should not expect that they have a fund they are entitled to. They have not been sold something as in they are paying into a communal pot. Technically, yes. But it has never been sold in that way.
You are even encouraged to buy more years. So absolutely people should expect to obtain in line with contributions. And I will not be sold the line that I shouldn’t. I smell the whiff of the view that it can be taken away. Good luck with that one. The legal claims will be significant.

It’s a social contract. Like having access to NHS services, schools, fire services, police etc.

It was never sold as a benefit. Only politicians like to pretend it was.

Wbat contract wirh the govenrment? Where are people getting this nonsense from. The state pension is a benefit. Nothing more, nothing less.