To be fed up with the WASPIs' renewed campaign?

[Jane379]

I sympathise with people who genuinely did not know but hiw many was this? And how would we know who to compensate even if the money were available?

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/waspi-latest-compensation-legal-challenge-pension-b2976014.html

If they were born before 1955, they would have been (at youngest) 19-20 when that Act was passed so may have been working, and things in reality didn't change that fast for women in terms of employment rights afterwards. I don't think it's helpful to downplay what women faced in the workplace until relatively recently, however irritating you find the WASPI women.

It wasnt suddenly brought in. Maybe the penny dropped with some on this thread at the last moment that actually it meant THEM.

My Mum was a teacher but I remember her telling me that she had to tell my Father what she earned as he filled in the Household Tax Return. She never knew how much he earned. Its laughable now to think that sort of thing happened. I went to a retirement seminar recently and there was one women who went on and on about paying the Married Womens Stamp and although it was less couldnt understand why she would get less on retirement.

Don't tar us all with the same brush. I know my 1955 born mum struggled. I also know she got free university education and could get a mortgage without taking my self-employed father's income into account. She wasn't exactly a high earner either. I'm fairly convinced because the current setup is unaffordable and effectively a Ponzi scheme. More than one think tank has suggested that the solution is to means test the state pension. Given I've got a workplace pension and a private pension it's plausible I won't qualify.

The state pension is a benefit and has always been - the fact it is contributions based does not change that fact. The contributions are qualifying, they don't actual count towards your state pension amount like a private pension. TBH I would rename it "retirement support payment" or something like that to try and kill this misapprehension that paying NI is somehow paying in to a personal pension pot.

It's cute that people think anyone under 40 will be able to retire at 67. They'll still be paying off their mortgages, if they're lucky enough to be able to get a mortgage at all. Many will have to work out how to cover private rents indefinitely. Some will be lucky enough to inherit, but the generational divide between those whose parents own property/assets and those who don't is widening, and care costs will vastly limit the extent of any family helping hand.

To them, this argument must read a bit like complaining that you were promised a horse for your birthday but only got a pony.

Off track but were Personal Pensions introduced in 1987? I bought into a private/personal pension in 1982/83. I remember as I hadn't been able to join company pension scheme until 25 and when I turned 25 the scheme was crap so I went elsewhere

One of my children has just got a mortgage. It has a 40 year term. This was unheard of when I applied for one.

Yes so only a few were affected. I don’t find th annoying at all. They have my sympathies but my mum and everyone I know of her generation made plans and sorted themselves out. My mum had about 3 jobs on the go when I was little and worked until retirement age. Her view was that’s life. I have been affected by government policies changes in terms of the tax and Ni I pay and so have paid out thousands more than someone 10 years older than me would have. My children have to pay massive tuition fees for uni rather than getting it for free. Everyone gets affected by changes in government policy. It’s annoying but the consequence of having a ridiculously large population for the size of country we have.

Same here. My son is nearly 29 and will be much older than I am before his mortgage free ( 40 year mortgage)

I'm of that age (still working but late 60s).I knew from the beginning, my colleagues knew, during the following decades of working life people's retirement would be looked forward to, the subject would come up but I never heard of any woman looking forward to collecting a state pension at 60. I imagine any who did would have been immediately informed of their mistake.
I just can't see how any one of normal intelligence and with any sort of access to information from tv. radio. even if they couldn't read and had no colleagues or friends or family couldn't know.
I've heard there was a 'letter' sent, and some people didn't receive it. I am one of those people. I have no memory of any letter. But of course I knew.

The average age of a first time buyer now is 34. So even with a standard 25 year mortgage, you wouldn't be done until you were 59, at which point you might have kids who want to go to university (given many are also delaying having children until they're no longer living with the precarity of renting), or older family you need to care for.

It's not just about equal pay for the same job. That ignores the inferior education many women got.

I took O Levels, but some subjects were just not available to me. That means that when I did start work it was at a lower grade than a male who started at the same time.

That gap could last for life.

Working part time or staying home with children was not an easy choice, some have said how hard it was to return to work with a baby, what they have not said us that many employers had a policy of not employing mothers.

Yes technically that was illegal, but it still went on.

Agree with you OP. A 70 year old friend won't quit moaning about it.

She lives in a multi million pound house, has an occupational final salary pension of her own, several inheritances and the benefit of her husband's even better final salary pension. She's been drawing the state pension for a number of years.

I won't get mine for another 2 years at age 67 and I knew about the changes a long time ago. (Slightly younger than the Waspi women who only have themselves to blame if they took no interest in their own financial affairs).

They are still banging on about this?! I’m totally sick of them going on. If only they had put as much effort in at the time to pension provisions!

We’ve already established that your mum, if she was born in 1948 as you said earlier, got her state pension at 60. She got exactly what she spent her working life expecting. Maybe she wouldn’t be saying “That’s life” if the pension changes had affected her.

To anyone who is fed up with WASPIS.
Don't start threads about them
Change the subject when its mentioned
Don't comment on threads about them
Avoid TV and media items about them

no don't thank me.

Yes I sort of feel like someone like that, who does something so unbelievably dim as to retire without double checking the age, probably wouldn’t have noticed or paid attention to 50 letters and a personal visit from the chancellor at the time explaining the change.

1951 so was one the worst affected. I said ten years earlier as didn’t realise I had to give exact to the month years. Was just trying to give an idea of the difference- wasn’t trying to be explicit on a thread to reveal exact details.

If you look at this chart women born in 1953/54 were the worst affected.

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

I’m also sick of hearing about “I paid my stamp for 35 years where is my pension?” At 47 I have “qualified” according to HMRC but I won’t get my pension til 68. If it’s there! My MIL - and I do love her! - has never worked. She came to this country as an immigrant, met her husband and had her children. She raised great children btw but she has never contributed to the state.

But the people in 1950/51 had the least notice of the change surely even if they got the retire younger? Or am I misreading that?

I’m really just a tiny bit younger than WASPI women and I always worked. Ok so there were no funded hours of childcare, far fewer childcare providers and no wraparound school care so it was tough! I literally had to phone the council and enquire about a list of people who did childminding before I returned to work with my 12 week old baby. But it was still a possibility. We weren’t all staying home, doing little part time jobs for pin money and having no clue what our husbands earned.

sure, go back a generation or more and things were different. My grandmother had to stop work when she had my mum. But with the WASPI women, we’re not talking the dark ages….many of them were working and didn’t spend decades out of the workplace. I think some people are conveniently forgetting the choices which were available in this era

You’re misreading it. They weren’t affected by the 2011 Act so they had over a decade of notice. The people worst affected were those hit again by the 2011 changes.

I agree that the change in wealth inequality is devastating but recording that your mind is blown is only the beginning. People are actively working on how to deal with this and it’s worth reading people who think about what to do, such as Richard Murphy, Thomas Picketty, Gary Stevenson and the New Economics Foundation.

Same here. I don’t think I got a letter, but I knew. In fact I’m certain that raising the retirement age for women had been talked and talked about for years.