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?

Same here too! I've known about this pretty much my whole working life I am turning 60 this year and like you @Badbadbunny I have another 7 years. It's fine.

No. But the crux of the matter here is that these were major changes and the DWP were charged with writing to explain those changes. There were three separate letters that went out at various stages. Not all women got them and not all of the information in them was correct - the last change in particular in 2010 gave some women less than 12 months notice. I have relatives who were born within a couple of weeks of each other in the mid 1950’s and all had retirement dates years apart. The Ombudsman found that DWP didn’t communicate effectively. Compensation was recommended. And as was very succinctly pointed out upthread, the government decided not to honour it because labour votes don’t sit in the demographic affected.

How would you have coped if you’d found out less than one year from your expected retirement that you’d have to work another six years ?

It affected me and I wasn't happy about it but I absolutely knew it was happening. Everyone was talking and grumbling against it. It was the main topic of conversation in the workplace at the time. You could go on to website and see new predictions.

I think this is irrelevant either way. If people want to campaign for reparations for historic sexism then crack on, and the merits of that case can be assessed. It's completely irrelevant to pensions.

I'd have been absolutely furious with myself when I realised that my failure to keep up to date with basic current affairs had led to such a massive oversight on my part.

I probably would struggle to cope with how much of a prat I'd been for not actually checking.

Nobody 'signed up' to a 'contract' for the state pension - it's just a scheme that's treated as a benefit that is paid to those who are eligible at the appropriate time.

Nobody 'nicked' years of your pension - any more than the government 'ripped me off' for having to pay for and sit a driving test and multiple lessons to obtain a driving licence, just because my Grandad applied for one and was simply given it, because there was no such thing as compulsory driving tests back then.

Nobody has 'nicked' years of child benefit payments for my 2nd, 3rd and 4th children from me, as I only have one child and so have never been eligible for those further payments that parents with more children would have been eligible for.

The pension age was originally set above the average age of death, so it was a kind of 'reward' for living longer than average. Many people nowadays receive a pension for 20 or more years. Nobody is expecting them to compensate the NHS for enabling them to live considerably longer than their ancestors a few generations before!

Given the current economic and national security mess the country is in, I find it hard to rustle up much sympathy for WASPI women when, as someone who is not a WASPI woman but does keep abreast of the news, I was fully aware of something that they apparently needed letters to inform them of. It’s not as if they didn’t know their own dates of birth. Did they deliberately stick their fingers in their ears and cover their eyes, or something? It wasn’t information that was in any way kept secret from the country at large.

Every single person yet to retire has "years nicked" from their pension.

Well no actually it's NOTHING like that. Because by "bailing out" those people you're actually helping the children who had no say in any of it.

I don't understand this "signed up to the contract" business either?

No one is guaranteed a certain state pension age, no one signs up to anything?

Lots of things we think we may get in life, certain entitlements but the government can change the rules at any time- 2 child benefits limit/benefits cap anyone? And there wasn't much notice for that either!

The state pension age will probably keep increasing and on that basis nearly all of us will have been "pickpocketed".

Also all this talk of social housing- gosh it's extremely hard to get and I personally don't know anyone who has it! Houses aren't being given out, how does that even factor into the pension scenario?

Men have had their (already originally 5 years higher) retirement age increased at least twice as well.

I haven't heard a whimper from any men's groups complaining that they have been betrayed, ripped off or scammed for their treatment.

Of course, everybody has the right to be disappointed and grumble when they realise that they'll have to wait longer than they hoped for the state pension - but all of the legal action has been from groups representing women, even though a huge number of men have also been similarly affected.

I am a WASPI woman, so my pension age went up from 60 to 63 to 65.5.
I was somewhat irritated, but equalising it with male pension age was the correct thing to do. I just don’t understand how so many women were unaware of the changes - did they take no interest in their own financial affairs, not talk to their friends and colleagues, read a newspaper?
And I think the government now has more important priorities like health, education, housing and defence.

I can guarantee you know a LOT of people.IRL who don't support the "waspi" cause. Since it's an insane, self centres one!

Tbf, I am only in my early 50s and was 32 before I got a job which offered WPP and that was because it was the first time I worked in the public sector. Private sector was much patchier with offering this, especially in low-paid areas.

Your ignorance of the situation is just staggering!
WASPI women did not get their state pensions at 60, that is the whole point. The rules were changed and women in the relevant age group were not informed until years later.

Agree @Freda69 …so many having our pensions pushed further and further away …they are not the only ones…

Work another 6 years I guess. What else can you do (aside from moan endlessly)?

Everyone's retirement age has been shifting to the right for decades and will no doubt continue that way.

These WASPI women want to retire at 60 when the kids paying for it may well not get a state pension at all as more emphasis is being put on workplace pensions. Time for the WASPI lot to accept things change; usually governments change such things with barely a few months notice - or no notice at all - in a budget)

Indeed. My parents had all of their state pensions 'nicked' from them, as they never lived long enough to claim it.

There was a settlement on their private pensions, as these were actual contracted plans; but as the state pension age was always higher than the age that they were until their deaths, they were never eligible and thus, that's how it goes.

If they'd been much luckier with their health, they could have both lived to 100, so that's potentially 75 years of pension 'nicked' from our family!

I was young, but had a good amount of savings. I wasn't offered a repayment at any affordable cost. Most people I knew were in a similar position.

I didn't get compensation, a did budget wisely and didn't finish my mortgage with a shortfall

I watched a colleague be absolutely devastated by this. She was 60 years old and ineligible for state pension, being forced to retire at 60 by a workplace pension to which she'd only paid into for 10 years after an unexpected divorce. So she was financially f**ked. We got around it [and HR] by bringing her back as a contractor to do a project admin role but I can completely understand how someone could be blindsided by this given there was no OneGov site at the time you could go onto and check your retirement entitlements on.

Today's news has prompted me to check as I understood that my pension age had been raised to 66.
Now I find it's actually 67 as it was changed again and I thought it was for the generation coming behind me, but no. The chance of my employer keeping me in a senior role until my late 60's is non existent.

My key finding for today is that UK Gov can and likely will raise that again as they are only committing to a 10 year notice period to raise state pension ages.

When I first heard about harmonization of pension age I thought they were bringing the men's age down to 60 to open jobs for unemployment young people - full of ideas me.
I knew I was now going to have to work to 64 and although not happy that's that. But then they decided to escalate it and suddenly my retirement age went up a further 21 months, and that's the bit I am really angry about. But too many jumped on the bandwagon and thats why there isn't going to be compensation.

I've got very little sympathy for WASPI women. My retirement age has changed. As has my husband's. He's in his 60s and won't get his SP until 67.

Our DC will probably never get a state pension. And yet WASPIs expect us to fork out for them.

100% agree.