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

I think the grievance is that some women were given short notice and were unable to make up the loss of pension in the timescales.
Personally I think it would have been great from men to have retired at 60 as well. Not make women retire later. But obviously that sort of dream is too nice for people so never even an attempt for that to be possible would have been made.
The state pension is something you do work towards despite people saying you pay for your parents etc. You can ask for a quote to see how much you are likely to get. You are encouraged to pay to buy more years. It was always sold to people as something they pay into. For their pension.
You cannot change that message now much as some may try.
The state pension is a thing that has not always existed. Before it did begin people starved. Literally. It would be an indecent society that got rid of it.

apart from the fact these woman weren’t on equal wages or equal pension rights, so earns less, then should have to pay more for a private pension than their counterparts males / when they didn’t know the goal posts were going to change

yes of course eventually they’d have known - but putting money into a pension during your 20s is very different from putting money into a pension in your 50s

What you get reflects the payments you’ve made. Those payments funded pensions at the time you paid. It’s important that people understand that they’ve not built up some fund that they’re entitled to, as though it were a private pension fund.

That’s the issue, women want equality but only when it suits them! Women have campaigned for decades for equal pay for equal work! But when something is changed and it doesn’t suit them
suddenly their victims! When the challenge was made on the different retirement ages, everyone knew it would only go one way!

In the fifties and sixties many women did not work outside the home,it was assumed, things being what they were in those days, that their husbands pension contributions to a state pension would cover their needs as they got older.

Many of those that were working, did not see their work as a career, but as pin money or handy additional family income, even women working in professional jobs like teaching, and I met a few, didn’t see their jobs as separate from their husbands income. To this end most married working women paid what was called the married womens stamp, which was a reduced form of national insurance and didn’t give equal pension rights, which was at the time understood and accepted as a reasonable, not realising that it left women in a very vulnerable position if they were divorced or widowed.

Unfortunately until the late sixties and seventies women didn’t push for equal pay, didn’t push for maternity rights, didn’t push for equal pension contributions in their own right as standard. (Thank heavens we woke up!) Add to the mix the women who did work , did pay full NI and had access to a workplace pension, but also took time out of the workplace for maternity and child care often for several years, whose pension contributions were greatly reduced as although they received credit for missing NI contributions, missed out on other pension benefits, ie employers contribution, and reduced years of contribution, the result of which were far reaching and not always explained so that they could be rectified.

The whole WASPI situation is imo the culmination of years of women being sold down the river when it comes to financial independence and fairness in the job market . Low pay, unequal pay, no job security re maternity rights, maternity pay and the right to return to work after maternity leave, the huge hole in many womens employment record for time taken off for child rearing, poor access to private or workplace pensions etc etc etc. The changes in retirement age were really the last straw. I think it is interesting that many of the comments on this thread talk about how the changes in retirement age are making the situation “ fairer for men”, without acknowledging that a) they don’t actually make it fairer for men since their situation hasn’t changed much, and b) womens working situation has not only been institutionally and deliberately unfair for the last 70 + years, IT STILL BLOODY IS . Womens earning capacity continually falls below that of men, women in are still unrepresented in higher managerial and corporate roles, despite legislation women of child bearing age still face both overt and covert discrimination in job applications , assumptions are made about womens role in dealing with unexpected child care issues and are often seen as the default parent to take responsibility and all the other ways that we still face discrimination in the workplace.

Yes plus often company policies dictated that women had to leave the workplace on marriage or pregnancy so their opportunities for earning in their lifetime (and paying into another pension scheme) were limited in that way too.

I was born in late 1954, and it did seem unfair that what was basically our contract with the government, to pay into the system x years and retire at age 60 was suddenly changed to 66. If I’d known I had an extra 6 years to work, earlier, I’d have done things differently in my life. I’d have stayed away from my second husband for a start as he wanted me to cut back for what was going to be my last couple of years, so I thought it didn’t matter as I was going to be retired anyway. By the time I found out, it was too late to reverse. Shame I never kept up with the news and stuff. I don’t know how much notice people had but it seemed very sudden to me when I did find out.
I accept the government did need to up the ages, but only thought about it after it happened , that it wasn’t unreasonable and a 2 years more would have seemed fairer. Ease the transition, not whack on 6 yrs at once.

I have limited knowledge of what the campaign did. I thought they lost because the judges decided it wasn’t related to NI, which , in my opinion is not true. The pension , even when I did get it is directly dependent on how many full years of NI you paid. I don’t get the full pension because I worked for my first husband and while he put wages for me through the books, I didn’t get paid…it was just to reduce his tax liability, it turned out, and he didn’t pay my stamp. I found out many years later. The govt doesn’t seem to have counted my Child Benefit years either, though I didn’t claim that for the first few years, or Maternity allowances as they were because I didn’t like the idea of taking benefits I didn’t need. I only started to claim when my eldest was at school, the second was 3 and our trawler sank, cutting off our income. Funny how you need to draw benefits to claim other money later. You’d think they’d appreciate you trying to be independent of handouts. Anyway, I understand why they didn’t like the result if it was for the reason I heard. But I think they’re wasting their time if they are going again. Judges will back the govt

Wbat contract wirh the govenrment? Where are people getting this nonsense from. The state pension is a benefit. Nothing more, nothing less.

