'WASPI women' appeal court ruling

[GrimSisters]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-54158832

I'm 41. I'd always wondered why women retired at 60 and men at 65 and have known all about the changes for years because I read the news and don't live under a rock.

Given that, at the moment, I'll get my state pension at 68, I'm struggling to understand what the problem is. Please could someone explain why having to work until 65, along with their male counterparts, is so distressing?

I thought we wanted equality? Must admit that I'm struggling to have much sympathy. I work in a relatively low paid job and have four colleagues aged between 55 and 63 who haven't complained about the situation.

If you're one of the women who has been affected by this change, I'd be interested to know what the real issue is because I'm really confused as to why it is such a massive issue.

Lets say you have just turned 59. Next year you are expecting your pension, as you will be 60 which is the current pension age.

A month later the pension age changes to 70.

Is it really being claimed that this would be 11 years notice? Thats how I read it and thats..weird logic.

I have probably got it wrong, as it seems insane that anyone would consider 1 year notice to actually be 11 years notice because the thing that was meant to happen next year is now happening in 11 years instead?!

However, as bonkers as that argument sounds to me, I cannot read it any other way? Have tried..

you obviously have lots of information about this subject. Why is it so important to you? Are you a WASPI woman?

No, I’m 49. This debate is fairly low down on the list of things that are important to me, but this is why a I’ve argued it as I have:

1 I can’t bear fuzzy logic, especially when some evidence is deliberately ignored and other evidence is selected then misrepresented. The myth that the DWP website was still telling women that they could retire at 60, for example, when in fact there was one obsolete web page - which took some finding - saying 60 whilst many, many others showed the correct retirement age.

2 I thought that presenting this debate as a feminist cause was pernicious, because it is obviously not feminist; the campaigners are interested in themselves, not other groups of women younger and older than them.

That didn’t stop posters attempting to bolster their argument in favour of compensation by pointing to how hard women have it now compared to men and how difficult life was for their mothers etc etc. So it was OK to use the negative experience of those women for the WASPI and ‘Back to 60’ women’s advantage, but not to campaign for financial help for those groups. Worse, it’s the younger women who would have to pay for compensation, through extra NI and general taxation.

3 I’ve never met a silly and disingenuous argument that I didn’t want to demolish. The people who claimed that they didn’t know that private pensions existed (a particular highlight was the one who said she saw the adverts for ‘someone walking around in a cape’ but didn’t think about what it might be advertising) and claimed that they never read newspapers or listened to the news, so couldn’t possibly have known about the delay to their pension age. Moreover, anyone who did was boring, had no life, was smug etc etc.

It’s very easy to sit around passively, burying your head in the sand and letting other people think about the dull, sensible stuff. Then complain that George Osborne didn’t personally visit you in 2011 to tell you that you had to wait another 18 months past your expected retirement date.

4 When angry posters losing an argument start with the insults, the wilful (I hope! The alternative isn’t edifying) misunderstanding and the emotional stuff, I know that I’m winning so I see it through to the end. The essence of a good debate.

Lets say you have just turned 59. Next year you are expecting your pension, as you will be 60 which is the current pension age.

A month later the pension age changes to 70.

Is it really being claimed that this would be 11 years notice? Thats how I read it and thats..weird logic.

I have probably got it wrong, as it seems insane that anyone would consider 1 year notice to actually be 11 years notice because the thing that was meant to happen next year is now happening in 11 years instead?!

However, as bonkers as that argument sounds to me, I cannot read it any other way? Have tried.

It’s a good question actually, and it illustrates the difference between notice of an event happening and notice of an event NOT happening.

Obviously your example is extreme, because in real life the WASPIs’ pension age was moved back in 2011, long before both their previous and their new retirement dates. So if you were 58 in 2011 you might have expected to retire in 2017, when you were 64, but you were told that instead you’d be retiring in 2018, when you were 65.

