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

So many inaccuracies on this thread.

When you pay NICs you are NOT paying in to your pension. You build entitlement but the money pays for today’s pensioners.

The decision to raise state pension age was made in the 1990s. The Tories accelerated it, but it had already been set at a higher age.

The country also cannot afford to pay out this money.

My DM is a WASPI age woman; she thinks their demands are ridiculous.

Another Waspi here. I have no idea how you could not know about the changes. There was so much publicity about the change you would have to had no TV, radio, newspapers or mail to not be aware of the changes.

Totally agree.

No they didn’t, and there was never a “contract” or a “pot”.

I know two women well who are affected by this. Both are saying they knew nothing about the changes and that’s absolute nonsense. They did know and neither need the money.
Things change. When I started work SP age for women was 60 and I expected to retire at 60. It’s now 67 and I have to work for another 7 years. That’s life.

This is spot on. Some women got around a year’s notice of the 2011 - and more significant - change. Women born in 1953 and 1954 got a particularly rough deal from that change. The Waspi campaign would have gathered a lot more support and sympathy if it had focused on the 2011 changes. The impact of those was sufficient for there now to be a requirement of ten years’ notice for any future change is state pension age.

I'm glad it's not just me. I thought maybe I was missing something.

Men also, legally, got higher earnings even when doing the same job.

Men generally got a better education too. I went to a girls' school so there were subjects I just didn't do.

I agree the pension age should be equal for both Men and women, but it should have only equalised for women born after the sex discrimination act.

No WASPI women had 7 years of pension stolen, that's not possible. To fit the category, you have to have been born by April 5th 1960, and the absolute latest retirement age for that group would be 66.

My friend is a pre waspi - got her pension at 60 (lucky her), but also had a very good workplace pension, so they were definitely available. I fully expected to retire at 60 when I started working in 1983, but will have to keep going until I am 67. It's tough, but I have known about this for a very long time. These women are wilfully ignorant (or pretending to be) and no government can afford to pay them.

The whole thing is an absolute farce and those women need to read the room. Young people are facing stagnating wages and a collapsing economy, sky high house prices, rising pension age which is likely to be means tested and in future a limit on how much private pension can be put away without being taxed.

Yes it's annoying getting close to pension age and it being extended. You have all STILL retired earlier than every young person will and have benefitted across your lifetime in many ways. They need to drop it.

Yes, completely agree. I thought the original campaign was actually focused on this smaller cohort but it quickly seemed to be taken over by the broader “back to 60” people.

I think they’d have been more successful if they’d just focused on the 1953/1954 women.

I have zero sympathy, they are just trying it on in the hope of a payout.

I’m a little younger (though really by not very much!) so I can relate to much of what you say about the era.

BUT the fact is, there are advantages and disadvantages to being born into any generation. Like you, when I had children there were no free childcare hours or wraparound school care. Maternity leave was 12 weeks! I returned to work with a bf baby and for several years while our children were tiny, all my pay went on childcare. When our eldest started school it was a proper juggling act, spending hours finding someone who could do before school care, another provision for after school - the school based wraparound care didn’t exist. One of the main reasons I remained in work was for my occupational pension, because even though at this point in time, I was eligible for the state pension at age 60, I always felt it was my personal responsibility to not solely rely on that.

here I am, many years later, and I’m not eligible for my state pension until 67. But by working full time for pretty much my whole adult life (bar short mat leave and a couple of years working 3 days) I’ve put myself in a good position for retirement.

My adult dd certainly has some things tougher. House prices, student debt. However, should she have children, she’ll get a whole year on mat leave rather than 12 weeks. Shell then be eligible for a damn good chunk of childcare paid for once she returns to work.

like I say, upsides and downsides for every generation. The thing which grinds many people’s gears with the WASPI women is that many of them seem to have spent years out of the workplace or only working part time, often made possible by having a husband working full time (while never having the option of state pension at 60!) They will also have had free higher education if they went to university. And now they’re bleating about ‘not knowing’ that they wouldn’t be able to ‘retire’ at 60… even though some of the WASPI age women I know were not even working full time in their fifties anyway, so god knows that they thought they were retiring from!

I am a 1953 waspi. My story is not the usual "we didn't know" one but about how badly I know the change was handled. My husband died in 2011 before he had claimed his state pension. Under the old scheme, the widow of someone who never claimed their state pension was entitled to inherit years of their contibution if they hadn't made sufficient contributions of their own. This means that you don't have to purchase additional years. As a part of sorting out my financial affairs as a widow, I contacted the DWP and was told unequivocally that I had no need to buy extra years, that I would still be able to inherit contributions from my husband as a part of the transitional arrangements for women of my age.

