Govt considering u-turn on WASPI compensation

[Ticklyoctopus]

https://news.sky.com/story/government-to-reconsider-whether-to-give-compensation-to-waspi-women-13468696

Oh God no 😖😖😖😖

It's a wilful ignorance. I started full time work in 1993 and we were already being warned to start saving for our own old age then. Even I knew and I wasn't some middle class professional type who read the financial times and watched the 9 O'clock news.

The thing is, when state pensions were introduced, nobody envisioned the greater number of people living for 30 years past working age. Average life expectancy was lower, and, frankly, there had just been two world wars, population levels were much lower. It wasn't envisioned that by the time the boomer generation were receiving pensions, the number of people claiming would be much higher, and they'd be claiming for much longer.

The writing was on the wall when 30 year olds were in nappies. What fighting could you possibly do?

I'm no economist, but isn't it inflationary to start chucking cash into the economy? Like, say throwing £10bn at people who mostly don't really need it?

It wasn't envisioned that by the time the boomer generation were receiving pensions, the number of people claiming would be much higher,

Well it bloody well should have been envisioned - the birth rate from 1945 to 1964 was no secret. The state managed to educate us all, it was obvious what level the need for pensions would be. Life expectancy is falling now anyway.

‘Working together against being treated like crap’ sounds like a great idea, but I have to ask, where was the support from the older generation when student grants were abolished? Tuition fees introduced and then tripled? Student loan repayment terms continually changed for the worse (just one small example: the first loans were interest-free until graduation)? Adult learning opportunities decimated? Open University course prices raised beyond the reach of many? Education Maintenance Allowance for sixth formers scrapped? Defined Benefit pension schemes closed to new members? Limitations placed on the formerly universal entitlement to Child Benefit? Child Trust Funds reduced then scrapped? Education and work plans shattered by Brexit? Certificates for free prescriptions cancelled for students in England? So many things we all once believed we and our children would be entitled to have been taken away. Perhaps if a few of the WASPI campaigners had spent one moment talking about the fact that they struggled to keep working for longer than they expected and therefore it’s crazy to expect younger people to work until 68 at the very least, those younger people might have more sympathy. But all we hear are demands for compensation!

The universal State Pension scheme as we know it started in 1946. I don't think they knew what the birth rate would look like in the 50s and 60s, then, do you?

The fact is, it has to change. Times have changed. If you were born in the 50s and 60s, you're all right, Jack, we're still paying for you all. I was born in the early 70s, so I should still get something out of it.

It's everybody younger who is funding that. People who won't be getting the same deal. That's the point I'm making. And here some people are, whining they had to wait another 5 years whilst sitting on a triple lock state pension.

The 30s and under, meanwhile, have to accept that not only do they have to pay for you, and probably me, they also have to separately fund themselves. They won't benefit in anything like the same way, if at all. In all likelihood, many of them will still be working well after 65.

That's why they aren't falling over themselves in sympathy for a group of women who only had to carry on working until they were 65. Boohoo.

The universal State Pension scheme as we know it started in 1946. I don't think they knew what the birth rate would look like in the 50s and 60s, then, do you?

Highly amusing. They did in the 70s, that was the time to change it.

But they didn't. So we are having to deal with it now. And a bunch of people whining for compensation from generations who are still paying in with less and less hope of getting anything out isn't helping.

You've all got your pensions now. Aren't you lucky nobody did think of it in the 70s, and you only had to wait another 5 years.

It's not a question of knowing how many people you need to pay pensions for, it's a question of knowing how many people you'll have available to pay them, and for how long you'll need to pay them for that cohort.

As long as the baby boomers were working, the ratio of workforce to pensioners was balanced on the right side. But with a plummeting birth rate since then, we're reliant on immigration to prop up the Ponzi scheme because my generation (X) have done no better than the boomers at having enough kids to sustain the system as we age.

Life expectancy has also pretty much recovered since the Covid-driven downturn, it's not correct to say it's falling. Even if it were, it would have to fall by extreme amounts to be where it was in 1946 (66 for men, 70 for women then vs 79/83 now.)