The complaints at the time, in 2011, were that the WASPI women were not given enough notice of their new retirement dates and hence had insufficient time to prepare. ‘Prepare’ in this context meant one of two things:

1 Work longer, over the period between your old and new retirement dates (which was between one year and two years for that group, average 18 months)

2 Save more over that 7-8 year period (between 2011 and 2018 in this example) so that you could still finish work at 64 as previously planned, but would have enough money to bridge the gap between the old and new retirement dates until you got your state pension.

Clearly the first was the sensible option for most people.

So the notice period was the same as the preparation period. It was the number of years you had between being given the information about your new retirement date and the new retirement date, which was the event about which you were being given notice. Seven years, in this case: 2011 to 2018.

The period between 2011 and the old retirement date of 2017 is essentially irrelevant; you’ve had six years’ notice that something won’t be happening when you expected, but the important thing is the notice period over which you’ve had time to plan for the event.

Thanks for coming back to me with that.

There are some examples of women with experience that is not what you are saying.

It matters to me because if my Mum was still alive she'd be a WASPI woman (1958 birth).

She'd definitely fall through the cracks, couldn't work due to the long term health condition that led to her sudden death at 28.

Information aside the gender pay gap and now the pension gap are definitely a feminist issue - culturally women have been sidelined in these issues and almost "educated" to see their personal pension as less important than the needs of the family.

We still see it now with frequent posts around the subject - childcare is so expensive should I give up my job? Every time I say no...with pension contributions being part of the reason why not.

If women's care and labour in all its forms was added to the GDP it would put millions on the balance sheet. Women save the Govt millions in care costs. Women get bad advice, women get sexist advice.

The whole thing has been handled badly. Incredibly badly and once again it is women who bear the brunt of it.

So basically no experience of it yourself, yet happy to dismiss those who it actually affects by searching for things on the internet that weren't available at the time.

No, I’m 49

Worse, it’s the younger women who would have to pay for compensation, through extra NI and general taxation

I wonder who’s been paying for maternity/leave and subsidised childcare (which was never available to them) through NI and general taxation? Oh yes, it’s 1950s women - who have probably provided maternity cover too.

I've never thought that my generation would be allowed to retire until we were at least 70 years-old because of the economics of it. And that was before the pandemic. I'd think that the upcoming (mis-directed) austerity measure would now make that more likely to be 73.

However, more than ever, I've never thought there's a shortage of useful work to be done. There's no political will to pay people for that work.

At present, the NHS would be transformed in so many useful ways if we employed scribes, the way that they do for much of the US system. Look at the number of newly-qualified teachers or online Teaching Assistants we could use to help this generation of children.

Some industries are likely gone and now anachronistic. Where would be the harm in offering some income maintenance to people who want to take it and re-train with some conditionality as to the work that will be done. Eg, as above, teaching and many other useful occupations.

@CaraDuneRedux

The action is not about reversing the age change, it's about the inequality inflicted on one group of women because the change was poorly communicated and did not give them chance to make adequate provision.

Yes, and it is a hundred percent a feminist issue. Women were screwed over - by the inequality in the first place, by the misleading messaging round women's NI stamps, by the very late change in the rules which did not leave them enough time to make contingency plans, by the bad messaging (again).

This ^

When I started work in the 1970s in a bank, women were not put into the pension scheme until they were 28 and only then if they were unmarried. Can you ever imagine this happening now???

In the 70s /80s life was a lot different for women.

In the "no shortage of work to be done" vein - can you think how much upskilling and additional recruitment is needed to provide adequate, let alone decent, social care in the UK?

Yet more recommendations - some rumours that the govt. prepared to at least pretend to consider these.

twitter.com/Davewwest/status/1307638683571335169

2 I thought that presenting this debate as a feminist cause was pernicious, because it is obviously not feminist; the campaigners are interested
in themselves, not other groups of women younger and older than them

But they are still women, therefore still in the feminism cohort. I've got no skin in this cos as I said I'm retiring at almost 70 as of now.
Just because women can and do group themselves into distinct categories doesn't mean they are outwith feminism. Its an odd argument. Are lesbians a distinct group? I think yes and feminism includes them, are breast cancer survivors in a distinct group? Again I think yes and they come under feminism too. I dont expect any distinct group to fight for (say better lesbian related activities) I am not in that group but I will happily stand alongside them/write emails for them whatever I can do to help. Because they are still of the class called women.

