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.

I guess the practical side might have been making different decisions regarding your finances? If you expected to be able to retire at a certain age you might have already changed jobs or gone part time. If you suddenly found out you had to work for longer then you may have made different decisions. I know some people on this thread are saying you should never rely on a benefit but let's be honest, most of us are not in a position to pay loads into a private pension and it was even less of a thing in the past

@wombat15 Indeed. Who the hell gives up their job before checking their entitlements?

@Quickcutter but your state pension is a benefit and all those payments you have been making are gone. Paid out to exisiting pensioners.

I am 68 and so am a WASPI woman, I have always been aware of when I would receive my pension, I must admit my heart sank every time they changed the goalposts, and I was angry when they brought in further changes but was resigned to this and organised my life and retirement each time. If we want equality then it was right that men and women’s pension ages were equalised.

It makes me so angry when woman say they didn’t know, where were they hiding? Do they not watch the news or keep up with current affairs?

I had my pension date pushed back and I was fully aware of it. I also got a pension estimate well before hand that laid it all out. I rather think there was a bit of a bandwagon on this, people who knew the situation perfectly well but saw a chance for a bit of extra money. Will every woman affected get this compensation, including me? Not that I would mind a few extra quid!

Firstly, it wasn't 'a couple of years', it was six years beyond 60 for some of us.

Secondly, there's the issue of notification. This makes your comparison (you lucky WASPI women only had to work 2-6 extra years, I'll be working 11 years past 60) invalid. The correct comparison is if you think you'll retire at 71 then you're told you'll have to work until you're 74 & then when you get to 74, out of the blue you're told you have to work until you're 77.

Fully agree. I'm mid 30s so won't retire until at least 68 but I fully support this generation of women.

Not everyone routinely watches the news or reads newspapers. I stopped pre-Covid.

Mum was knackered after teaching children with additional and challenging needs all day, as a HOD with management responsibilities and teaching all of the secondary subjects to 11 to 18 year olds. Evenings were spent marking and prepping lessons for individuals with high levels of individual need, or studying to ensure she could properly support those children. The last thing she wanted to do was to watch the news or pore over a newspaper in what little spare time she had.

If they aren’t debating pensions on the day I happen to be watching BBC Parliament, why would you expect me to know?

Men would never have been treated like this. The information and chances weren't clearly communicated, I would like to see a comparison of what was done to inform women vs what was done for the recent changes to id requirements for voting,

Anyway, compensation should be paid. The £10k each equates to £36bn. The government have saved £181bn through this change.

And NO women won't shut up and go away, we are sick of being treated badly.

I am another one who was born in the fifties. Of course I knew about it. I read newspapers, listen to the news. You really would have had to be living under a rock to not know about it.

I doubt very much compensation will be paid, nor should it.

Congratulations for having the time and energy to do that. My mum poured hers into education children that mainstream education had written off as failures and giving them the hope of a future.

As many pp have said this is not about increasing the retirement age, I think most people recognise that is necessary. It's about accelerating the rate of increase for one group without any sufficient notice to allow them to make plans to rectify that.
We will all have to work longer to afford our retirement, that's not in question.

Older women should not have to stand aside and lose out on their entitlement because it might impact on other people - there is no way men would be expected to do this.

Nobody has "won" anything. The DWP say they will not pay any compensation and since the amount involved would be £7.7Bn it will require Parliament to vote for it to be paid.

I expect the Govt. will kick it down the road until after the election and let the next Govt. get the grief of saying "No way, Jose".

I keep seeing people saying that they were unprepared for such a "big" change when they discovered they'd have to work to 66 instead of 64.

Surely a few extra months of going to work isn't that much of a big deal?

I've explained upthread.

But I'd be interested to know how you knew your exact details, when women report not being individually informed, seeing uninformative adverts in certain papers & checking the DWP website only to find the wrong information there. From what I've seen, whether or not an individual woman knew what was going on was just a lottery.

I agree that there's nothing wrong with men's & women's pension ages being equalised. The issue is the way this was done & the fact that other countries have done it differently, with different ages.

Men have also seen increases to their state pension age.

My mum is WASPI age and I can remember her whinging about it decades ago. Ridiculous that today's tax payers would be funding compensation for women who are retiring years earlier than us anyway. Their entitlement changed before they were entitled to it, just as it has for every woman.
Are the WASPI women campaigning for my state pension age to be brought back in line with theirs? No. So frankly I don't care.

Lucky that she was in a job with a good pension then!

Define 'few'. Just concentrating on semantics for a moment, can 36 ever be described as 'a few'?

(Basing this on my stealth 3 year increase.)

Call me radical but personally, I think the overwhelming majority of women do so much more upaid labour than men (several years' worth) and suffer so much more brain wear and tear as a result (multitasking leads to dementia etc) that the retirement age should never have been equalised.

Given that the then Labour opposition stood up & applauded WASPI demonstrators at the HoC, I really want to know if Starmer's going to fully compensate every WASPI woman, should he become PM.

Edited for typo

Well this is exactly what I was talking about. Old women are whingers and best to treat them with the contempt they deserve because my life experience is all that matters.

'decades ago'?

Maybe try saying that when you reach your 60s ? Especially if you have DC who want ( expect) you to look after DGC too !

Yes, I think relative to a working life if 40+ years, 36 months is a few.

Its strange how so many numbers are thrown around. The literature I've read suggests the worst affected from the 2010 change had to wait an extra 18 months. But here we have people saying 3 years, 5 years, 6 years etc. I'm not being goady, I just wonder why there's such a difference.