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.

Excluding housing costs it's plenty. Targeted housing benefits or social housing should be the answer for those who need help with housing costs - not throwing money at everyone, regardless of means.

I didn’t live in Britain but still paid UK tax and NI contributions but the government of the day couldn’t be arsed informing me. Yet they managed to send me a UK tax return each year, a letter telling how much tax I owed etc.. No idea where I was supposed to see adverts as no British TV or radio.
As pp have said older women are an easy target

You could have read British newspapers.

Basic state pension in 1997 was £62.45. If that had increased in line with inflation it would be £120.43. The basic state pension (i.e. legacy pensioners) is £169.50, which is 40% higher.

I am not comparing old with new, this is just the cumulative effect of the Triple Lock

Yes. If I’d crossed a river and driven 50 kms or so to a tourist area to find one…..

So you cut yourself off from the UK and had no way of finding out what is going on but think they should have made a special effort to contact you.

They sent letters twice a year. 1. Fill in this tax return. 2. Pay this much tax and NI
Leaflets were sometimes put in with the letters but nothing about changes in pension age. Obviously I found out and paid additional amount to NI and private pensions to compensate but if I wasn’t informed I’m sure thousands of other women weren’t either. A leaflet about changes in pension could easily have been included with the other stuff they sent.

I don't think it was the responsibility of HM Revenue and Customs to inform people about pension changes. That would have been the job of the Department for Work and Pensions.

The train drivers had several years of pay freezes during a period of high inflation, and the rise they were eventually awarded is still a real-terms cut. Continuing the previous government's antagonistic approach would have continued to harm the economy.

I’ve just explained in words of no more than two syllables how it could have been done. 🙄

My mum and mother in law both topped up their years ..I remember them doing it ..mostly my mother in law as she was very vocal on how unfair it was. I'm just saying it was very well known at the time. I think I agree with the decision as it was so well known. However wonder if there could be a half way house re payments to the most affected.

Larger than I expected. It's no wonder we were getting deaths from hypothermia in the 90s!

Yes, women's position gradually changed and in that respect things got easier but when I started work as a Social worker in 1976 the police were still saying that they wouldn't come out to a "domestic" when a woman was being physically attacked by her husband. Women's refuges had opened in cities but were only slowly opening in smaller towns. Things changed gradually.
People born in the early 50s experienced the edge of these changes.
Some things are more difficult now and some things are easier.

No , I was personally only marginally affected. People born in 1954 got a rough deal and should perhaps be looked at separately.

It's unreasonable to expect someone living abroad to find out a change in their pension provision from 'reading British newspapers'. The ombudsman found that the government hadn't properly informed these pensioners of the changes.

This is very true, they lost five years. I was born in late 1953 and lost four years and three months. If they’d taken the average age of women in the WASPI age group and made that the eligible age it would have been much fairer. Too easy I suppose.

It was the lack of notice, and the lack of time to adapt. Some people had already taken early retirement, or downsized to a retirement property out of area (eg near children), having carefully calculated they had enough savings to last 5 years, say, only to find the savings had to last 8 years. The first change was well advertised and did give time to change plans, but not the second change, and I have every sympathy for people caught up in that,

I disagree. If you live abroad and planning to come back to the UK or live on a UK pension it would be a good idea to keep an eye on the news. Anything could change.

The welfare and tax systems change every year and what everyone is entitled to or obliged to pay, changes. They can’t set a precedent of compensating when they cost people money.

Someone I know just bought a house and had to magic an extra £4k stamp duty in one month because they didn’t complete before the Autumn budget.

Parents using private schools have had 6 months to get an extra few-hundred-per-month sorted in fees.

I’ve spent large periods of time outside the Uk during my working life, and indeed live outside the UK for half the year now. I’ve always seen it as my responsibility to keep informed about anything that might impact my future income, pensions, tax, or anything really. I think it’s unreasonable to expect a UK government department (bearing in mind pensions are the DWP not HMRC) to communicate with everyone wherever they are in the world. And, not only reasonable, a bit stupid.

Looked up the rates for cleaners and childcare lately? It is work.

As I said earlier, anyone considering early retirement (in fact any retirement, now that there is no automatic leaving work once someone reaches state retirement age) has to do their due diligence. That involves checking all income streams and not making assumptions about what your state pension will be, when you will get it and how much it will be. Just like they would have to approach their workplace pension provider and get a proper breakdown of what their pension income will be.

It's been my experience that people on quite ordinary salaries are shocked to find out how low their workplace pension is going to be when they request information about the possibility of taking early retirement. They don't also factor in how inflation may change, how the income their partner brings in may change. So many people I know have taken early retirement with not enough other income coming in from anywhere else to really cover what they need. Retiring early is always a risk unless you have a LOT of savings and investments behind you. It is extremely risky to rely more or less solely on what the state provides if you want to retire early. Extremely risky. Assuming your already reduced workplace pension will bridge you to a point 5 years away, with no other savings behind you to mitigate against any change in those 5 years, is very very foolish.

Actually later in the 70s housing was so much cheaper and affordable on a single salary back then, which was why a lot of married women didn't work fulltime and if they did work it was part time and their salary was seen as pin money. So in the event of divorce it was relatively easy to LTB from a financial point of view as long as the woman was prepared to increase her working hours to full time and maybe retrain to achieve a higher salary. I can think of a few women around that time who were divorced or just never married in the first place, had a professional (or non manual job at any rate) and were able to purchase their own home.

Compare this to now when both partners in a household HAVE to work fulltime to have any chance at all of a roof over their head, they are in houses far too small for their needs with no hope of moving up the ladder. What the hell happens when a couple wants to split up now, or an adult wants to remain single but doesn't want to house share all their life? How the hell does anyone afford a place to live on their own now?

The compensation wasn’t because it cost people money, so it wouldn’t set a precedent as you suggest. The compensation was suggested because the Ombudsman found that the Government had failed to provide adequate information.

The precedent set would be for the Government being able to botch things at will and not be held to account.

I don't think the standard should be that the government is required to personally send letters to every individual who might be planning to take up a state benefit in the future. The ombudsman decision isn't some tablet set down in stone...