To think the back to 60 campaign is grabby

[Neaoll]

It's been known about for a long time that state pension ages would be equalised.

State pension is just unsustainable, it was never supposed to be something people claim for 20-30 years. Was for people that had a hard time so they didn't starve to death in their last few years. Now it's a top-up to the richest part of society. It should have been linked with life expectancy a long time ago.

I'm in my 40s and dont expect to ever get a state pension. I've been contributing to my private pension ever since I worked to support myself.

@Plasebeafleabite If you want to ignore the ONS stats that's your choice. But if you look at ANY stats on the cost of housing as a ratio of earnings you will find the same information. I simply don't know why you are trying to prove otherwise. Wasting your energy! Why do you think there is the phrase 'generation rent'? Why do you think around 3m people under 30 still live at home? Why has the age of buying a house risen to its highest ever level?
Why is house ownership now mainly the preserve of 2-income couples?

@lynsey91 I can only assume you live in an impoverished area of the UK where there are low expectations around education and employment and most people (from your posts) appear to live on benefits.

I do not recognise the picture you paint of young women not working. Where I live, most women work. They use nurseries and child minders and many commute into the City. Even those who aren't in professional jobs have some job- shops, offices, or childminding.

In the south, the cheapest property where I live is £250K for a 1-bed flat. Couples cannot afford NOT to work.(And this is not London.)

The women you describe sound like lazy scroungers I'm afraid. Living off the rest of us paying tax. How do they get away with it?

Oh well at least you won’t be disappointed when you don’t get your State Pension in your 70s😊

I don't recognise anything you have written and maybe that is because you are not in England?

Its consistent with ONS stats for the UK. The same stats you are citing. @Riv was citing HLE do you understand the difference and the significance of taht difference (which varies widely through the UK)?

The current official pensions website, released in 2016 to replace to flakey previous site, is still giving false projections of both retirement age and pensions to an estimated 3-500,000 people after three years of fixes.
The predecessor website was even worse. The official DWP source was giving women incorrect information. It was in the press at the time so therefore surely you must know this?

The government was advised to contact individual women about these changes. The then Pensions minister (Lilley) made a active choice not to do this - wasn't going to go down too well with some of their core electorate.

By your own admission you are in a remarkably privileged pension position for a woman. Your parents allowed you to get an education (possibly even encouraged it), could afford the grammar uniform, you were in the tiny percentage of women going to university in the 70s and your job allowed part timers to enter the pension scheme. A public sector final salary pension scheme - gold plated by modern standards.

Can you really not see that many of the 99% of women not in your privileged position might just have a point? All those women who were not allowed to stay on at school, who were pushed into low pay, low skill jobs which no longer exist? For those women the best they could hope for was a junior job in the PO or other government body which at least gave them a bit of superannuation.

Riv is correct - part timers were excluded from pension schemes in their early careers (some schemes excluded women generally). When the law changed I recall companies working through contractual hours to keep part timers out of those schemes.

You seem staggeringly invested in ensuring women don't get any perceived "benefit" over men. Are you equally invested in changing the structural discrimination in society which still expects women to do the bulk of the childcare, wifework, eldercare and also work full time and build a pension lest the poor men miss out?

I'm all for equality - lets see it work both ways because we are still very far away from it.

C8H10N4O2 thank you.

Well I can see economically that we can’t afford to pay people pensions from 60.

But in my experience, my mum, dad, step dad and FIL had very serious health problems in their 60s (cancer, stroke, major operations, losing memory) and would all have been on disability benefits or sick pay if they were supposed to have been in work. My MIL suffers with osteoporosis and could probably have managed 2 mornings per week. I am not familiar with disability benefits so I don’t know if that costs the state more than paying a pension. But you can’t get blood from a stone - lots of people are not fit for a full time job during their 60s and 70s. And when I say lots, I mean a very significant chunk of them.
On the other hand I know a very fit man in his eighties who still does a physical job and loves it. So people are different...but it’s crazy to expect that the majority can go on working.

If you want to ignore the ONS stats that's your choice

Please take a stat I have posted and tell me how its incorrect

You seem staggeringly invested in ensuring women don't get any perceived "benefit" over men

Depressing, isn't it

We are still borrowing as a country more EVERY YEAR to spend in public services than we raise in tax. If we were to lower the pension age for WASPI women we would have to borrow more which needs to be repaid with interest by future generations.

