Challenge to Womens State Pension Age

[HedwigsNest]

www.moneywise.co.uk/news/2018-12-03/victory-campaign-groups-high-court-orders-judicial-review-womens-state-pension-age

As a female who has been affected by the changes made to pension age, I'm glad to hear about the review, but have little idea what the outcome could be. Does anyone have any ideas on what could be done to put those affected in a better position?

Could be or should be?

I hope nothing's changed. Why should it?

Women born in the 50's did not, by and large, have the same access to making pension savings as men did at the same time, or as all groups do now. Wages were not equalised, there were no in work benefits for lower paid employees (very many of whom were women), scarcely any maternity benefits (and no keeping jobs open for women who wanted to return after having children) and many women just didn't have the opportunity to build up pension pots. Men retiring now have a pension pot on average, FIVE times greater than that of the average woman.

Therefore, raising their pension age by 6 years, very quickly, did not allow them enough time to save the difference (men's pension age increased by one year in the same time period) and they way it was communicated to them was very suspect.

Yes, pension ages should be equalised, but not until there is definitely a level playing field in all aspects of employment equality.

I'm a victim of this but have decided to suck it up. With a massive growing budget deficit I am willing to suffer my share of the pain to help the whole country.

I find this rather odd because although I am in the age group who may benefit, the actual Pension Act was in 1995 when the age was raised to 65. I don't actually 'get' the argument because the increase from 65 to 66 was only a few years ago and one year is rather insignificant imo.

Fuzzy aren't you confusing company pensions and state pensions?

I received my occupational pension at 60. I have to wait another 6 years for the state pension. I don't really care as I'm now working s/e anyway.

My occupational pension is not officially payable until state pension age without losing a high proportion of it. (Although, kindly, they have agreed to pay it penalty-free for some people at 65 not 66 as they disagreed with the extra added year)

The money I had saved for my retirement has to last an extra 6 years. It is spread rather thinly.

God, I hate this. The argument being used is that women weren't told early enough that their pension age had changed, therefore had no opportunity to build appropriate pension pots. This is put forward as uniquely applying to women born in the 1950s.

1. For those women born in the 1950s who've been low-paid throughout their working-age lives, a few extra years' notice, or even decades, would have made no difference. If you're unable to save for a pension, you're unable to save for a pension.

2. Equal pay legislation came in in the 1970s. I know it's taking ages and still nowhere near equalised, but it's not true to suggest that women born in the 1950s spent all or most of their working lives in some kind of pre-Equal Pay Act, pre-welfare state nightmare.

3. Many women born in the 1950s worked in the public sector and will benefit from final salary pension schemes now closed to those who are younger. In many instances they'll be able to claim those at age 60. But even if not, they still stand to gain better pensions when they reach 65 than younger people.

4. Low-paid people of any age are hardest hit by the raising of the state pension age. This applies to women and men, and to the growing numbers stuck on zero-hours contracts thanks to the gig economy. They're unable to save for a pension - and anyone born after the 1950s will have a later state pension age than the 1950s women.

This sounds like I begrudge the 1950s women their state pensions, which actually I don't. I just don't think they're a special case and as a group they've not necessarily been as unfairly treated as the poor of any age and gender. If they were fighting for an equalisation and general lowering of the state pension age I'd be right behind them. But I think their arguments are counter-productive and I can't support their special pleading.

But if you can't save for a pension and have spent most of your working life thinking you'll get a state pension at 60 (or even 62...a couple of years may be do-able) a 6 year hike is 6 years of further poverty, or working in poor health.

And Mornington your point 3 makes no sense. Loads of women never got anywhere near a public sector job and an occupational pension at 60. That's like saying "well some people did very well out of hedge funds so the entire country is filthy rich!"

I still think a sliding financial scale would have been a far fairer way to equalise the pension changes.

£77 billion.
I’m not sure the government will be quick to concede this one.
And genuinely I’m not sure I want them to.
But I’m totally unaffected by this because I’ll be working until I’m 84 anyway by the looks of things.
Most of the women I know in this age range seem to be doing ok for themselves anyway (but they seem to be nurses planning to take early retirement......)

Most of the women I know in this age range seem to be doing ok for themselves anyway (but they seem to be nurses planning to take early retirement......)

There are many, many women affected who are neither nurses or doing ok for themselves.

So the baby boomers who won the housing lottery, free university education and all the associated benefits now want to be a special case. You win some, you lose some.

Women now face working up to age 68, possibly more.

It really is time for an overhaul of all pension benefits, not just certain classes. By the time the next generation retire this country will be bankrupt, no winter fuel allowance, no free prescriptions, no triple locked pensions. Nothing.

Not all "baby boomers" have benefitted from all these things. I do wish people wouldn't group everyone together purely based on their age. There is, as with any age group, a vast range of personal circumstances.

Yes, iirc when I was at school, it was expected the top 15% went to grammar schools and the rest secondary moderns. Only the 5-10% went to university!

Those girls, who left school at 16 still faced unequal pay, as women and being made redundant when they got pregnant.

I really don't see how the 85% who went to secondary moderns, and did not even do O'levels, never mind go to university were the baby boomer lottery winners?

I think among baby boomers there is more inequality than among people today actually - the people that did very well used economic conditions like rising house prices to their advantage. The poor, the sick, the single parents or those stuck on low paid jobs struggled especially before the invention of national min wage and tax credits to top up income. So they largely haven't saved anything at all and many don't have assets.

There are now women who are sometimes only a few months younger than their husbands or partners having to work longer that them, for the first time ever. While I understand there has to be a cut off at some point, I don't think that actually the situation is very equal at the moment.

Won the housing lottery? Interest rates were 12% when I bought my house.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/3444694-Retirement-age-for-ladies-why-so-upset-R2-debate

Thanks Hedwig. Good thread.