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?

I find it so interesting that there seems to be two main claims being made by those in favour of compensation, and that both are so obviously not factual but seem to be so widely believed:
That retiring earlier than men was intended to be compensation for sexist discrimination in working life and that they were therefore owed it as a quid pro quo.
That the intention of raising the retirement age was that the women affected would then privately fund still stopping working then and so needed time to do this. This obviously wasn't the intention, it was that these women would indeed work longer. The only preparation needed was to not quit your job at 60.

If I say I wasnt aware of pension changes could i get compensation for not having it till i'm 67? And maybe my husband could claim sex discrimination as men had to wait till 65 and women could retire at 60?

Surely sticking your head in the sand and doing no financial planning shouldnt be an excuse. Most people, including those not affected were aware of these changes.

It most definitely was on the news, on TV and in newspapers etc. i remember it well.

You’ve spectacularly missed the point.

Exactly. I hope if these women are going to drag this all the way to court they'll be paying their own costs.

So am I (and still working).
I don't either. I also can't imagine how they managed 'not to know.'

How if loads of you were SAHM's, can you expect younger women who have to work full time for decades, whilst looking after children, and still doing most of the housework, to pay for your compensation that you didn't get to retire early?

Young people will either not get any state pension or it will be means tested so if we have worked, we won't get one. Retirement age is nearly 70 already.

The retirement age had been 60 for women, 65 for men all our lives. This was a big and unexpected change and really needed a proper letter.I'm not looking for compensation for myself, but I think it's very unfair to say that we should have known. I found out several years after it had been decided.

Mmm so the ombudsman, after a lengthy review, says they should receive compensation but you don't think they should.
Would be interesting to to know how you'd feel if you went to the ombudsman about some issue and they agreed you were entitled to compensation but the payout was refused.

I'm a Waspi woman.
I spent most of my working life, from 18, expecting to be able to retire at 60. But there were 3 age rises, of which I was only officially informed of one.
I eventually started receiving my pension at 66.
However, through the media (thank you Woman's Hour), I knew about the age changes, but I can understand how many women would have been disgruntled about the lack of timely, clear, direct communication.
At the age of 70 I'm still working part time.
But I don't think paying compensation is justified: the country can't afford it. But Starmer was a rat to make promises he had no intention of keeping.

This, absolutely!!

But that's the point. It wasn't "for all of your lives", was it, because you were presumably only in your forties when the changes were introduced.

I mean, I guess it's fair enough to take zero interest in the world around you and not to bother to inform yourself about the news etc, but surely you then need to own the choice not to know what's going on. And you therefore need to be proactive in checking whether the things that are important to you are still in place.

It's absurd to just assume that nothing will ever change and that no government will ever pass me legislation without writing personally to everyone affected.

Last year the parliamentary ombudsman recommended payouts of up to £2,950 each because of a 28-month delay in writing to inform the women affected of the changes.

This thread is upsetting to read - the callousness of women towards each other. We should absolutely be supporting the WASPI women, and I am gobsmacked that any women would disagree. In fact, I am in no doubt that a smear campaign (and it is a smear campaign) has been started on social platforms because I have recently read similar threads on Reddit and X, all designed to stir up a campaign of mistruths and misunderstanding. Perhaps you should all actually go to the WASPI website to find out the truth.

WASPI women are of an age when many were unable to join pension schemes (many women weren't allowed to join company pension schemes until the 1990s), and in any case, many stayed at home to raise children so this would not be an option for them, many were given one years notice of a 6 year pension age increase, whereas men were given 6 years notice of an increase of a year. The list goes on.

The same thing is happening now. Stay at home mums have to either apply for child benefit or, if their partner earns over a certain amount, they have to 'opt' out of the child benefit. Both claiming and opting out mean the women's state pension is protected during that time. Thousands of women are said to be raising their children without either claiming or opting out - for a myriad of reasons - thousands of women set to be without a state pension in years to come. And they will be the women at the bottom of the pile, the most vulnerable and from the poorest backgrounds - as it ever was - who will suffer the most.

Sorry it’s absurd. There was so much in the papers and on news programs about pension changes over the years how can they have missed any of that information? People need to take responsibility and be clued up on their own finances.

The public purse can’t afford to pay ‘compensation’

I knew a few WASPIs who want compensation who have done very well for themselves over the years. Not all of them are living hand to mouth.

I think a lot of the WASPI women are swinging the lead.

You'd have had to have been living under a rock to not know anything about the changes. They were everywhere on tv, newspapers, magazines, radio, and so on.

If any women (which I think there were very few) chose to hide themselves away from the world around them and not pay attention then they have to bear responsibility for doing that.

So what is your actual issue?
Finding out several years after it was as first announced still gave you a minimum of a decade up to a maximum of 2 decades notice before the change was actually implemented.

I think it would be fair to comment OP if a government, of whatever colour, had nicked a few years off your pension. This pickpocketing of the vulnerable - who signed up to the contract on offer at the time. Ie pay this, get that, on whatever date applied then - is a disgrace. The pitiful offer of compensation on offer is an additional disgrace.

Exactly - and well said. There but for the Grace of God and all that..

and Slippery Starmer is a two faced rat for going back on his word.

It really wasn't. I took out a repayment mortgage in 1988 because I didn't want the risk of an endowment.
I also never took out payment protection insurance for my bank loans or credit cards,
I have been aware of my retirement age, and that it had increased from 60 to 65 to 67.
I wouldn't consider myself particularly financially savvy.
I can't understand why all these people who make financial decisions (whether it's taking out a mortgage, buying insurance, or the timing of their retirement) without getting the most basic information deserve compensation for their own stupidity.

As I said, I'm not complaining for myself. I found out about the change in time and I'm OK. I was replying to a PP who suggested that we couldn't have known that retirement age used to be 60 if we were so ill informed; and also to people who have said that we must have heard it on the news - I didn't and neither did lots of other people.

The ombudsmon found this not to be true and recommended compensation, as pitiful as it is. You should visit the WASPI website and really do some research before commenting on something which is devastating to alot of women.

Yes a bit like those people who have children without planning if they can afford them. Perhaps we shouldn’t bail them out if they are too stupid to think about it?

Oh, forget it. You presumably also think that the ombudsman was stupid to say that the government should have informed us properly.

Sorry, but I fail to see how women with partners earning above the threshold for claiming CB are amongst the poorest and most vulnerable?

Of course, we need better support for those who don't know what they're eligible to claim, whether that is CB or any other benefit. But that's a separate issue, and I don't see what it has to do with the waspi issue.