I checked periodically until a year before I could draw my pension and was continually told "no its fine, don't buy years, you don't have to." At the final check and forecast request I was suddenly told "no you will be assessed under the new scheme, no, its too late to buy some of the years you need" The years I could have bought had of course gone up in cost.

At this point, I am going to say that the DWP staff I spoke to by phone were one and all excellent. patient, friendly and obviously very stressed. I said "but that is not what I have previously been told since 2011" The lady I spoke to said she would need to take this to someone senior for a decision also she would generate me a forecast and I should phone back a week later which I did. At this point I was told that the guidance on how cases like mine would be dealt with was coming out to them in sections and they DID NOT KNOW how my case would be dealt with. At that point the published information available to anyone online said that I would not be able to inherit contibutions. The forecast at that point reflected the public information.

Long story short, I was told to phone back weekly until I could be given a final forecast which turned out to be more than the worst case but less than I would have got if I had been allowed to inherit all the years I could have had under the old scheme. There was no indication of how this had been calculated.

there is no doubt in my mind that my experience reflects the way that the whole affair was dealt with. I am one of the lucky ones and my loss of pension hasn't seriously affected me but I can see why women are angry.

I'm a waspi woman.
I was also a test case for the Equal pay for work of Equal Value cases that were being brought by union's in the 90s. It was really stressful and a huge responsibility. I had to go before tribunals, submit loads of evidence and I won. That meant that every woman in my profession had to be paid as much as men doing the same job. We never received back pay but our salaries were increased by one third. So for the first 20 years of my working life I was underpaid.
I think many younger women forget what life was like for women only a few decades again. I am the reason you guys are paid properly!
I rose high in my career, could afford to retire early. I don't need the waspi money, though I would be more than happy to have it. It's not something I am campaigning for though, I've done my share of that. But fgs don't be arsey about the women who do need it. They weren't paid properly for years. And you stand on our shoulders. We achieved a lot for you!

I don’t think the 2 are connected, they don’t ‘need’ the money any more than skint younger people.

I hear what you say - but that applies to loads of other areas of life too. I was one of the women who campaigned for better maternity rights and also for paternity leave. I had to return to work with a 12 week old breasfed baby and my dh was back at work the day after the birth as paternity leave was non existent. My generation haven’t personally benefited from vastly improved rights! I can’t go back and be compensated with a longer maternity leave, or be repaid all the full childcare fees I paid for years! But surely that’s how society works, unless you take a completely individualistic attitude to life. We did it so that future generations of women would get a better deal - not because we would personally benefit from it.

I'm interested to know how much WASPI's think they should be compenstated.
Not talking about 7 years of money but a rough figure in ££s.

I can only speak for myself but I don’t want or expect compensation. If I got some it would obviously be nice and I’d hand it straight over to my son who needs the money far more than I do.

I've said before, i was well aware of it and I was at school, so not the target audience at all.

My retirement age has moved several times since I started work, i check in every now and again to see how things are changing because I am responsible for myself.
Ignorance is never an excuse

They need to just leave it now.

To the above couple of posters.... we don't expect or deserve to be vilified for something that was entirely beyond our control. I'm not saying that you personally hate the waspi campainers, but plenty seem to. And..the fact that younger people are skint is their battle to fight. Not mine quite honestly.
I didn't campaign for men to be paid less to bring about equality, but for women to get more. We're looking to raise people up, not bring people down to make things fair.
Don't go down the road of wanting less for others to even the playing field. Well, not if you are left leaning. Have you ever seen the money that is saved be used for the benefit of other disadvantaged groups?

They sound as thick as mince. I could claim I didnt know about what I needed to pay because I didnt get the memo, dont have a mobile, dont read newspapers, didnt get anything through the post, didnt see the marketing campaign around this.

THEY SOUND REALLY REALLY STUPID!!

It's amazing how Mumsnet hates older people and especially women. No wonder chicks with dicks are doing so well when women can't back other real women.

The sneering on this thread is just peak Mumsnet. They'll be screaming for winter fuel payments to be completely abolished soon, after all, us oldies all use it to fund our cruises don't we?

Shall we have a swipe at the triple lock too while you're on an older people hate roll?

Or they could sound a sneering snob like you eh?

Peak Mumsnet, everyone I don't like is "thick".