They had decades of notice of the equalisation of pension age as the court found. WASPI women did not have it uniquely hard, the younger generation have their own issues with poorer workplace pensions and lack of social housing and huge costs of private housing. There’s no reason they should get their pension earlier- the change was reasonable and had to be done to make pensions affordable.

There’s also no reason people in their early 60s cannot work because of their age alone. If they are disabled they should be entitled to disability benefits on the same basis as everyone else. It’s also pretty hypocritical to say that women should get benefits at an earlier age than men when men often have more physical jobs. Also if people of 61 now can’t work- why will younger generations be able to do so?

State pension is a benefit- a contributory based benefit but a benefit. It’s very expensive and already we see the older generation (as a whole) being better off than the younger generations. There needs to be a balance.

'They were told when they started working that they would get to retire on a state pension at 60'.

Erm, I'm 30 and have been working for 14 years now and have no idea what age I will be when I get a state pension, if at all!

These women got a good pre warning in 1995 that the age was changing then again 8 years a go in 2011 on a more massive scale. This same generation burnt their bras for women's rights of equality but are now mumping their gums about not getting a state pension until the same time as men. Double standards much? It's pretty laughable. Equality when it suits.

Does anyone really think anyone in their 20's, 30's and 40's will get 25 years notice of their state pension age? I doubt it.

People born in the 50's as well had full and easy access to council housing, 100% mortgages, right to buy, lower rates of VAT, high interest savings accounts, being able to leave their kids at home at like 8 or 9 years old alone without SS at the door and many other things that we do not have now.

Nowadays, we've got women working full time then after paying nursery costs, taking home meager amounts in wages. Women working nights while their partners work days so the family is so disconnected. Women generally working way more than they used to because the option to be a SAHM is almost non existent due to the above.

It is grabby in my view. 60 is not old. Even with 8/9 years notice, they could have prepared or just simply work on for 6 years.

My mil is a 50's born. She was well aware the luxury of retiring at 60 wasn't going to carry on so when my husband was 9 years old in 1995, she went and got a job. She then paid into a private pension for 23 years until last year and was able to retire last year at 59 on that private pension as she will draw it down until she is 66 when she receives the state pension. She prepared. She was a SAHM and even she knew in 1995 that these changes were happening.

It really angers me that this is getting so much attention as it's two fingers up to the younger generation. They don't care if there will anything in the pot for us. They also didn't care that they were buying up all the affordable housing leaving us in a state where buying, needing at least a 10% deposit or privately renting is the only option for us now really.

Yes, they are a massively grabby generation. Work on for 6 years like the rest of us will have to at least and just STFU!!!!

RTFT ya moron.

The waspis were warned on the first round and stiffed on the second. The government know this and have admitted it. Sort of the point of the waspis' protest.

My mil is a 50's born. She was well aware the luxury of retiring at 60 wasn't going to carry on so when my husband was 9 years old in 1995, she went and got a job. She then paid into a private pension for 23 years until last year and was able to retire last year at 59 on that private pension as she will draw it down until she is 66 when she receives the state pension. She prepared. She was a SAHM and even she knew in 1995 that these changes were happening

Fuck your anecdote. Check the data/research.

Yes, they are a massively grabby generation. Work on for 6 years like the rest of us will have to at least and just STFU

Generalising much? I hope you are as relaxed when you get shafted against all your expectations.

To me it's not the change but the shortish period of notice that was given. All very well for a well off person such as Gideon Osbourne or others involved in the change, but under 15 years notice for those on a low income is unreasonable.

Double standards much? It's pretty laughable. Equality when it suits.

I'd say the double standards is society expecting women to continue to bear the bulk of the child care, child rearing, elder care, accept lower pay and poor pension provision where it exists but be equal where it disadvantages them further.

I agree with some of your points but you are making the same mistake that always arises on generational discussions - lumping everyone into one group.

Many of the improvements you describe for "people" were not available to women. Women in this age group were blocked from participating in many better paid jobs, apprenticeships, working after children, pension schemes or even getting an education to improve their lot. (I'm younger than this group and remember many girls being made to leave school to work by their parents).

Within women as a group there are vast differences between those who were born better off or fell into the group making social progress and the majority of working women who did not benefit.