It was never sold as a benefit. Only politicians like to pretend it was.

It’s a social contract. Like having access to NHS services, schools, fire services, police etc.

Yes, you get back as per your contributions.
But I so disagree with you that people should not expect that they have a fund they are entitled to. They have not been sold something as in they are paying into a communal pot. Technically, yes. But it has never been sold in that way.
You are even encouraged to buy more years. So absolutely people should expect to obtain in line with contributions. And I will not be sold the line that I shouldn’t. I smell the whiff of the view that it can be taken away. Good luck with that one. The legal claims will be significant.

It is not a benefit in the usual sense of the way that word is used.
It is something people contribute to, can check their contributions, and be encouraged to buy more years.
Quite different.

those polices were rare in the boomer generation. My parents are born in late 1940’s/early 1950’s and my mum worked all the way through to retirement. She had terrible maternity benefits for sure (had to go back to some work when I was only a month old) but there would have been very few people who were getting married in the 1980s who had to leave work upon marriage and pregnancy.

Oh..and I did have a private pension but the amount I was allowed to put in was very small, having lived off grid from age 18 to 28 . On an island with no access to jobs..just what we could make cutting seaweed at first. You’d could only pay in a very small amount /percentage of pay and nothing if you weren’t working. I had to put in , say 1000 a year aged 30 to get 1000 a year back when 60 …that’s what the company wrote..and 1000 in 30 years is not worth the same. Anyway, the max I was allowed to put in was £ 800. So, it’s gone..it was a handy buffer in the 6 years but was gone in 4 years. If they want us to take less, they should not hamper saving for the future like they did

Im a bit younger so my pension age is now 67 although it was 60 when I started work but it didn’t suddenly change from 60 to 66. That is a myth, it was announced in 1995 that it would be rising to 65 for women. It was later brought forward and a change from 65 to 66 that was accelerated and affected Waspi women. All women have known of at least an extra 5 years since the mid 90s and for many it is more than 5.

I really think Waspi women are campaigning on the wrong thing. Otherwise I and others would also be campaigning for the 7 years or more we think we’re owed.

It wasn’t a benefit. It was a right. We were told if we paid our NI etc it entitled us to a pension. you could pay less , there were 2 rates, but you wouldn’t get the full pension, either , if you paid the smaller amount. My first job took only the small rate off my pay packet, but I complained and they changed to the full NI. And payment of pension depends on full years of NI.

But I guess it’s like the road Fund tax we used to pay as car owners, to fund roads. Govt wanted that money for other things, so they changed it.

If it was to be a benefit, they should not have restricted how much we could pay into a private pension.

And the same goes for now. We are all doing the same thing but let’s face it, if the pension isn’t means tested in 30 years I’d be very surprised

Ridiculous, I hope they are not expecting the slightest bit of sympathy from anybody younger. Really hope this is the last time we have to hear about this.

The part I have no sympathy with is married women who did not pay full NI contributions and then want the benefits. I always paid full NI even though I was low paid.

Many UK employers had 'marriage bars' requiring women to resign when they married up until it was made illegal thanks to the Sex Discrimination Act 1975.

The Employment Protection Act 1975 introduced the first statutory maternity protections including the right to return but if you were part-time, a newer employee or lower-paid, you might not have qualified for these protections. And you only got 6 weeks paid leave plus additional unpaid depending on service length. It was only in the early 2000s that paid leave expanded significantly.

All of this mitigated against women being able to continue to earn and contribute to another kind of pension.

Vehicle duty hasn't ever been ring fenced for roads. Hence the name change from road tax in 1937.

I don't think anyone is interested in hearing the argument tbh.
This thread is very much 'I have to retire at 67 so why shouldn't they?' with a side helping of snide comments about boomers having more than they have.
I also note a complete misunderstanding about how different things were for women regarding pensions back then.
I am not a Waspi and I don't know how I feel about them tbh, but you won't get any sense on here, just pages of nasty comments.

My sympathy is limited as I'm in my mid-30s paying sizeable NI contributions for something I won't get until I'm at least 68 and, given I'm making private provision, probably won't get. If the state pension isn't means tested by the time I retire I'll be very surprised.

Exactly so really didn’t affect the WASPi women. They would pretty much been getting married after that act came in.

Yes sympathy is always limited, mainly because people of this age are utterly convinced that no one has ever suffered and struggled they way they do.
On what basis are you so sure you won't get a state pension?