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.

Absolutely agree with this post.

Well actually they repeatedly lost their jobs due to lack of support or childcare, lost their tenancies as a result, and went without food,l to feed their children, in the case of my mother and others I know of her generation.

Where are you getting these women are rolling in it?

Surely there's a spectrum of how much they have rather than all going on cruises etc

As for the op and Labour, they spent it up in first few months, they're probably strapped now

I actually thought I could retire at 67 like DH, but as I was born the end of ‘78 then it’s 68 for me. No point in complaining though - the pension is a state benefit and benefits change.

I also teach so I see first hand how dire it is in schools. It’s worrying to think how social mobility has decreased over time - any money needs spending on our public services.

I honestly am not trying to be patronising here, but I know £50m for Syria and £137m for train drivers and £10.5 bn for WASPI women sound like they're broadly comparable in that they're all big money, but they really aren't. 10bn is about 15% of the NHS budget - it really is quite an unaffordable amount. Or, rather, it could be afforded by requiring current tax payers to fund it, and as this thread shows most people don't think that's reasonable or equitable.

Loads of people don't claim all the benefits they could. Should we find them all and pay them retrospectively as the government failed to write to them and address their personal circumstances to say how much they could claim?

Exactly. It is your responsibility to know things like this.

If you don't declare any capital gains made, you can't just say that you didn't know about it.

If you are an adult, you need to be responsible for your own welfare.

I am almost a waspi woman (I miss the cut off date by a few months) and I think it's the right decision.

Yeah, so you have been retired nearly 20 years and want back pay from muggins here who probably won't even get a state pension in 20 years time at 69. Especially if we have to pay out for people who retired on a final salary pension at 55.

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2024/mar/21/i-felt-scammed-woman-describes-chaos-of-state-pension-age-changes

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?

What pensioners often don't seem to realise is that they haven't paid into a magic state pot that pays out for them later, their state pensions are being paid for by the current workforce, like other state benefits.

Why here though?

I don't understand how people who didn't know about it were supposed to "be responsible" and find out.

If you don't know that changes have been made to your pension without consulting you and didn't know that could happen, how would you know you had to keep checking it hadn't happened?

Good decision. We can’t afford it.

I can assure you that's not always the case.

My DM was unable to work due to not having childcare for my severely disabled sibling. My Dad worked 50+ hour weeks and we barely scraped by.

When my sibling was able to go into a residential care home my DM was able to get into work but didn't manage to work enough years to build up a full state pension allowance, so she bought the extra credit (and had to work 6 more years than expected, which, ironically, helped the pension issue).

Now, they're both in their 70s, no winter fuel allowance and still living in a rented property because they weren't ever able to buy their own home on the pittance my dad earned.

My parents are definitely not rich boomers!

Have you read that article? She'd planned. Then adapted her plan to make what should last 5 years last 8. Then suddenly she had to make it last 10 years. That's what's not on

In the same way that ignorance of the law is no defence to committing a crime.

They take into account background during sentencing though.

*I don't understand how people who didn't know about it were supposed to "be responsible" and find out.

If you don't know that changes have been made to your pension without consulting you and didn't know that could happen, how would you know you had to keep checking it hadn't happened?*

By paying attention? I was born late 50s and have known for years that I wouldn't get my pension at 60. I can't remember if I got a letter telling me this but I was certainly aware of it from tv, newspapers, talking to others etc. I also took personal responsibility for my own financial planning and checked my state pension forecast from time to time - which is incredibly easy to do.

She could work, as many people do when their finances are a bit short.

No they weren’t. The first tranche of changes was announced in 1996, the second in 2011. It’s the second change that’s iniquitous because some of the women affected were less than two years away from the date they were previously due to get their pension. I know because I’m one of them. I still think this is the right decision and never expected to see any money.

This government are so hopeless that I’m not surprised. No wonder their ratings are the worse in modern history. 🙄. Useless, with everything, even after the last lot.

From the article.....“I tried to get another job but who’s going to employ a woman in her late 50s?

Presumably you had the education, ability and resources to do so. Not everyone has those things.

And how did you check your pension forecast before the online login we have now?

If you're going to randomly paste an article into a thread it helps to read it

I am a Waspi woman, born in the late 1950s, I receive no notification about the changes, in fact the first time I heard from DWP was four months before my retirement age. It was the same for my contemporaries.

I said nothing about Winter Fuel Allowance but I feel that this is a miss step by the Government as there is no safety net for the women who were more seriously affected.

And yes, I am still working full time, albeit that I am on AL today.

If she’d checked before she took very early retirement, she’d have known it would have had to last 8 years rather than 5. Her responsibility to check.

I do have sympathy for the other increase, but that doesn’t seem to be the one she’s most miffed about.