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?

It was a massive change and very well publicised. I don't quite understand how they are all so well organised now that they are campaigning and marching, but at the time did not have a single conversation with their peers about it?

These people were not paying attention. Sad, but bad stuff can happen when you don't pay attention... With today's life expectancy, letting women retire at 60 is simply unaffordable (leaving aside the inequality vs. men).

This.
And the point is, the waspi women didn't retire at 60.
The final year of raising the retirement age (65 to 66) was not publicised, informed or timely.

The whole thing is a farce. I actually find it slightly embarrassing that the women are publicly campaigning that they wanted to retire earlier at 60 (!!!) when its clear younger generations won't be retiring until much much later and with a much less comfortable lifestyle. Read the room!!

Re endowment mortgages - It was almost impossible to get a repayment mortgage at the end of the 80s. I had an endowment mortgage but managed it so I wasn't down on the deal in the end.

The big one coming next is surely Equity Release/Lifetime Mortgages. Followed by some of the life insurance packages and funeral plans

Waspi have never wanted the retirement age for women to be 60, or have ever campaigned on this ticket at all.

I'm a WASPI woman....just.
I've commented on these threads before - no, I don't expect compensation but please don't think everyone knew about the changes, we didn't.

I grew up expecting to retire at 60. The changes happened when I was a stay at home wife, caring for children including one with mild disabilities. I wasn't at work, we didn't have mobiles and social media to inform people in those days, and in our particular household, we didn't have a TV either so seldom caught up with current affairs. I had no idea anything had changed. And no, the government didn't write and inform me, although some people seem to have had letters....I certainly didn't.

I found out years and years later, after I'd divorced and once the children left home and I went back out to work full time. By then it was far too late to do anything about provision I might or might not have been able to put in place.

So please don't think "we all knew" or "should have known".

But nor do I expect to be compensated for it, and besides, the government hasn't the money to do this and there are better things to be spending our taxes on (health, education etc).

It was well publicised, the uplift from 65 to 66 was applicable to men and women - much discussed and widely reported.And of course I grumbled at the 'changing goalposts' over my lifetime, but that's life. Things change.

There are many ways the government could spend their money, some I agree with others I don't. The Waspie women have a case - what nothing is particularly poor is that the Labour party in opposition supported them and in govt don't. That to me is underhand.

I agree.
I'm appalled that the government has chosen to just ignore the outcome of the Ombudsman. Their whole purpose is to arbitrate.
For me, it highlights that this government has no integrity-and I voted for them!
We may as well get rid of the ombudsmen system if the government can so easily ignore their findings with impunity.

that's pretty shitty, OP. Those women were working and paying for every fucking man to have his full pension, and now they (admitted by government) got shafted. Some are living in penury.

But sure, just a bunch of old biddies, who cares about them?

Mumsnet is very anti older women as seen by this thread and many others on here

If you move abroad like I did in my 40’s then you often don’t hear about pension changes and the Dept. concerned are not easy to communicate with.

I’m several years short of a full pension because I moved abroad and trying to find out how to pay to top up my contributions is extremely infuriating as I can’t seem to get any definitive answers from anyone. They make it as hard as possible to find out information.

When I started work, the retirement age for women was 60. Then it changed to 65, and will change to 67 and then to 68 and likely beyond. So can I still argue when I don’t get my state pension until 68 (or beyond) that the goalposts have changed or that I wasn’t properly informed?

It has been well publicised and continues to be. With life expectancy increases and an ageing population we can’t expect pensions to stay unchanged. For the same reason, I am not doing my retirement planning on the assumption that the triple lock will carry on in its current format for the next half a century either

I think the point is, the government should abide by the ombudsman ruling. Otherwise there's no point in the ombudsman. They should abide by the public sector pay bodies ' recommendations and similar things too. Independent bodies are set up so that these issues aren't political footballs so there should be a damn good reason for going against them.

Yes a bit like all of those people stuffing their faces with food and expecting the NHS to provide weight loss drugs paid for with our taxes isn’t it?

These women are a disgrace. They are playing the little women who had no means of informing themselves card. As previously says they are expecting those who will be working much longer to fund their retirement in their 60s. If they want more money keep working.

Er no - the world is anti-funding luxury retirements for those who didn't take responsibility themselves.... That is not the same as being anti older women.

I’m now 74 and I had letters stating the retirement age would go up in increments.I was very lucky as my birthday is in October and the cut off date for retirement at 60 was September which meant I only had to do 6 more months before I received my state pension.But the information was every where at the time.Then when the retirement age went up again but not in increments the information was readily available,so people could plan for their retirement.BTW I always paid the full stamp and not the married woman’s even when I married which has made a huge difference to the pension I get now.Most women where I worked didn’t want to pay the very small amount to stay on the full stamp when they married.Actions or lack of have consequences.It’s very unfair that the younger generation will have to pay for their lack of forsight.

But do you not think there is some onus on individuals to keep themselves informed about stuff like this? Would you expect the government to write to each and every citizen individually to keep them informed about changes to legislation that might affect them? I don't think that's realistic, personally. Did you not even have a radio so that you could keep up with the news? Or newspapers?

And if you had known, what provision would you have put in place to prepare for the change? Is it not the reality that most women wouldn't have been able to fund an early retirement even if they had known, and so they would have had to carry on working for a few years extra anyway?

Who else is going to get their entitlements stopped errr no one

All I can tell you are my own circumstances and I had 2 years 4 months notice that I would have wait a further 5 years 11 months than I'd expected before I was eligible to draw my state pension. I still have the letter. Can any of you justify that? How was I supposed to make up for 6 years' worth of pension in 2 years and still live day to day?

You may talk about it being 'all over the news' but there still remained an obligation for the government tell us and not rely on us watching TV or reading newspapers. They had a responsibility and they failed. Now they are ignoring the ombudsman.

Sorry but you are WRONG!! I am a WASPI woman, and I can categorically tell you that I did NOT receive ANY communication from the government about this at all! So don't comment on something that you clearly know nothing about!

Do you think that the state pension is sufficient to enable someone to live "a luxury retirement"? It's not that generous!

I have several friends who are in the WASPI group and are forever going on about how badly they were treated. Tbh I'm not very sympathetic - I'm nearly 64 and I won't get my state pension until I'm 67 so as far as I'm concerned, they're already quids-in as they all got their pensions several years earlier than I will