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.

That's not the case for the waspi women. These are women retiring now who started work in the 80s.

I believe it is the correct decision.

Fury as women hit by pension age rise denied payouts https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/czr36842nd6o

There’s an interesting timeline in this BBC article. It was discussed as long ago as the 1990s. I would have been late 30s/early 40s. I maintain that it was always on the cards, talked about quite a lot and allowed women to get their ducks in a row. I have just got my state pension this year with 40+ years of full contributions. I have a private pension alongside that which I have always paid into, and I still do some consultancy type work even though I’m clearly flipping ancient.

@EmmaMaria

Now I have just heard it all - on MumsNet FFS. Women who raised children and kept homes "did not work for a lot of their lives"??? Those are your mothers and grandmothers you are speaking about and you want to suggest that they were lazy gits or kept women?

I'm raising a family and keeping a home. I also work full time, pay into a pension and keep myself informed about financial matters affecting my future. Do I get a gold star?

Yes it was. It was a ridiculous movement. These women need to take a bit of personal responsibility I’m afraid. Younger generations probabaly wont even see retirement so I’m afraid I have little sympathy. Pension ages have constantly changed, most people would check at least once in 15 years. Entitlement at its finest.

This 👆 and for those who ignore the above and say that women born in the 1950s shouldn’t have been entitled to receive a state pension earlier that men. Bear in mind that much of their/our working lives were spent earning a fraction of that which men earned for equal work. In the 1970s and much of the 1980s, men’s salaries were described as a “family wage”, whilst women’s were described as “pin money”! This, to justify the pay discrepancy.

I and my DH have been loyal Labour supporters and, for a time, party members. I am disappointed, dismayed and puzzled by the policies of this Government. They came after pensioners within two weeks of holding office. They also confirmed they would not lift the two child cap on Child Benefit. They have since gone after tax dodging land owners. I agree with that, but I don’t understand where they hope to get future votes from, since they are alienating those on the left and those on the right!

I started work in 1972, most of my contemporaries had been at work for two or three years.

The Ombudsman has already established there was no ‘memo’

I’m gen z and have been working since 16 - I did full time hours whilst at uni. I’m 25 so I doubt my pension will look like a they do now if it exists at all.

I'm not quite a Waspi and I thought fair enough when my state pension age was raised to 65 to be equal to men - we wanted equality and we generally lived longer than men so I thought fair enough.

However, I lived and worked through the times that basically said FU to the Sex Discrimination Act in terms of equality in pay, maternity rights, societal roles ad infinitum.

To state that Waspi women had time to plan for their retirement pays no attention to the 'working' lives of women of the Waspi generation. Many of whom were banging the drum of female equality to enable the rights that women 'enjoy' today. Yes a few broke the mould but the majority didn't.

Correct decision and I think it'll be a popular one. Labour finally getting something right.

I agree. By the time my dds are 60 it's likely that there will be no state pension. Its incredibly expensive.

And since then, my non-discriminatory state pension age has been raised to 67, only 5 years to go now. When I first started working at 15 it was 60. Mind you, by keeping the already-knackered working at mill is a sure-fired way to decrease our longetivity and the associated 'costs'.

Your SPA age will now be 67 not 66. I think the cut off point is for those born in 1960-1961.

You are aware it’s ministers who make the decision, not civil servants? The arrogance is insulting!

Young generations are well aware we’re fucked - because older generations have consistently failed us at every stage to protect the future and have only ever voted for their selfish interests!!! pathetic.

I don’t think it’s comparable to those scenarios. The mental trauma and shame endured by blood victims, PO victims, and gay service people is huge.

WASPI are out of pocket, never been actively shamed by the community.

What if some men decided to take the government to court for sex discrimination, having to work an extra 5 years?

Anyway I’d heard about it loads even though I was much younger and not that big into current affairs. I think the only people who didn’t know well in advance, would be very disorganised / head-in-clouds people who would have done nothing about it even if they had known.

Everyone knew. It was talked about a lot in the news and certainly in workplaces.

Even if “everyone knew” (they didn’t, hence the Ombudsman’s maladministration decision) the 2011 changes didn’t give many early 1950s women time to plan accordingly.

It’s like a couple having a third child, then finding out there is no child benefit for the 3rd child, and demanding compensation because they hadn’t heard about this. How is it different?

This is what labour were saying a few years ago.

x.com/i/status/1869066848719016119

But they quite literally didn't get the memo.

And I believe the ombudsman made the wrong decision but we’ll just have to agree to disagree

What sort of plans apart from the fact they needed to work for longer?

They didn't win the election though.