AIBU in thinking the government have made the correct decision not to blanket pay all WASPI women £3k? This goes against the Ombudsman recommendations to pay between £1k-3k to every WASPI women.

[caringcarer]

At the time it was in every newspaper for weeks, in the radio and on the TV news a lot of coverage via the media. Most women of this age agree they knew about pension age changes. At the time it was huge. I fail to understand how any women could not have known unless they lived off grid. No individual letters were sent out to the women who would be affected. The Ombudsman's recommendation was that a blanket payment of between £1k-3k be paid to all WASPI women. Labour have just announced no money will be paid out at all. It would have cost the taxpayer up to £10.5 billion pounds on top of the huge amount of my ney it has cost to review it for several years. It is money that the government just don't have. Assuming lessons have been learned and any future changes will see DWP send out letters to any individuals who it will directly affect. The only worry is that it sets a precedent of ignoring what the Ombudsman's recommendations.

That is true. Still a short notice financial loss for a family. Especially if the pension was to be used to pay IHT on a family home in the SE.

@Papyrophile how has the change in IHT ripped a big hole in your pension plan (genuine question)?

Of course I did eventually, once I was in my 50s. I discovered that my pension age had moved from 60 to 62, and then much later to 66.
You can feign as much shock and disdain as you like but retirement really wasn't on my radar in my late 30s when I'd just had a baby.

I paid into a private pension that paid out at 60 so that bridged the gap but many women didn't have that.

I'm not actually opposing the decision to disregard the recommendation here, just putting my hand up as one of those who didn't know.

I think there probably were a small number of women who genuinely had no idea. But when the possibility of extra money arrived I truly believe that many many women that knew full well about these changes started pretending they didn't.

The greedy ones ( who probably massively outnumber the genuine ones ) spoilt it for the genuine ones

I'm in my 50s. I've checked my state pension age and how many more years' wworth of NI I need to make. If during that research I'd discovered that my retirement age was later than I thought it was it would be a disappointment, but I'd accept that I'd just have to suck it up and work longer.

What exactly would you have done had you found out before your 50s that your retirement was going to be a few years later than it was for your parents' generation?

I think was the fact that there were two changes, one well publicized, one not. So people not affected, or affected by the first but not the second could feel adverts were everywhere and people were talking about it, and people who were affected by the second could be unaware - though they should have been aware of the first change.

That’s exactly right. The 1995 changes were well publicised. The 2011 ones weren’t - and they were the ones that had the greatest impact.

Sorry but that’s just plain ignorance after all the years they had to do so.

That demonstrates what I said, that the pension age hadn't changed in their lifetime. It had been the same since 1948. Waspi women are younger than that.

I’m sorry but you being ignorant isn’t for me to pay for.

I am in that age group and was well aware of the changes as was everyone I knew who was the same age.
I was annoyed about it at the time but I can't claim I didn't know.

They can’t have been that badly publicised. I can remember the 2011 changes being on the news and being discussed on TV and newspapers.

Honestly I was well aware of the change.

So why did the Ombudsman find maladministration then?

No idea - I haven’t read the judgement. I just know that I was very aware of those recent changes, my mum was very aware of the changes in the 1990’s and lots of other people have come on here to say they knew also. We can’t be the bad guys because we somehow knew. I do sympathise with the people affected. It must have been a shock to find out but I honestly just don’t understand how people didn’t hear in 2011 as I remember it being quite widely discussed.

It's all a bit shit really.

I found this interesting:

"In 1908 when the State Pension was first introduced for those aged 70 and over, a woman of this age was expected to live on average an additional 9.3 years, and a man 8.4 years (1901), meaning pensions needed to last around 9 years. However, compare this to the latest figures (2011) and we see how pensions need to last longer. The current state pension age for men is 65 and for women it will reach 65 by November 2018. In 2011 men and women at this age were expected to live for approximately 20 more years" - National Statistics

Where I live it is currently 19 years post 65 for women, 17 years post 65 for men. (Overall life expectancy is a bit lower to account for those who die before the age of 65).

More interesting / depressing though is healthy life expectancy. Women in my area can only expect to get to 56 in "good health" men to 58. So people are spending the last 10 + years having to work in poor health, or having to claim benefits if they can't work. Which is going to have all sorts of economic impacts of its own.

I'm not advocating really for lowering the State Pension age again but I'm not really sure that just continuing to raise it saves the money we might think.

My DM who is WASPI age, retired at 57, could have gone at 55, local authority final salary scheme. Still does a bit part time because she enjoys it but equally if her health was worse would have been OK too. Obviously not all WASPI women are in the same fortunate position and I imagine some do feel genuinely shafted by the changes.

Equally, I've got NI credits for every year since I was 16, I'll have enough qualifying years for full state pension by the time I'm 51 (I've also got a fortune in student loan debt that I barely pay the interest on each year and am in the plan that doesn't get written off until you're 65 so will pay it my whole career - nurse so unlikely to earn enough to pay it off) so generalising about any age group and how much they work is probably not going to be accurate.

We have lost £50000 each. The government have gained that amount from every woman who should have had it. I'm not sure of these numbers but it will add up to a pretty penny. It is a drop in the ocean compared to money doled out for foreign aid etc.

Great disparity between around £50000 lost and £3000 denied compensation. The government have got off VERY lightly.

How have you lost £50k?
The compensation was recommended due to delayed notification, not because of the pension age being increased.

I'm not sure it would be sensible to give compensation to everyone. On the other hand working out who would qualify to be compensated would be a huge and expensive task.

@FuzzyPuffling I am astounded that you can compare this to the contaminated blood scandal. I understand that emotions are running high but I don’t know how you have the heart to make a comparison so flippantly. If you knew the level of pain, suffering and shame the victims of contaminated blood have endured for years you would not have the heart to make this comparison.

Fair enough, but all we Waspi ladies have lost the equivalent of around £50000 due to retirement age being raised. Not just us either. All women will lose out, you included.

With respect you’ve not lost 50k and to claim so is disingenuous. waspi do not disagree with equality of state pension ages, just the communication of it.

or do you disagree with equalising the ages?

This. They are completely incomparable and to try and do so could look pretty self absorbed. I’m sure that’s not what you meant

With respect we have lost around £50000 , ladies a few years older than me were able to retire at 60 with a monthly state pension.