Mixed feelings about WASPI victory

[Fauxflowersnoflowers]

Early 40s here, so this doesn't as such directly affect me, but I've been intrigued by the story about the WASPI campaign and done a bit of reading around it and I'm still confused.

The changes apparently were in the public sphere since as early as 1995 and could have been known about. Many women were aware and did take financial steps to address the changes. The current case seems to centre around whether they should have been personally informed, not was the change fair.

WASPI just said on Women's Hour that they don't object to the equalisation of the pension age, but then callers were objecting to having to work longer and not getting a good retirement, so the two arguments seem to contradiction each other

Also, it seems misunderstood that a compensation payment would be a full reinbursement of the "lost" pension, from my reading it's more likely to be a fixed amount to recognise the fact they should have received a letter. Although again, it appears many did, just not everyone, so who gets the compensation? All of them or just some?

I suppose the other question is how do we pay this? Public services are already stretched badly, childcare costs are crippling and there is a bit of a worry for me that the funds to pay this are going to come out of other areas that will just make the loves of younger women harder and push their pension ages even further back, maybe into their 70s.

Feel really conflicted about it. On one hand kudos to the women for getting this far, but in the other it feels like a really clear example of the importance of properly understanding your own finances and educating yourself about your pension planning.

Not sure why your DH's money was returned but my father had a private pension from the 60s. My mother also had one in the 80s despite being married and working part time. I had one too although was full time and not married then.

Ah. I see you mean private pension not via an employer. I agree noone had one of those (that I knew).

For those who think there will be no state pension for us, we should be fighting for it then, shouldn't we? The way the WASPIs have for their cause.

Yes. Starting with voting for a govt who is most likely to be receptive to keeping it, instead of voting Tories in yet again because of some culture war bullshit.

Personally I don’t expect anything because there will be a reason I won’t get anything

Not expecting a personal visit but it would seem I was supposed to receive at least one letter in the last 40+ years about my pension

I am not going to fight for the information as I am so done with having to battle with companies and HMRC and government agencies

The only thing I have ever received from a government agency in the past 25 years was a letter saying I needed to pay back my tax credit over payments which added up to £8087
Which was a surprise as we had never claimed tax credits, let alone received anything.

Finally got them to send all the paperwork about this “over payment”

1 single screen shot with Dh’s and my name saying over payment £8085

It took hours and hours of time trying to get them to conclude that it was rubbish.

I didn’t get paid for those hours I spent arguing with them. In the end I told them to take us to court.

Which they threatened to but never did

Yes, I agree. Then if you criticize them it’s anti feminist. Interestingly enough, younger women getting their pension later isn’t anti feminist- just when it benefits them.

Well maybe we should ask the men of that age group to compensate women for the fact that there was no equality... for the fact that they benefitted from workplace sexism, better choices of careers, more opportunities for senior positions, their careers weren't stalled because of childcare.

Stop pretending that things were equal between men and women of that generation- they weren't. Men had by far the better deal

What nonsense. We women have tongues in our heads. I don't have to retire just because my husband is a few years older and has already got his pension. Don't diminish women like this.

I for one am really pleased that the Waspi women have had a successful outcome from the ombudsman.
My mum has lost approx £50k as a direct impact from this, as have many of her friends who have all worked tirelessly and raised families and ran households over the years.
The arguement about “young people” being penalised for paying for this is ridiculous. The billions this government spaffed away during covid could of repaid the Waspi women ten fold. The money is there, they just don’t want to be seen as accepting defeat.

We don't pay tax because our income's below the threshold, currently £12,570 for a single person.

Quite @daliesque - I've never voted Tory in my life.

But thats comparing apples and pears - if i hadnt gone to uni i would have got a full time job?! Its not like i was sitting at home. From age 10 i was cleaning and doing beds at my mums guest house, 12/13 i had a paper round on top of that. From 16th birthday i started in a shop. On my national insurance record to track state pension, i have fully paid NI years from when i was 16. Iv no idea what the threshold is but i must have worked enough hours or earned enough. I went to uni in England, i didnt take a student loan so i worked good hours during my studies. I would have been doing more than 44 hours a week of studies and work combined. During the holidays i took every shift i could get in various bars and restaurants.

If you read previous posts, there is plenty of explanation as to why women were not aware or were unable to plan for their retirement. Also you may have grown up being aware of pension age changes but older generations grew up with the expectation that retirement happened at a particular age for women and a particular age for men. They weren't wrong to believe that because that is what they grew up believing. Society is changing and clearly not for the better but it was the government that was wrong in changing the goalposts so quickly that a subset of women could not adequately prepare for their retirement.

Nor do I understand the argument that women have missed out on £50k by retiring x years later..

It's like saying I've missed out on a council house and £20k in universal credit because I have a job.

You could drop dead an hour after getting home from your final ever shift and miss out on 30 years of the state pension. It doesn't work like that.

@StoneofDestiny - and just to add as I posted way upthread, it's not just generation vs generation it's women vs women.

How many guys over the millenia have got their rocks off on women vs women scenarios? Plenty, from porn to the workplace to neighbours, etc, etc. And in so many other guises too.

