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 didn’t say delayed gratification, I said instant gratification. The only women in the WASPI group I have personal experience of (as an employment adviser) took early retirement in late fifties because they were significantly unwell and struggling to cope. And there were many of them. I’ve explained the consequences of that several times, but I’m clearly wasting my time, so I’m out.

Yes, I know and I do sympathise. I was just pissed off tbh. I wasn’t really offering a viable argument. I was just moaning.

Firstly nobody had a single six year change to their retirement age. The max was five. People who had a five year increase would have to have retired in 2018 or later. The Ombudsman found a delay of 28 months in sending out letters between 2005 and 2007. So all done and dusted three years before the least affected and eleven years before the most affected.

So again - show your working that "many women" received one years notice of a six year increase.

And if your measure of notice is receiving a letter from the Government - nobody affected by the increase to 66, 67 nor the forthcoming 68 got one at all.

In any case the High Court and Court of Appeal established in 2019 that the Government had no obligation to contact anyone at all. This consistent with literally every single tax and spending decision that affects people that every government takes ever.

It's absolutely not my own situation, but it IS that of several WASPIs I know.

I won't even be thinking about retiring before at the earliest 67. It is now likely to be 70.

That attitude is ageist in itself - the women affected didn’t grow up in the era of instant gratification we have now, so tended to be more pragmatic.

Honestly this is so classic.
Crying ageism while literally putting down younger people for only being about instant gratification, not planning for the future and not pragmatic.

When will the penny drop?

I completely agree.

I know two women who think they are very hard done by, because they "had to" retire at 60 without a state pension.

There's no reason why they couldn't have carried on working like the rest of us will have to (and men have always had to), but they didn't want to. Now they bore everyone with their tales of woe.

Most people just listen and nod and try to change the subject, but I don't think anyone feels any sympathy.

The second increase was limited to 18 months when they was uproar about the change. That's what I remembered and I checked the house of commons archives which confirmed that.

Try re-entering the workforce at sixty and in ill health.

You say this as if it related only to the WASPIs.

Yes, you said young people grew up in the era of instant gratification, and the inference of that is that you as a pragmatic older woman grew up in the era of delayed gratification.

I’m not a WASPI. Have experience of those who are. Both family members and from working as an employment adviser.

Did they get DLA or PIP? If they qualified before SRP they did loads better than women who might have been just as ill but get attendance allowance. My DH gets higher rate DLA, if I became just as disabled I'd get nowhere near as much as I'm already past SRP.

Nope - the thread is about WASPI’s isn’t it ? The fact is that many were left in awful financial situations based on having to take early retirement on health grounds with a significantly reduced pension. By the time they became aware of the changes and realised that the SP wouldn’t be available as the top up they expected, it was too late to do anything about it, and claiming benefits wasn’t an option, so they had to look for work despite ill health.

I think a line needs drawing under it now. Everyone who feels they didn't have enough notice have been getting their pension for a while now. It's over. Let's enjoy life now.

Easy peasy now, on the internet, at least as a place to start. It wasn't quite so easy back in the day to find stuff, I suspect. My workplace was helpful, not sure if everyone's was. Never had a financial advisor till I retired. Rich people had those.

Adult DLA was phased out over a number of years after the introduction of PIP and there were no new claims after 2013 so he must be claiming it as a legacy benefit. And PIP is a significantly harder benefit to claim than adult DLA was. AA has no mobility component - it was decided that most people over retirement age would have mobility issues that weren’t connected to disability. This continues to be the case for older people claiming PIP - the age of the claimant is considered alongside their disability.

The state pension should never have started at 60 for women in the first place. It should have been 65 for all and it should have risen over the years along with life expectancy.

And yet you think the rest of us don't have any experience of WASPI"s.? I've already acknowledged that those struggling should have had assistance to bridge the gap, yet I am apparently lacking in knowledge because I am aware that not every woman fits that description. And yes, sorry you don't like it, but some of those women are NOT POOR. Not all had low wages. As we have seen from the many posts from actual WASPI women on here, many of them were aware AND in a position to plan, and either did not retire early or had other resources.

So yes, I concede. Pay the ones who struggled. I've said that. No need to be insulting just because you don't adequately understand that some women were well paid from that era, had professional incomes and made their own provisions.

