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’m a WASPI woman. I can’t remember when I found out about the changes but when I did I paid more into my private pension via AVC’s and took voluntary enhanced retirement at 58. I’d love the compensation but don’t need it.

I am aware. I was responding, tongue in cheek to a similarly sweeping statement. Second person to only call out the one that doesn't suit... A running theme with the WASPIs - selective awareness

Having read the Ombudsman report in greater detail than previously, one paragraph that particularly shocked me said that less than half of those who received an individual letter remembered getting it, and of those who remembered, just over half had read it!

You don’t say…..

However, ageism is rife on this site. It’s a shame but there it is.

To not think WASPIs have a case for compensation is not "ageism". I am only slightly younger and I don't think there is even a flimsy case for it.

Nothing to do with ageism, sexism or any other "ism" that comes out when an argument is lost. It's everything to do with the fact that there are far more important and deserving demands on the public purse.

"However, ageism is rife on this site. It’s a shame but there it is."

In your opinion.

Mine is that most of the arguments on this thread are not ageist.

Nope, you should pay for your own kids breakfasts.

Wow such a worthy comparison you’ve picked. I’m sure the public really back sending pensioners on another cruise vs feeding primary school aged children.

It's also to do with societal expectations and how work is organised with men as the default worker.

Sorry, can you explain this please? I thought you had to be born in the 50s to be a WASPI (6 April 1950 - 5 April 1960)? How are you “eligible” if you’ve just turned 60 - you must have been born after 1960 surely?

This is a genuine question by the way!

Such things are not available to most women. And though I know that time out to rear children is credited for NI it's not credited as anything else. We have a society basically organised round male biology and male work-paterns, and that needs to change. I also don't like that much of the drive is to get women out to work, whilst also expecting them to bear the major part of domestic arrangements (housework, childcare, social organisation, care of the elderly). We are living in a neo-liberal world that sees people as cogs and women for the most part do not fit into it.

What isn’t available to most women? Became NI credits counting towards your pension while out of work raising children are available to all women, and were much more generous decades ago.

I also don't like that much of the drive is to get women out to work, whilst also expecting them to bear the major part of domestic arrangements (housework, childcare, social organisation, care of the elderly)

Expected by who? I’m certainly not expected to work and do the majority of all the domestic work.

I don't want free childcare that is geared to getting me out to work, I would prefer it to be good childcare that helped my DC and that the cost of it be paid to me to use as I think fit i.e. to support me at home, use grandparents, a childminder or a nursery. Our current system is about getting women back into economic production (the only production neo-liberal economics recognises) whilst also boosting the childcare industry - it has nothing to do with better outcomes for children.
So, no those options are not accommodations to women's biology, they are all designed to make sure she returns to being an economic cog asap.

Well put. I'm like you the war cry of it put all these poor women into poverty just doesn't wash. Nor do I believe many had no awareness of the need to have a private pension to have a decent standard of living in old age.

I know NI benefits were more generous decades ago. Also, everyone got what was then known as Family Allowance, payable to the mother. You are clearly strong enough to make sure that you don't do all the domestics, but some women are not, but that's clearly not a government problem, more a feminist one.
I don't see going out to do paid work as better than doing something else more interesting, really. I have strived all my life to get into that position and now I'm there I would be happy did I still also have my DH (whose opinion on housework was that if he didn't want to do it there was no reason why I should).

I'd say by the 90's that working women were more the norm than the exception. we have certainly had in the past 25 years an expection that both parents work and pay for childcare.

The truth is, in 1995, when this change was first broached, the WASPI women were in their 30s and 40s with families and jobs/careers. Like a lot of people in their 20s, it would still have seemed so far away. Many people my age (me included, to be honest) kind of stuck their heads in the sand over it, despite advice, and I don't think the WASPI women were so different.

I accept they might have known, but not known what to do about it or in some cases not had the money to do anything about it. But that could apply to many in their 50s. Probably there could have been more help in re: money management for those unsure about setting up a pension.

Non of that has anything to do with the topic at hand though so why keep bringing up how much childcare or housework women may or may not do within their families? It’s not a reason to retire earlier so not sure what your point is.

Actually the Ombudsman recommended compensation for all women who were disadvantaged by a Government department's failure to act properly and promptly. It seems to me that this is entirely reasonable and is indeed what I'd expect. I'd have been disappointed if they'd said that they found a Government department at fault but that's OK, no-one need do anything about it.

They went on to say that due to the practical difficulty of identifying the women who were disadvantaged within a reasonable time frame, one of the things the Government might consider is making a payment to everyone.

There is an interesting discussion to be had about what should be done when it then turns out that there isn't enough money to make a payment to everyone, but it's impossible to identify the ones who should get it. But that discussion is entirely independent of anything to do with pensions, age groups, women's freedoms, biology, and all the other issues that people keep batting about. By all means have those discussions but don't let them cloud the issue of whether it's OK for the state not to compensate citizens it has harmed. I think that would be a dangerous precedent to set.

Free child care is provided to people who aren't working, particularly if they are in certain disadvantaged groups whose children would benefit from the more structured learning environment of nursery to get them ready for school.

For most women, being an 'economic cog' which allows them to save into a workplace pension and make enough NI contributions for a full state pension is the only way to have a relatively comfortable retirement.

This 'women should have checked the money pages', as if! We had no money, the mortgage rates were through the bloody roof and I was cooking on a one burner hob I borrowed from work.

Eh? Surely the people who should take the keenest interest in what financial provision they will be entitled to (and reliant on) from the state in their later lives are the poorest people?!

You didn't need to read the FT, or even the dedicated finance sections of the main papers - it was massive general news across all of the different types of media over a very extended time.

The PP who compared it to Brexit was spot on: whatever your personal opinions on the matter, nobody could have possibly been unaware of everything that was going on about it and all of the campaigns, controversies and arguments from both sides.

Wow, that's a bit of a smoking gun for many, many people, isn't it?

Whilst there clearly was a minority who both received the letter and bothered to read it, it blows a massive hole in the claims that an entire generation of women were betrayed and in a much worse position than they would have been had they all received a letter.

Yes, I'm sure it was a very boring-looking letter for those who received it, but it's nobody's fault but your own if you did receive a letter and still ignored it.

Even if they'd sent somebody to every home and tried to force you to sit attentively whilst they slowly read the letter to you in full and asked you to confirm afterwards that you understood it properly , that would of course been bitterly complained about too.

It's nonsense for anyone to claim they didn't know. I can remember it being in the news and I was a teenager, hardly in a position to be worrying about pensions. It was everywhere. And the inequality between male and female pension ages was always unfair anyway. No sympathy.

They absolutely deserve compensation, why shouldn't they???

The WASPI (Women Against State Pension Inequality) campaign is a movement in the UK advocating for women born in the 1950s who were affected by changes to the state pension age. Historically, women were eligible for a state pension at age 60, while men had to wait until 65. However, changes introduced in the 1990s aimed to equalize the state pension age for men and women, gradually raising the women's pension age to match that of men.
The issue arose because many women claim they were not given adequate notice of these changes, leading to financial hardship and disrupted retirement plans. The government has acknowledged a delay in informing these women but has argued that it cannot afford the compensation package, which could cost up to £10.5 billion. Well tough, these individual women can't afford not to have it and are suffering now.
WASPI campaigners are demanding compensation for the affected women, arguing that the government's failure to provide timely notice constitutes maladministration. They have threatened legal action and are seeking a judicial review to challenge the government's decision. I hope they win.

I was born in 1958. I knew all about changes. I do not agree with compensation. Far more deserving cases atm.