WASPI Women - getting compensated

[CanSeeClearlyNowTheRainHasGone]

I've just read this:

The government will reconsider its decision not to award compensation to Waspi women, Work and Pensions Secretary Pat McFadden has said.

And I'm livid at the incompetence of Labour.

Having put the issue to bed once, they are now going to create a heap of trouble for themselves.

Either they decide (again) not to make any payouts - in which case, cue more outrage from WASPI and negative headlines.

Or they decide now that they will make payouts - which goes directly against the whole "we have to raise taxes" budget.

Or are they really so stupid that they're going to carry on paying everyone, raising salaries for Public Sector, 2-child cap, WFP, etc and carry on bleating about a black hole and how we must all pay more tax.

Am I being unreasonable that this seems like madness?

Men were also affected by the Coalition changes, but not quite in the same way. The women most affected were already finding it challenging to make up their pensions because of equalisation, when they had a limited number of years left to do it in. The Coalition changes were added on to this making it even more difficult. The men did not have the original equalisation problem to deal with in the first place so the subsequent Coalition change was not such an issue for them.

I don't know why the WASPI movement is seeking compensation for everyone, but having read the Ombudsman's report, it said that in practical terms it would be impossible to identify the particular women most affected. For that reason it suggested that instead of payments made to individuals based on their specific losses, the Government might wish to consider a blanket payment across the board. I assume that if the Ombudsman has found it impossible to identify particularly disadvantaged claimants then no-one else is likely to be able to either.

I remember it being in the press, on the news and chat shows in the mid 90s, I find it hard to believe so many didn't really know.

Don't it will nor should it. I'm a Waspi but I knew all about the changes from the get go. Never took my off my pension status from the minute I started work 😀 I haven't a lot of sympathy for those who don't keep up with current affairs. Everything surprises them 🙄

I am a Waspi woman and was definitely not informed of the change (and I am organised). However I don’t think that blanket compensation should be paid as I think my generation had it better than the younger generation and quite simply the country can’t afford it.

How could they know the gov of 2010 were going to reduce the time and then raise the age you receive pension??????

*Doubt it will

I agree the country can’t afford it ….NOW but it could have paid something in the past or at LEAST acknowledge that they’d fuckd up and many women were left in very difficult circumstances. My DH earned a high salary and we are comfortably off in retirement but had I been left to my own devices, brought up DCs then worked in NHS , I would be skint.

I’m a WASPI women - my contract with the government when I started work was that I would retire at 60 - it changed mid contract but was luckily able to absorb this - many weren’t able to. I don’t want compensation as I was able to pay more into my company pension to compensate but I did do another 6 years of work. I worked for 50 years - been retired now for 2 years - I can’t imagine doing doing the job I did now - I’d be knackered!!

Again though, if that is the issue why is the WASPI movement campaigning for compensation for people unaffected by the changes the Coalition made and also not campaigning for all the people affected by the Coalition changes?

I don't think any government actually did anything wrong. But I do think if WASPI had been clear on its actual grievance rather than flitting between the amount of notice, the nature of awareness raising measures and the Coalition changes and if it had focused on the worst affected rather than making ridiculous maximalist demands it might have been able to tug enough heart strings to get a result. As it is it has got nowhere, comes across as utterly tone deaf to the current fiscal situation, and looks set to throw away yet more of its supporters' money on another doomed legal challenge next month.

I'm also a WASPI. I can accept the decision not to pay and I expect this to be simply procedural to put a full stop on it. What I could not stomach was all the Labour MP's including, Starmer, Reeves, Phillipson, Haigh and others crawling all over the WASPI cause when they were in opposition and calling the conservatives all sorts of names for their injustice and promising if they get in they will right the wrong, only to turn their backs on us the minute they came into government. That was truly despicable.

Did you see it on the TV and hear it on the radio?

It's strange because there was so much publicity about it. I had letters for several years telling me when I would be receiving my state pension🤷‍♀️

I could swear I didn’t have letters about my pension -did you work in the civil service or something

Me too. I remember going into work and talking about it with my colleagues who were also affected . And we weren’t talking about how we could make up our pensions, more “ oh great now we’ve got to work until we’re 66 before we get it” . I don’t actually understand what we are being compensated for - potentially.

I may have received something in 1995 but as pension seemed a long way off it was not a huge stress. I don’t remember any other letters.

I am a WASPI woman but was able to retire at 61 because we had made contingency plans.
What annoys me is that so many of you think that pension is a ‘benefit’ funded by the taxpayer. It is in fact money that my employer and I paid into the pot for 45 years. The government were charged with investing that money for us so we could receive the pension that WE PAID FOR.

When did you ratify and sign that contract, though?

If governments could set policies and rates/amounts/taxes/benefits that would be binding decades into the future, what would be the point in having elections of different parties to govern every 5 years, if they were just sitting there powerlessly enforcing what the government of two or three generations previous had set in stone?

Even in the space of one year, this current government made firm promises that they've now indicated the need to do a 180 on - and they're far from the first givernment to do so.

Suppose they increase income tax by 2%, can we all just insist that we had a 'contract' to pay the current rate - or indeed any previous rate from decades past that was lower - so nothing will change?

If you were 60 in 2010 you were born in 1950, if you were 60 in 2015 you were born in 1955 - it this block they are fighting for

The WASPI group is campaigning for all women born between 1950 and 1960 and most of them were not affected by bringing forward equalisation to 2018.

No, NHS and universities. They also produced public information leaflets distributed in libraries, doctors' surgeries etc

As one of these women as you so kindly phrase it I can assure you that we weren’t all told. I worked from 18 and at the time women were paid less than men . ( for the same work ! )
The government are just hoping we will die !
( born in 1955)

Ffs there is no pot! No one has a pot paid for by their NI contributions. That is not how it works. Your NI contributions paid the pensions of the pensioners at that time. My NI contributions pay today’s pensioners. Not some special pot for me.

My MIL is a WASPI woman and does a lot of campaigning for them. She retired at 58 on a private pension having only worked in a low skilled job, still earns over £2.5k per month from her combination of state/private pensions and has £800k in the bank. I struggle to find sympathy for her!

Ffs to you too - there might not be a physical pot but my money was put somewhere .

Yes it was - into the pensions of the pensioners at the time.