This!

Well put @Shwish. I'm not seeing the ageism. I'm seeing one group asking for special treatment to be paid for be another who are more disadvantaged than they are themselves.

strange that most of the rest of us were aware of it because of the extensive news coverage at the time. And none of us have any way of avoiding the change in the goalposts, WASPIs are no different to the rest of the population. If anything we have it worse

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

I paid into the system from the age of 16. I went to further education and kept paying. I now pay a higher rate of tax because I had that education. They encouraged me to opt out of SERPS and then said "oops, my bad" so my pension will be affected by that. When I started paying in, the pension age was 60 for women, and it stayed that way for 22 years. Then it went to 65, now it is 67. Who do I complain to and cry about compensation? Oh hang on, I'm Gen X, we just suck it up and get on with it.

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.

Benefits in the 80s were more generous. There was the family income supplement for low pay workers. Family Allowance was higher and paid for every child. You had a married tax allowance. You had MIRAS for the mortgage on the house that only cost you 3 times your salary (yes, even at the ridiculous interest rates for ten minutes in the early 80s) and you paid no stamp duty when you bought. It was far easier to claim sickness benefits.

Please stop pretending the government did nothing for working people back in the day.

Schrödinger‘s waspi who simultaneously worked and paid tax every day from she was 12 while simultaneously being forced out of the workforce due to inequality and a lack of opportunity.

You can't, in one breath accuse others on the thread of ageism because they don't think the WASPI women deserve special treatment, and in the next make a blatantly ageist remark such as this: 'Many posters here don’t seem to understand that older people tended to plan well in advance for things - retirement included. That attitude is ageist in itself - the women affected didn’t grow up in the era of instant gratification we have now, so tended to be more pragmatic'.
It is obviously ageist to suggest that all older people are prudent and sensible whereas all the young just do what ever they feel like doing in the moment. It's also ironic because you are both suggesting that this particular group are sensible planners AND also did not actually pay attention to any of the information that was in the media regularly for many years, nor actually take the trouble to check their pensions at all. You can't have it both ways.

I dare say there will be lots of GenXs, Milennials and GenZs retiring early on grounds of ill health in their 60s. They probably won't be fortunate enough to retire early in their 50s like the WASPIs. The younger ones probably won't even all have any sort of state pension.

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!

@Badbadbunny I had an endowment mortgage in the mid-90s. When I sat with my mum and the mortgage advisor, they both waxed lyrical about how the endowment would pay off the mortgage, and I'd even probably have a nice wee sum to go on holiday with. I asked what would happen if the value of it fell. He said that wouldn't happen because they always made sure they set the value of it so the payments would always at least cover it. I pushed, but he basically shut me down as a silly young woman who didn't understand it. I knew there was a risk, took it anyway and figured I'd be selling the flat long before the mortgage was due and even if I didn't, it was 25 years away so I'd worry about it later (I was 19 and a student.) Of course, I got a letter about 5 years later saying the endowment was in shortfall and I'd need to find extra money. I was planning on selling the flat anyway so it wasn't a problem to me.

About 3 months later, I got a letter from the firm that had taken over the firm who advised me and they said, we are very sorry that guy didn't do what he was supposed to, here's some money to help towards the issues with your endowment.

I am certain there were people who were advised well and knew the risks. If the paperwork was in order, they wouldn't get "compo". There were also people who were well advised, knew the risks, but got "compo" because of administrative failures. But there definitely were people who were mis-selling and not advising. Had it been my mum who was buying the mortgage off that guy, she would have been certain it would be fine. Indeed, her own mortgage had a shortfall which she was shocked to discover, but it turned out she had a second endowment policy from an older mortgage which she forgot about and that covered it. She tried to get some payback, but they produced the piece of paper she had signed warning her of the risks. Had she been a WASPI (I think she missed it by a couple of years) she absolutely would have been shocked to discover the situation when she retired, despite it being everywhere and getting letters etc. She still whines about Gordon Brown stealing her pension but when pressed she has no idea what all that was about.

Anyone whose state pension is paying out at age 65 is doing way better than the rest of us and I would consider them to be very fortunate.