It's what keeps them on top, they couldn't possibly do it on their own, not without either a 'good woman' propping them up or stepping over the alpha females as they cat fight and snarl.

Stop fighting with other women about this, that and the other and just agree that it's still very tough being a woman, no matter how old you are.

I think you’ve misread my earlier point. I am 100% behind the concept of benefits and agree with everything you have said.
my issue is in that calling the pension a benefit allows the government to argue that it is discretionary, or that it isn’t something people should expect, when it is paid from contributory payments by individuals through their working life. Therefore, it opens the door for the arguments we’ve seen here around intergenerational blame - ie boomers are taking everything, they don’t know how hard it is, instead of recognising that they too have paid in, and made decisions on info they were given at the time. I will also be working for longer than these waspi women, however I believe the blame isn’t on these women, but on a woeful management from the government!
the benefits system is there to support a society as individuals need it.

Your mum hasn't lost anything. She never had it in the first place. Are all women owed £50k for raising families and running households? Or just these ones?

Or you could read the posts upthread or better still - don't take our words for it, read the ombudsman's report. That consists of the findings from many months of investigations into facts - not news headlines and opionions.

Women did check - the DWP failed to notify them they were in scope, when they contacted DWP they were lied to and given incorrect information.

Women who did know and tried to plan were then hit by a sudden acceleration - their retirement age was pushed out by several extra years with very little warning at a time when a recession resulted in disproportionate redundancies among older workers. Its hard to make up a multi year shortfall with a few years notice when struggling to pay the bills.

That generation did not have even the level of equality you enjoy - at its still a long way from actual equality.
The idea that because something was legal it was available or that because it was illegal it didn't happen is for the birds. Women in that generation experienced overt discrimination and were openly told they wouldn't be promoted, a man was wanted for the job. Unions were still fighting to defend discriminatory pay deals against women in recent years and each time they lose the employer (mostly public sector) says they can't pay.

Part timers were routinely blocked from pension schemes long after it was made illegal (but giving companies 5 years to comply). It went to the European court several times in the 90s and early '00s and the women won every case and still more cases are coming.
Abortion and Hormonal Contraception were legal in the 60s - doesn't mean they were available. My mother's GP "didn't believe" in it - that was common.

Women trotting out of "the rules said" to diss a piece of discrimination against another group of women is one of the triumphs of the active men's rights movements - divide and rule. Fortunately the ombudsman looked at facts, not propaganda.

There are all sorts of demands on government spending. State pensions is one of the largest- larger than the education budget for example. When about 1 in 5 pensioners are millionaires and pretty much every public service is in crisis, maybe universal state pensions are not the best use of funds, even if it benefits me personally.

so fighting for something to benefit myself isn’t really an anti Tory campaign. In fact the tories tend to like pensioners as they often vote for them

I remember media talking about pension equalization (and at school) in the 80s when I was a kid. It’s been known for a long time that it was coming.

Well, yes, that was the first increase. But the second increase was rushed in with little time to prepare and not much notice. Look - even the report out today concluded that there had been too little communication about the rise.

Abortion has been legal since 67. Contraception since the 60s too. This is not a waspi thing. I don't know about abortion, but when I first needed the pill in the early 70s, I had to go to a private clinic and pay for both the consultation and the pill.

Pension funds have been protected for decades. Um... slightly less than two decades. Pension Protection Fund set up in 2005.

What tax are you talking about?
Regardless of age everyone, who is liable, pays VAT, Corporation Tax, Capital Gains Tax, Inheritance Tax, Dividend Tax. Or do you mean Income Tax? The only people don’t pay Income Tax are the ones who don’t earn enough. It isn’t linked to age. If they aren’t paying it, it’s because they don’t earn enough. Or do you think it should be levied some other way?

@wombat15

"But that is all you had to do. Obviously this could be a problem if not in good health but that applies to everyone and it wouldn't make any difference if you had been given more notice."
With more notice, you could start paying more into your private pension.
Also, If you have a private pension there are rules on which it can be invested. (not sure what they are now currently), but usually a few years before one retires you move your funds into safe Gov Bonds, but the return is lower than elsewhere.
So ultimately the fund might have been larger.
One can also defer the state pension, though again the rules keep changing, but it used to be one got more for how many years one deferred, but it is not as lucrative as it once was. (I know someone who took this option)
Knowing the state pension age could affect all these kinds of decisions.
It is generally very hard for BOTH men AND women to change jobs, or get another job in their sixties. Of course, many do, but it is much harder.
However, knowing the pension age is 68, it may be worth a woman (or man) changing their job age 60, as they could get in several years of private pension contribution (as well as NI contribution). But if you believe the state pension age was , say, 60, or may after the first change, 64, you may think it better to stay where you are.

In the 1990s I was told that the job I had gone for was given to the YTS boy as he would have to support a family one day.

I find it annoying that younger women seem to think that companies just levelled up all their females employees salaries over night

Im really annoyed about this. Im in my 60's and we all knew about the retirement age changing to be in line with men which was as it should be. We weren't informed personally but it was widely publicised. I don't believe the people who say they didn't know and I think it's greed that has been driving this. I don't think we deserve to get any money.