I can't wait till mumsnet brings in the option to block a poster.

@ifIwerenotanandroid

I can't wait till mumsnet brings in the option to block a poster.

Who would you like to block? she asks innocently.

Obviously your example is extreme, because in real life the WASPIs’ pension age was moved back in 2011, long before both their previous and their new retirement dates. So if you were 58 in 2011 you might have expected to retire in 2017, when you were 64, but you were told that instead you’d be retiring in 2018, when you were 65.

Yeah I know my numbers were off, just picked random tbh but the point is kind of the same.

I don't know much at all about pension stuff..as tbh I don't see the point in learning about it given I am sure there will not be a state pension when/if I reach 80 which its likely to be by the time I can get it..

MIL swears her retirement age was moved twice. Says once she reached close to new age..it was raised again. Am not sure if thats even possible? It doesn't sound right to me at all. Either shes very mixed up, or it was done that way which is kinda cruel to me.

Bowing out now anyway as it seems pointless talking about something I don't know much about. The notice thing though was getting at me for some reason though, I get like that someties and it bloody annoys me, nevermind others

I am actually kind of suspecting a huge kickoff son about pensions, as I canot for the life of me see how the Tories could pay for lockdown by remving from working age people. Like, you cannot really lower the 60 (?) quid people get for JSA..disability benefits have already been chopped a great deal, and there just isn't the cash to take away from others this time. I don't know how I feel about the potential of that..on the one hand everyone is going to suffer when the economy crashes. And theres simply not anything left to take aay from the likes of JSA claimants and disabled people, so that pretty much leaves only pensions. On the other hand, its going to be tough on everyone realistically so in a way, I don't see why only the working age people should cover it all when it was noones fault the virus ravaged the country.

Anyway, thanks to all on this thread, its been interesting and will continue to lurk and try to learn something more!

MIL swears her retirement age was moved twice. Says once she reached close to new age..it was raised again. Am not sure if thats even possible? It doesn't sound right to me at all. Either shes very mixed up, or it was done that way which is kinda cruel to me

She’s absolutely right. It happened to 350,000 of us and it’s the reason we’re really angry.

Can I ask, does everyone receive a letter to say when their retirement age is.

I am 60 and vaguely sort of recall that retirement was going to be 65 but n

but I don’t think I have ever been personally told via a letter.

Tbh I have no plans to retire even if I could atm or in the future.
Worried about becoming like friends who retired in their 40s and now look and act like 90 year olds.

Pensioners pay tax if they get more than the basic rate which is 12,000 pa roughly. I got my pension this year age 66, this will take me over the basic rate so I will pay tax on my total income.

@Straven123

Pensioners pay tax if they get more than the basic rate which is 12,000 pa roughly. I got my pension this year age 66, this will take me over the basic rate so I will pay tax on my total income.

No you won’t. You still get your £12.5k personal allowance like everyone else. You’ll pay tax on everything above that.

That's what I thought I said

Maybe I misinterpreted what you meant when you said total income. Sorry if I did.

I'm in the affected category, and all the reasons previously stated find it unfair. A question though, why are female nurses and teachers allowed to retire much earlier than those of us in other jobs?

I think teachers can retire and take a pension after 35 years in the job.

That's their workplace pension and most workplace pensions can be taken after 55. The state pension is a fixed minimum age for everyone.

There is a group of women in the WASPI age range who have worked incredibly hard 24/7 year after year caring for sick and disabled family members. No amount of notice would allow them to pay into a private pension and make provision for their retirement. In receipt of Carers Allowance.and having any spare cash to start a private pension? What a Joke! Even those outside the WASPI age range who are Carers are still being shafted