More relevant are the life expectancy at 65 figures - 18.6 years for men and 21.2 for women in 2021-22, vs 12.6/14.4 in 1945. So you've got a high proportion of pensioners, more of whom are living to retirement, and living a third longer after they reach retirement.

Thank you. Much better put than I could have done it.

It's not a question of knowing how many people you need to pay pensions for, it's a question of knowing how many people you'll have available to pay them, and for how long you'll need to pay them for that cohort.

It’s both. But if you know there was a big bulge in the birth rate over the best part of two decades it’s not hard to predict pressure on pensions coming down the line. Successive governments of both political persuasions just stuck their heads in the sand.

The 30s and under, meanwhile, have to accept that not only do they have to pay for you, and probably me, they also have to separately fund themselves. They won't benefit in anything like the same way, if at all. In all likelihood, many of them will still be working well after 65.

Hang on a second, it's not just those 30 and under.
Anyone born after April 1960 , including the late Boomers, have a state pension age of 66 plus .
Yes still working here age 59 and DH is 61 , still working, paying tax and paying into an occupational pension on top.

This idea that it's only people in their 30s working and paying is nonsense.

But you know you will get a state pension, the under 30s know it’s unlikely they will - it will either be means tested or the age increased so high they will likely die first or be close to it. For anyone born after 1978 or so the official state pension age is now 68, and likely to be reviewed/increased several times.

I honestly don't understand how so many older people seem to want to suggest this isn't the situation.
And the waspi campaign is obscene IMO. Those women are an embarrassment. If they are in genuine hardship they (like anyone else of whateber age) obviously deserve help. But just because they're in that particular age group? No. Absolutely not.

Do I?
Im not holding my breath that I will get anything

I have copied and pasted this directly from my Gov.uk statement

Your forecast is not a guarantee and is based on the current law

There in black and white

I agree. And I believe the vast majority of women did know - they are simply just unhappy and have sour grapes as they are the first age group it affected. I keep seeing WASPIs leaving comments on news articles saying they should have received SPA at 60 because life is harder for women due to pregnancy, looking after children, the menopause, having to take time out of work to bring up kids and therefore loosing earnings and pension contributions etc. Well those things are not unique to WASPI women. But they don’t care about younger people and the world they will leave behind them. They seem oblivious to the struggles younger people face - I’m not saying their generations didn’t have different struggles but they act as if they’re the most hard done by group of people to have ever existed.

They have to give 10 years notice of any change in state pension age. As you are 59 and have 8 years, you will be ok. The amount you will receive is not a guarantee but there would have to be a catastrophic economic disaster for you to not receive the SP at this point.

Well they didnt in 2011 !

Catastrophic economic disaster

We are in one now!!

They have to give 10 years notice of any change in state pension age.

Quite rightly and that’s something you can thank the WASPI women for because it only became the case because they kicked up such a storm after the 2011 changes which gave some of them less than 18 months notice.

Which group only got 18 months notice? The legislation was passed in November 2011 but didn't make any changes until mid 2016 and those were staggered with full equalisation only happening in 2018.

I think you’ll find those changes kicked in well before 2016.

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5a7f02e640f0b62305b84929/spa-timetable.pdf

You've just linked a table showing the changes taking effect from 2016.

To be honest, somebody has seen a loophole and they're all jumping on the bandwagon is the jist of it

Have I? It shows changes much earlier than that unless I’ve suddenly become innumerate.

Yes. Exactly this. And to an extent I understand it. Its free money that they're hoping for. Except it isn't free really. Thats the problem.

Table one is people covered by the original 1995 legislation which runs unchanged until March 2016 for people born up to 5 April 1953.

Table two is people covered by the 2011 legislation which kicks in after March 2016. The first cohort starts with people born 6 April 2016 who have state pension age moved from May 2016 to July 2016.

The 2011 legislation is here. S1(4) to (6) sets out the changes to equalisation of state pension age with the first changes happening in 2016 -

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2011/19/contents