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.

If I can just move out of London and wait until I’m 47 to have a child so I can save enough to buy a house, I really don’t see the problem with working a couple more years, or 4 months.

my generation is going to have to work past 70, according to the gov projections/info @fitzwilliamdarcy posted

@ifIwerenotanandroid exactly . Sounds like you are in the same situation as me.

Thank you!

It was originally from a 'classic' episode of Embarrassing Bodies, where a man went for medical advice as to how he could not have a filthy bottom all the time - but it is indeed very useful advice for anybody who needs it

Nasty and ignorant response, but not alone.

I don't think it's very fair that out of two women born months apart, the younger should be entitled to a pension a third higher than the older woman. But there you go.

Sorry @Jovacknockowitch didn't mean to quote you, I was responding to the PP you responded to

They're not asking for compensation for the change in age, but that they were not given sufficient notice, and were making financial decisions based on the wrong age - for example, calculating they could afford to give up work to care for an elderly parent and use savings to cover until state pension kicked in, only to discover too late that it wouldn't kick in until after their savings ran out.

You can’t be serious! Move further out of London for Christs sake! What you can’t afford is your dream life!

💐

Thanks are due to Angela Madden, who was on the BBC News channel just now, speaking of her own situation & putting the case for proper compensation. I agree with her that the proposed 'compensation' is totally inadequate. I saw £10K mentioned the other day & thought that was inadequate, but £1K to less than £3K? It's an insult! Anyone who says the nation can't afford it, see Angela mention the billions in surplus in the NI fund which it could come out of (can't remember the exact figure).

Just googled & found this on X/twitter, from Prem Sikka, Emeritus Professor of Accounting:

'National Insurance Fund account has surplus of £72.5bn.

Boosted by hikes to pension age (especially hurting women born in the 1950s), erosion of real value of the state pension & benefits.

There is capacity to pay and compensate women, but govt refuses.
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/657ae7f1254aaa000d050d2e/Great_Britain_National_Insurance_Fund_Account_-_2022_to_2023.pdf'

They're almost certainly going to have to wipe away pensions to stop the UK bankrupting itself.
How we will feel then about not getting anything?

Pensions are a huge burden.

A system needs a large number of workers to pay in to fund the older population.

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.

This is a genuine question, and not meant in a snide way or anything like that.

When people say that these changes left them with only a few years to plan/prepare, what planning/preparing are you talking about?

I only ask because the only preparing I do for retirement is paying into a pension. Being told my retirement age was going up would have an emotional effect (which I'm not downplaying) but not a practical one, and certainly not a practical one that could have been mitigated by more notice.

Can someone explain? Am I missing something in regards to planning for my own retirement?

I am one affected by the moving of the pension age.

I don’t think the government made enough of it in the press because I missed it also.

I also naively didn’t realise my personal pension I paid into increased from being able to take from 50 to 55 which when I had cancer at 50 mucked up my plans to take time off for a year or two as I wasn’t fit enough at the time to work.

there should have been a greater sliding scale. I’ve now paid NI contributions for forty years and I’ve still got five years before I can get my pension BENEFIT, I hate that word benefit, I will have more than paid for my Pension by the time I get it and object to it being called a benefit.

All the young people on this thread worried that the state pension might not exist when they retire should be thanking the WASPI women for standing up for themselves and holding the government to account. So future governments understand they cannot just remove benefits without providing alternatives or at least time to make alternative arrangements.

Life is tough now for young women trying to get on the property ladder, juggle child care costs and expensive cost of living. But it was also tough at times for older women who had to quit their jobs when they got married and weren't able to access credit unless a male relative agreed to it. One generation's experience does not trump another's.

Womens rights and our standing in society would improve at a much greater rate if we all rowed in the same direction.

Very well put @havetobelieve

It’s not really holding the government to account.

The finding is that DWP’s administration was shit. Which frankly will not come as a surprise to anyone who has ever dealt with them.

It’s not to do with the actual increase In pension age - which is why the suggested compensation also seems low to a lot of the women who have been quoted in the media.

Well for me it was mostly to do with when I could afford to retire . I had savings and a pension from my work but previous financial planning had been based on age 60 then age 64 then with not a lot of notice it became age 66 !

Women approaching 60 I believe then got told they’d be working until 65/66 I think it was. Imagine being in a job you had trouble doing, thinking you were getting a pension in say 18 months time to suddenly realise you had another six years to go.

someone please put me right if I’m wrong.

Womens rights and our standing in society would improve at a much greater rate if we all rowed in the same direction.

Nope. Sorry. This statement does not apply here. We can "row in the same direction" all you like but if there aren't enough workers to pay those pensions then the pensions have to go. And those "WASPI" women are making things harder for everyone else.
And fwiw when I started work in 1995 (aged 17) I would have been able to retire at 60 too. Now it's likely to be 71. So really you lot weren't that hard done by. You just had to work a couple more years. Like the rest of us!

I've heard of cases in which the woman retired, i.e. gave up her job, and THEN found out that her state pension wasn't starting when she thought it was. How easy do you think it would be to get another equivalent job at around 60 years of age?

Please see the BBC News story for Angela Madden's experience: it will give you one instance of how this situation can come about.

You anticipate having an certain income when retiring.

State pension of circa £10k forms part of that. if you’ve planned to retire at 60, and expect that £10k to form part of your income, of course it has practical implications when it gets moved to 66.

Maybe the lump sum from a private pension now can’t be used to pay off the mortgage because it’s needed for living costs and that adds interest charges that wouldn’t have existed before. Or you can’t support your child financially at university because you have less money coming in than you planned.

My various pensions will pay out between 60 and 67 at the moment. No idea if state pension will still exist when I get there but it will make a £10k (at today’s prices) difference if it doesn’t.

They won't understand that at all as the people who make the decisions won't be the ones suffering the consequences. . Current governments don't care what future governments have to pay. The Conservatives/lib dems made the decision but the cost will probably fall on a Labour government and tax payers who may not get a state pension until their 70s, if that.

No it wasn't. The reason was that yes, wives tended to be younger, and therefore would have to wait until they were 65 to qualify for the married couples' pension (as it was then).

This put some couples into severe need seeing that workplace pensions weren't a thing in 1940 when the Pensions Act changed. So women's pension age was lowered by 5 years as many of them didn't work, or had only part time low paid jobs.

The nonsense about housework is just that.

This is an excellent post . I often despair at the ageist posts on MN when so many young women think that we oldies had it so good ! 3 months Maternity Leave was not good nor the other things mentioned by @havetobelieve .
All women should be grateful to the WASPI campaigners.

@Quickcutter sorry yes, as I said I understand the emotional effect of it, and I wouldn't dismiss that at all. But some of the comments made it sound like it needed practical preparation as well. But maybe I misread them.

If someone only found out pension age was not 60 after actually giving up their job they must have been living under a rock. It was everywhere in the news and media. I don't really see why younger people who probably won't get to retire until they are in their 70s should give them money for that.