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.

You could go on for ever with that argument. Younger people could say that older generations benefited from house prices they could only dream of.

And, after 30 years of hard work, she wanted to relax.

I started a part time job at 16, I've already worked for 33 years, should I be able to claim the state pension at 49 then?

God, this. I also started working at 16 and I anticipate that by the time I get to state pension age, it'll be mid-70s. Which means I'll have been working for nearly 60 years without any breaks. Double what that lady had worked by the time she "wanted to relax".

My mum is a WASPI woman and retired at 55 having worked for 8 years during her life. She admits that she knew all about the changes but nonetheless was very excited about the idea of getting some compensation, despite having a household income higher than mine. That I'll be paying for it and working over 6 times longer than she did is of no interest to her whatsoever. I know not all WASPI women are like this, but it's difficult to stomach all the same.

Poor women of pension age were often in those groups in their younger lives. Every properly disagregated set of stats I've seen over the last couple of decades shows older single women in the groups most likely to be living in poverty.

Its not that surprising. Women currently in their 60s, especially later 60s and above were routinely discriminated against in the workplace, sacked for being pregnant or even on marriage, blocked from educational opportunities and barred from workplace pension schemes. It entirely to be expected that women who then find themselves single in older age will struggle when all they have is the state pension (if that) and its one of the lowest in Europe.

The reason the Ombudsman ruled in their favour was serious maladministration. This cohort of women were subject to very late change in retirement date, many were not informed and if they went to check with DWP were given incorrect information. I'm not a WASPI, I'm on a generation boundary so several years younger but I was also getting the wrong information from DWP until just a few years back as were a sizeable number of my friends.

Of course not all women in this age group will suffer hardship - there are plenty of "I'm alright Jacks" who were able to develop professional careers and access the associated pensions or who benefit from their DHs' contributions/pensions. But we also know that "they are all rich boomers" is bollocks and that the top 30% in this age group are doing nicely (especially the men) but those women in the bottom third in younger years are the very people affected by this change in old age.

As with the WFA change - it hurts those already poor more than anyone else and is glossed over by fudging everyone into one demographic, superficially doing ok. Kendall and Starmer were both stalwart supporters of these women (and pensioners) in opposition but seem to regard older single women as an easy target.

Personally I didn't vote Labour to see them targeting the bottom 30% in any age group, including boomers.

If an Ombudsman makes a decision in any industry in the favour of the applicant, I thought that the defendant who has lost the case must do what the Ombudsman has recommended. They can't just shrug their shoulders. Why should it be any different for the British government?

Women currently in their 60s weren't routinely sacked for being pregnant. That may have happened in the 1950s but not the 1980!!

Oh you sweet summer child.
I was sacked for exactly that in the 90s.i know plenty of women it happened to in the 80s. We have contact/support groups.
The difference is that in the 80s/90s we have the law on our side.

Ginmonkeyagain · Yesterday 14:13
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Indeed. We all have a duty to keep up with this stuff. The state pension is a state benefit not a pension and it is your responsibility to check your eligibilty”

Afraid I agree. I’m not due my pension for another 7 years but I check the website at least a couple of times each year. It’s not difficult and I would be pretty cross with a Government that communicated every single change to legislation by letter. Complete waste of money.

I can’t see the Onbudsman’s recommendation of £1-£3k massively changing anyone’s circumstances either, tbh.

I think you’ll find they were. There were virtually no maternity rights in the 70s/early 80s.

out of curiosity - what plans exactly? I can totally understand thinking in your head you were working for 2 more years to suddenly finding it was 5 more years. I would have been pretty angry myself. But ultimately apart from being internally irate, what plans got thrown up in the air? Surely you just kept working in your job for longer than you thought?

I was a contractor. There was no option to keep working in my job because contracts run out. In addition my parents were very old and quite sick, the plan was to give them my time.

It's one thing having valid criticisms of Labour ie WFA but -

a: you and others failed to answer how you would raise £10bn and
b: why should 10bn be given to 90% of women who were perfectly well informed of the changes?

Where have i said "everything is going well for Labour?" its clearly not, its been bad but not as bad as the Conservatives, Boris & Truss, still quite a bit to go to reach those depths - which is why they have just 121 MPs.

I think they acknowledged that the vast majority (90%) knew about the change.
But they also say that a letter that should have gone out to everyone wasn't sent.
There was other publicity though

I entered the workforce in the 80s and women were absolutely sacked at that time when becoming pregnant - it was near impossible to challenge. I watched some try, never saw one succeed and the unions by and large were not interested. Discrimination in general was rife against women and I was routinely asked at interviews about my plans to have children and similar questions which were not asked of men.

In the 2020s this still happens (the commonest reason for women losing jobs) and making a claim is so difficult for most women that they give up on their constructive dismissal claims. Women still take a lifetime hit on earnings simply for being pregnant - even if they return immediately to full time work.

Pregnant Then Screwed captures a lot of the data in this area and it is profoundly depressing that nearly 50 years after equality legislation steerd through by Barbara Castle that women still face routine problems in the workplace.

No, we don't. 🤣🫣

The ombudsman did not say 90% were informed - at least 10% were not sent letters, that does not mean that 90% received them. This also doesn't address the point that DWP were giving out the wrong information to many women who checked.

As with WFA its a penalty applied indiscriminately to an entire cohort of women with no regard to individual circumstances. The poorest and most vulnerable women are also the women with patchy, low paid work patterns around caring responsibilities, low paid work when full time and more frequent changes of address.

As for where the money is coming from - well you can make that case for all government spending. Somehow 'though, women's health, women's well being and women's financial security always ends up bottom of the heap and not justified. The fact that so many better off women gleefully wave it through is equally depressing.

Generations are not rich or poor - individuals and subgroups are rich or poor. Make the case for restricting the compensation or WFA to eg the bottom third (something like a third of pensioners live in fuel povertuy, the majority don't qualify for pension credit) and you might have a case. However this tedious rhetoric that all pensioners are rich and all millennials are poor is patent rubbish and very dishonest.

Why do you think Pregnant then Screwed was set up in 2015? Unfortunately, discrimination still happens, I agree it shouldn't. From the 1970 Equal Pay act to subsequent legislation we continue to adjust until true equality exists.

You are assuming that DWP are giving you the correct information. For several years at the critical time it was not giving correct information. I knew I was getting the wrong information and when I raised queries on it with DWP my queries were ignored the first few times and then I finally received a "computer sez no" answer.

1-3k may be small beans to you but it would be substantial to some of the older women I've met living on very low incomes. Its easy to sneer at women in this cohort whose lives have been spent largely caring for others and in low paid work - I'd rather a Labour government looked after them then engaged in generational identity politics.

You are completely wrong. The WASPI women were all born in the 50s, They were working in the 70s, some in the 60s!

Well "the youth" need to be squaring up to government and setting their demands on the table. Not standing at the sidelines cheering when others' demands are refused.

Women in their late 60s now were generally getting pregnany in the 80s and they were not getting sacked for it.

Just because they agree with not paying money to WASPI women doesn't mean they're standing on the sides cheering. It just means they would rather the money was spent on something else.

Well said. Unfortunately, many here have made their minds up that “all boomers are entitled and coining it in and are not interested in learning about the true situation.

The fact that there is discrimination doesn't mean women are routinely sacked for being pregnant.

I suppose people go on the situations of their relatives.

I could have written this myself.