I'm not sure that the need to leave young children home alone whilst you worked without "interference" of SS should be considered an advantage either.

Parts of the older baby boomer generation have been extremely fortunate, especially men. The women in that group don't need to worry about notification of state pension age because they don't depend on it. The women who have been caught out by the late changes (nothing like the notice you describe) are not in that group.

And the women were not notified. The government of the day made a deliberate decision not to notify women in the normal way and the DWPs own information was notoriously innaccurate for anyone who did contact them.

To me it's not the change but the shortish period of notice that was given

I agree and for me also its the calculated decision not to notify. echt is right - WASPIs were stiffed by that later change and the lack of individual notification. The WASPIs most affected are those who were also most affected by structural discrimination when they were growing up and working.

50s born women did have warning of the change. It was announced in 1995.

what does that mean? Average healthy life expectancy is 58? Where is this?

To answer your question, in many parts of the UK. And in some parts, it's even lower, for example in Kingston upon Hull, where its 56.4 years for men, or Stockton on Tees at 56.6.

50s born women did have warning of the change. It was announced in 1995

The first change? The first change got publicity in the press but wasn't notified to women in the normal way of benefits/pensions changes.

The second change had a lot less publicity and also wasn't notified to individual women. During that period DWP was itself also giving incorrect information to women who did contact it. The second change is the one which has hit these women hardest and many are also in the category who provide free care for elderly relatives (which would need funding elsewhere).

50s born women did have warning of the change. It was announced in 1995

Emma. RTFT. This has been repeatedly pointed out.

www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/comment/article-7254221/VICTORIA-BISCHOFF-Government-complete-dogs-dinner-pension-age-campaign.html

@C8H10N4O2 You know nothing about my background and it was not privileged. I lived my first 3 years in a rented flat with no bathroom and only a toilet in the yard. That would be deemed as extreme poverty today.

Yes, I was bright enough to go to grammar school. But even that is not a passport to success. Some of my peers at primary school who went to sec mod schools went into FE and then HE as mature students. People can make of their lives what they will if they have motivation.

Don't make assumptions when you haven't a clue.

Many of the improvements you describe for "people" were not available to women. Women in this age group were blocked from participating in many better paid jobs, apprenticeships, working after children, pension schemes or even getting an education to improve their lot. (I'm younger than this group and remember many girls being made to leave school to work by their parents).

This is bollocks too- most of it.
You say you are younger than the waspi group. Yes, and you do not have a clue. I am at the older age end of the waspi group . So the younger women who are protesting had even fewer of those 'disadvantages' you mention.

Of course women were allowed to go back to work after children. Of course they could go into further and higher ed- I have friends who did just that. I could give you examples of people my age leaving school with nothing and who now have a PhD.

The fact you knew women who were 'made to leave school by their parents' does not mean there were no opportunities.

People can make of their lives what they will if they have motivation

You might find this thread resonates. The OP is as a dim as TocH lamp but your last post indicates you have common ground:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/3708271-To-say-that-the-difference-between-high-achievers-and-low-achievers-is-self-discipline

@AMAM8916 I am with you 100% as you are the same age as my DCs. I apologise for the grabbiness of some women of my generation and agree with everything you say. 60 is not old and unless someone is in poor health there is no reason why they can't work- just their sense of entitlement and laziness. It makes zero sense to stop work at 60 or any age. It's been proved without doubt that working is better for physical and emotional health. I feel outraged and ashamed that these women would try to grab this money when the millions ought to be spent on people who need it- whether that is cancer treatment, schools, hospitals, whatever.

So the younger women who are protesting had even fewer of those 'disadvantages' you mention

They might be doing the protesting out of concern for the principle. Sort of thing.

@echt- You can try as hard as you want but insults are just showing up the weakness of your argument.

@AMAM8916 I am with you 100% as you are the same age as my DCs. I apologise for the grabbiness of some women of my generation and agree with everything you say. 60 is not old and unless someone is in poor health there is no reason why they can't work- just their sense of entitlement and laziness. It makes zero sense to stop work at 60 or any age. It's been proved without doubt that working is better for physical and emotional health. I feel outraged and ashamed that these women would try to grab this money when the millions ought to be spent on people who need it- whether that is cancer treatment, schools, hospitals, whatever

No-one has objected to the age shift, just its timing.

But you know that.