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.

I don't need to. The government has made the correct decision on my behalf.

if she'd had proper notice she could have chosen to stay in her job she already had and worked into her 60s

Fine, so then you just work a bit longer than you'd otherwise have liked to and thank your lucky stars that you're not one of the younger generation who will be working til the drop in the traces.

I do remember that being unable to afford tv licences or the fine was a big reason behind women prison numbers back in the 80s. And adult illiteracy was 1/10.

Why the spite?

Well, if people are illiterate then a letter wouldn't have made any difference.

The younger generation will be working until they’re a couple of years older than I was. They won’t have started work at 16 either.

@Cableknitdreams perhaps because going on and on about the deep tragedy of not being able to draw a state pension at 60 to those who have to work a whole lot longer is a bit tone deaf?

That isn’t the issue. What is the issue is that moving women’s retirement age from 60 was fine in 1996 when there was time to prepare was well and good. Moving it again several years further in 2011 when 300,000 women had little or no notice was unfair - and DWP didn’t even write to us.

Perhaps they were ill, run down, struggling with bereavement, exhausted, going through trauma, homeless, trying to survive domestic abuse, caring for disabled children and/or elderly parents, holding down 2-3 jobs as well, not computer or generally literate, struggling with addiction, etc..

There are many, many good reasons why someone might not be able to spend their time regularly seeking government administrative information they had no reason to think had changed.

Honestly some of these posts are ridiculous!

No the waspi women are not the poorest in society
And No they aren’t trying to sell out their grandchildren to go on a cruise.

Yes it’s wrong. It’s a principle thing. When we allow the gov to do this type of thing and change the terms/ move goal posts then don’t even think about quietly breathing a sigh when they do it to you.

It’s not the kind of society I want to live in. So I’m with the waspis and think they should get paid.

Well how about campaigning for a lower retirement age for all, if that upsets you?

”the government don’t have the money…”

funny that.
They always have plenty of money to fund foreign wars…

@Cableknitdreams It doesn't upset me. I think late 60s is about right given how long we are living on average now. I just have very little sympathy for this group of women.

I don’t understand why you’re picking out a small group of women who have been treated so unfairly. I’ve been reconciled to the injustice for a while but it still irks me that I’d have got my state pension three months sooner if I’d been born eight hours earlier - that’s how bonkers the transition was!

Is that not how cut offs usually work though? Someone's always just on the wrong side of it.

Well, if that were the case then the WASPI women cause would not have been set up, nor would the parliamentary and health service ombudsman’s have found that the DWP had failed to communicate the changes adequately. Those are the facts, agreed by all, but what annoys me, is if this were a Bank or Insurance Company, the government would be telling them to pay up...

The fact that it would increase was talked about for years before it was officially announced. As a group, pensioners haven't been the poorest in society for years.

Taxwatch think Amazon have avoided tax of approx 339million, in 2022/23 so where does the other 10billion come from?

Also, Amazon reject this.

Anyway, how do you prove beyond reasonable doubt, that you genuinely had no idea & weren't contacted?

I think it's the right decision. I'd rather the money is spent on something else. I found the amount of lying from people (some of whom I'm friends with) saying they didn't know, sickening.

No it was mad. It was incremental in the most lunatic way you can imagine. What they should have done was create eligibility on a specific birthday in the same way as qualification for state pension is for everyone else. The transition for 300,000 WASPI women was an absolute buggers’ muddle.

Exactly!

My grandmother was born in 1926. She worked - as did my mum

Quite. There are many areas in life where claiming ignorance of a matter just doesn't cut it. Take some personal responsibility and find out.

I do think that some members of the older generations see the state as someone to look after them, and don't think too much about how it's going to be paid for.

There are those people in every generation. We wouldn’t have in work benefits otherwise.