AIBU to think that WASPI women should not be entitled to compensation?

[mugglewump]

They've been on the news again marching for compensation in a climate where the government is having to make very difficult decisions about funding to stop our debt ever increasing.

I think there are far more deserving cases for goverment money than women who didn't act on information at the time and sort their pensions out or keep working (p/t or f/t) until retirement age.

Moreover, the people paying this compensation are those who will be working until they are 67 to 70 to claim a state pension. Surely, it's a bit ick to expect them to bail out women who retired at 60?

They didn’t get the information at the time, the goalposts were changed and they had no way to avoid it. They absolutely should get compensation.

I think there are far more deserving cases for government money than women who didn't act on information at the time

The government have admitted there was a delay notifying the women. They are trying to weasel out of it by saying (in effect) 'Oh, well, they probably wouldn't have read the letter even if we had sent it, no one reads letters they're not expecting'. Pathetic.

(I am not a WASPI woman before you ask).

I have heard of women living in their cars as they retired not knowing they would not have state pension for another two years. Some had to sell their houses. Ofc those that were single got shafted the most.

Tbh I feel for them, a lot of their work pensions would have kicked in at 60.

The ombudsman agreed with their claim and said they should be compensated. Government took decision not to, hence going against ombudsman. I suspect this will end up in court at cost to taxpayer.

Agree OP. What irritates me the most is their name - they are not against "inequality" against women, they are in favour of it.

So they retired and then found they were not eligible???? That's really quite thick. Ultimately, they should have checked these things. And they can always try and get jobs. Plenty of people over retirement work, and these are just people below retirement age who think men and younger people owe them something because.....no reason really.

Sorry but they did get the info at the time. It doesn’t even affect me and I knew about it.

A majority of them got information, my sister is one of them, and got at least 3 lots of Information. Why should ALL of them be given money, because a few didn’t see the information? There was also considerable information in the media at the time.

Weird how the people pushing compensation were the Labour Party. Until...

Yup, it was all over the media at the time of the changes were announced. It was constantly in newspapers and magazines "money" pages for years. There were leaflets in hospital/GP surgery waiting rooms, there were leaflets in official letters with tax calculations/benefit calculations/PAYE tax coding notices, etc.

What do people expect? The prime minister personally knocking on their door to tell them in person?

People need to start taking responsibility for themselves and not expecting to be spoon fed every little thing.

WASPI here. I 100% agree no compensation. I knew at the time the change was made, and regularly thereafter whenever I checked my pension status (not so often in my 20s to be sure).

At a time when women were fighting for and getting equal rights in the workplace (including the right not to have to sit on our boss’s knee) it was hypocritical that men had to work 5 years longer than us - especially as their life expectancy was lower than ours.

The people paying this compensation are those who will be working until they are 67 to 70 to claim a state pension. Surely, it's a bit ick to expect them to bail out women who retired at 60 Yes!

No, it’s absurd.

Every woman after them will be working far beyond 67 - if they even receive a state pension at all.

Why this group gets compensation I have no idea.

I’m not even confident I’ll be getting a state pension and yet I’m legally obliged to keep putting money ‘towards it’.

I agree. When I worked in a bank call centre, we would regularly get people calling us swearing blind they "never got the letter" and I was always completely baffled when our system showed we'd written to the correct address over and over again. Until one day my manager pointed out of course they saw it, they just chose not to see it for the sake of the complaint. I don't see this as any different.

We did not get the information in time to address this moving of goalposts.
Most of us have been paying into the system from the age of 15/16 and didn’t have further education. School leaving age is now 18 and many more go to higher education.
We had no free childcare or top up benefits if on a low wage - many of us had crappy part time jobs fitting around childcare with no company pension. That doesn’t bother me, things change but I am
pissed off I can’t have my pension as promised.

I still can't get my head around the claim that they didn't know. How could they not have known?

I'm a WASPI woman. I don't think we should receive compensation at all.

You are definitely not being unreasonable.

