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.

People aren't being slow. If you actually read the thread you will see that people know the arguments for compensation. They just don't agree.

There are a number of posters when you try and drill down into their arguments it transpires that it absolutely is about them having to work those extra years…

Best comment from Twitter:

"It's ok, most of the waspi women won't have heard about this decision so won't be complaining about it for at least 15-20 years." 😂😂😂

I don’t think I should be compensated. I didn’t expect it. It’s not about the individual, it’s about the utter ballsup the government made with the 2011 changes. Hardly any notice and transition arrangements apparently concocted by a drunken sailor.

Why shouldn't IHT apply to all assets (over a threshold) that you have? The changes aren't going to leave you shivering in front of a one bar electric fire you can't afford to use, you only pay it once you're dead.

And you can always use your carefully saved pension fund on its intended purpose and spend it in your retirement instead of hoarding it as you had to before 2015. Lots of lovely holidays and voila no money left to incur IHT.

Yes, no one is saying that they did a good job. The Tories cocked up a lot of things.

Women Against State Pension Inequality

What exactly was wrong with the transition? Other than it not suiting everyone perfectly? I know you're salty about your 8 hours/3 months, but the cut off has to be somewhere - it's just luck of the draw. Compensation wouldn't change that.

What was wrong with it was that there was a wildly disparate range of eligibility ages dependent on date of birth. Obviously there has to be a cut off somewhere but choose an age for eligibility and then apply it to every woman in the WASPI category. Easier and cheaper to administer and it would have avoided some women getting the old, lower rate and some the new, higher one. The whole thing was an exercise in unfairness.

What about the 10%? (Although it would be almost impossible to identify them).

I meant how did the delay in notice about getting your pension later cause financial loss? I don't know whether it was financial loss, other than not getting the pension you expected. But people did make decisions based on receiving a pension at one age only to find out they weren't going to get it till later - for example, taking early retirement when DH retired, so they could downsize near their children, confident that their lump sum could cover the period till her pension kicked in, only to find it wasn't 5 years it had to cover, it was 11.[-

I don't agree that the transition was unfair. Moving the cut-offs just shifts the "unfairness" to the people that fall just outside the new cut off. I understand the personal disappointment, but people fall just short of stuff all the time, we can't all cry compensation.

You’ve missed the point. Nobody would fall outside the cut off if it was, say 64. As it was the age range for eligibility was massive. You can see it here.

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5a7f02e640f0b62305b84929/spa-timetable.pdf

That doesn't apply to many people though. If there was a way of identifying them people would probably feel differently about compensation but there isn't.

Of course people would fall outside the cut off. It isn't possible to change the ages without having a cut off somewhere, which someone will always be just the wrong side of.

As someone born in the very early 1950s I have been thinking about this thread.
When we were young women the entire benefits system was based upon the model of a male head of household with his dependant wife and children. A hangover from when it was set up in the 1940s.
Women were infantilised but somewhat protected, as long as their marriage wasn't abusive.. The earlier retirement age for women was set on the premis that women are on average slightly younger than their husbands.
Change started in the late 1970s when women started to be treated as independent individuals. The reduced women's NI contributions (married women's stamp) were abolished, maternity rights and pay started etc.
Women born in the 1950s were caught up in a period of radical change.
Many things have fallen well for us, some things less so.
We cant have our cake and eat it.
I would rather retire at the same age as men and be treated as a fully independent human being and I WAS fully informed of the changes in the 1990s.
There were no in work benefits when we were younger, child care was difficult to find and Carers allowance wasn't paid to married women(as she would be at home in any case) but buying a home was more achievable, there were full grants for students etc.
I don't think we should be compensated. I think we have to accept that there have been great changes and roll with it.
I don't like the lack of understanding from some younger women though who are seeing us a pampered generation of boomers and have no empathy for some of the difficulties in the past. Very hard to LTB in 1970. Okay for middle class women in a happy marriage but life was very difficult for some women.

So it's ok to pay train drivers an extra wedge, but not to compensate female pensioners for ombudsman recommended compensation? Whatever you think about the rights and wrongs of it, this will seriously undermine the authority of all ombudsmen.

don't like the lack of understanding from some younger women though who are seeing us a pampered generation of boomers and have no empathy for some of the difficulties in the past. Very hard to LTB in 1970. Okay for middle class women in a happy marriage but life was very difficult for some women.

Life was difficult for older boomers but not so much for the younger ones which is most of the WASPI group. They would not be married in 1970 so the fact it would be very hard to LTB is irrelevant. Later on in the 70s divorce was quite high.

The decision not to pay despite the recommendation of the Ombudsman is an example of ageism.

If you were born in the very early 50s you weren't affected much were you? Certainly not by the second escalation.

I can see from your response that you aren't at the age where you thought for decades that you would have already retired by 60 and are now over that age and still working.

Even now (I'm 67) I'm staggered how many women I know who passed the financial reins over to their husbands and have rendered themselves vulnerable when said husbands get ill or die.
This means that some older women aren't financially savvy. I know a PhD engineer whose husband sorts the money.
This means the minutiae of pension payments can get lost. Also many women work part time, on and off jobs and things like NI payments don't always seem significant.
Let me introduce my SIL. Not a Waspi but could have been. She and DB bounce along the poverty line. SIL hasn't worked for decades as bringing up children then health issues.
SIL asked me how she could find out about her pension.
She had no mobile phone contract, smart phone, working email address, current driving licence or passport. She didn't know about Gov.UK and without paperwork etc I couldn't get her onto the website. My DB is working but won't help her as he thinks it isn't important.
This is how women fall through the pensions net.

@Sharptonguedwoman Even now (I'm 67) I'm staggered how many women I know who passed the financial reins over to their husbands and have rendered themselves vulnerable when said husbands get ill or die.
This means that some older women aren't financially savvy. I know a PhD engineer whose husband sorts the money.
This means the minutiae of pension payments can get lost. Also many women work part time, on and off jobs and things like NI payments don't always seem significant.
Let me introduce my SIL. Not a Waspi but could have been. She and DB bounce along the poverty line. SIL hasn't worked for decades as bringing up children then health issues.
SIL asked me how she could find out about her pension.
She had no mobile phone contract, smart phone, working email address, current driving licence or passport. She didn't know about Gov.UK and without paperwork etc I couldn't get her onto the website. My DB is working but won't help her as he thinks it isn't important.
This is how women fall through the pensions net.

But that is your SIL's choice to live her life that way. I know someone the same, she point blank refuses to ever use the internet, has never used the internet, and never will. I doubt if she even knows when she'll get her state pension.

It is only ageism if they would have made a different decision if they had been younger.

I think the system needs a really good safety net, myself. If it costs money, we’ll have Michelle Mone’s.