I'm not a WASPI and I knew about the change in rules well before it happened. They were not forced to to retire at 60. They could have carried on working, just like every man and every woman younger than them has to.

At least they got their pensions at 65. Younger people will have to wait much longer (and fund the WASPI compensation if the government is stupid enough to cave in).

The injustice was that women got a state pension five years before men. That injustice has been rectified.

The only thing they deserve a (very) small amount of sympathy for, is that Labour pretended to be sympathetic and implied they would compensate them, presumably to get their votes.

I’m inclined to agree - I get that it felt unfair and they weren’t directly contacted, but it’s not as if it was a secret. It was in the news. People do need to take a certain amount of accountability for engaging in publicly accessible information

I have a very small private pension due to be paid out at some point

I say 'some point' because I can't for the life of me understand the letter they sent

I'm not particularly stupid (probably average intelligence) but I have no idea what it means

I got my DH to read it and we both thought different things

So if I was one of those women I'd probably be living in my car right now too 🤷‍♀️ and that's having READ the bloody letter

Well, I think it's fine to be pissed off about it. I'm pretty pissed off about the fact that I'm going to have to work until I'm 67, or maybe even later if they move the goalposts again. But you being pissed off about it doesn't mean that you are entitled to compensation.

Sorry but how is ANY of this relevant? People knew and if they didn't they must have been ignoring adverts that were everywhere. FWIW I also started work at 16 but will have to work till I'm 68 (at the moment, obviously that's likely to be pushed back) and yeah kids today can leave school at 18. Great. Then they need to go to university because even admin jobs require a degree these days, for absolutely no reason whatsoever, so they'll also be starting out with £50k of debt.

Surely though if this was you, you'd get another job rather than live in your car? Or you'd have realised before retiring at 60 and stay on. I appreciate it's shit having your retirement age changed, but then we've all had our retirement age changed. Mine is currently 67, but it might rise further before I retire, so I'm afraid my sympathy is limited for those who can get their pensions at 65.

Nail on the head. Some people just can't be arsed to read letters/leaflets. Fair enough, but they need to own the consequences.

It was like all those compo claims for endowment mortgages - huge numbers of people trying to claim they were never warned of the risks. Bollocks! Where I worked back in the 80s, we did loads of endowment mortgages (in the days before regulation and independent financial advisers). We were "just" a firm of accountants who arranged pensions and mortgages etc for our clients (no one else, just our clients, as a service!). Because we were in a profession where detail mattered and we were used to "dotting the I's and crossing the t's" we were really on the ball when it came to advice, warnings, etc. I understand solicitors' firms were the same with any "financial services" they offered!

When the shit hit the fan, we had loads of compo claims by the "no win no fee" vultures, from clients who claimed they were mis-sold, never warned, etc., Every single case, we managed to bat away. We had our paper files (long archived into our manky cellar!), but we'd go down, find the file, and there'd be the document, signed by the client(s), with a warning of the risks, etc., right on the same page as their signature! Not a single claim was successful as we had the proof that we had warned them and done a proper risk assessment for them - they'd either never bothered reading what they were signing or had forgotten, or were simply on the make for the quick buck!

I have a couple of financial adviser clients who were badly stung by compensation claims. Both were adamant that they'd given the warnings at the time, but sadly, they hadn't kept their records (they'd had then shredded after x years as advised at the time), so couldn't prove they'd given the warnings, conducted the risk assessment and got their client's signatures on the warnings. Their insurance paid out of course, and they got stung for huge insurance renewal premiums for years afterwards. Not their fault, but they couldn't prove it! They, likewise, now keep files basically forever!

Same here. I've just turned 60. If they'd not changed the rules, I'd have retired with a pension now. As it is I've got 7 more years to work. 7 years of paying taxes and NIC. 7 years of not receiving £12k per year state pension. The "cost to me" is going to be around £100k. Yes, it's annoying. BUT I knew all about it. I knew the first round of changes. I knew the second round of changes. None of it was secret. The information/news was everywhere.