Waspi women should be compensated for state pension age change failures

[IwantToRetire]

I heard a discussion about this on the BBC which was more detailed than this article, and implied that the problem wasn't so much how it was announced in the 1990s, but the later changes during the time Coalition was in power.

But suspect whoever is in Government there will be a delay in any payout.

https://www.professionalpensions.com/news/4188325/waspi-women-compensated-pension-age-change-failures

Somebody did try to suggest it wasn't fair on younger people to expect them to foot the bill (as if it hasn't always been the current tax payers who foot the bill at the time).

Which would be the same as saying the local government's who have gone bankrupt once it was shown they had discriminated against women employees and owed them money, shouldn't have to do it.

So not only are women too often cheated at the time, but are later told they shouldn't expect compensation because not fair on current tax payers.

(For some reason cant access the WASPI web site, but suspect it might just be overloaded. But when back on line may be worth checking their take on the situation. http://www.waspi.co.uk )

When I entered the workforce, I could expect to retire at 60. Now, my retirement age will be 67 - and it might go up again. My generation has done worse than the WASPI women.

One of the problems with UBI is that it is fixed per person, which means a disabled person gets the same, as does someone renting a home rather than buying. A lot of losers - as the level can't be too high otherwise the taxes required to pay for it would be ridiculously high and people wouldn't bother working if taxes etc were 50% plus of any wages they earned.

If you start "add ons" for people who are disabled or renters to pay for their home, you immediately ruin the whole ethos of UBI which is the same for everyone and you're back to having to have systems for deciding who is eligible for extra amounts etc., with all the unfairness, costs of deciding/enforcing, etc that UBI is supposed to remove.

@karriecreamer UBI would have to be for all and at a set rate (no uplift for London or renting). Disability benefits would be different (as they are now).
I agree there would be lots of losers w UBI, especially people who rely on housing benefit in the SE. But it’d be such a massive shift that in all likelihood rents would need to fall and people paying less for housing would be a great outcome.

I don't think they should get a penny. They are of the most asset-rich generation in history. In what world is it fair that working young people who can't afford to get on the housing ladder should pay for yet MORE benefits to be heaped on the generation who enjoy a triple-locked pension AND the windfall of insane house price inflation? Disgraceful and greedy

But not later, which is the point. There were TWO changes. In my case, one was communicated to me & seemed fair, if personally unfortunate. I seem to remember it was actually to fit in with EU rules.

The later change was not communicated to me or to many other women. If all you PPs remember is the first change, then you're the same as those of us who were directly affected by it. You think you're making one point, when you're making the exact opposite one. Thanks for the support.😀

Nope. I do not support you and your selfish, ill-judged campaign, which is undermining women's claims to other, legitimate pension concessions and fuelling inter-generational conflict. Your post epitomises the self-regard and self-absorption of the WASPI women.

A better comparison would be: if you, @MissLucyEyelesbarrow , got to age 67 & you resigned from your job expecting your pension to start the next week only to find you weren't entitled to it for years & you had no way to support yourself. (This example is from a case study I heard/read some years ago.)

Or say you were told you now had to work till you were 70 even though you'd been expecting to retire at 67 - & then when you got closer to 70 you checked & found the rules had changed again & you had to work until you were 73. But nobody had told you that.

One reason to support the WASPI women is to send a message to this & any future governments that they can't treat people this way. As things stand, they've got carte blanche to do it to you, just like they did it to us.

There are a lot of stories being bandied about this last week, about wealthy women 'jumping on the bandwagon' & being greedy, etc etc. What a pity all those commentators didn't look into this years ago. There've been heartbreaking stories of suicide & hardship suffered by some WASPI women.

'Your post epitomises the self-regard and self-absorption of the WASPI women.'

Really? How? I'm just telling you the facts you were unaware of. You showed you were unaware of them, in the post I quoted.

Whatever the reason for your spite, please take it elsewhere.

I do not support Waspi women. And neither do very many women. Why on earth are they a special case. They're not. What about men who died years before they got to 65. Selfish and narrow minded. Its all about them and getting money they are not entitled to under the pension changes. Makes me furious.

The only sensible response to that is “Calm down, dear”. Even on the Feminism boards.

Do you know what makes me furious? The fact that women who worked part time were excluded from their pension schemes and only legally entitled to join when the law changed in 1994.

Even as late as 2019 my financial services employer published a gender pay gap of 53%. And yet here we all are chelping amongst ourselves for scraps. It’s very depressing on the feminism board.

What's that got to do with poor communication of the state pension age changes???

What communication do you think they should have had?

Allow me.

Women who have had the opportunity to build up fairly their pension entitlement would not be at a significant disadvantage to men in retirement.

Women not working in an organisation with a whopping gender pay gap would be earning far more money, increasing their pension entitlement, and adding to the Treasury coffers in doing so.

Yet here we are on this thread arguing about a few hundred pounds in compensation for other women whom the patriarchy has significantly failed instead of seeing the bigger picture which is that women’s pension rights are significantly worse than men’s. Better paid women with larger occupational pensions pay more tax which would more than cover the cost of providing this compensation.

Not sure that is worth going round in circles about this.

What happens next will be whether the report is acted on.

The report clear states there was / is no issue about how the first time the age of retirement was changed back in the 90s.

There was / is an issue with how the Government communicated the second round of changes.

There is at best going to be a £1,000 or so compensation for bad communication.

That is what this is about Government mismanagement.

So on one level this is a victory as it is holding the Government to account.

This is a rare occurance.

I think part of the problem is as usual the news media not bothering with facts but looking for hyped up headlines and sentimental hand wringing.

Far ranging discussion about how men and women were treated differently historically have absolutely nothing to do with Government not being able to run itself properly.

There is nothing to stop someone setting up a thread on FWR about how women in fighting for equal rights have actually not taken into account how badly men have been treated!

I have sympathy for those who thought they were going to retire at 65 and suddenly it went up with not a great deal of notice.

Was this the same for men or were they given more information/notice about not getting their pension until later?

I don’t think they should be compensated. Taxes taken from younger generations will be used to fund it, and those generations will probably have to wait until their 70s to receive a pension. I think the baby boomers have had enough already.

If you were born after 1st April 1970 it might be going up again to 68 and I'm sure it will be 70 before long especially if more money has to be paid out to Waspis. So what's the difference if compensation gets paid to them why not to everyone.
I'm more bothered about whether I will be able to do my job at that age! We will be dropping dead on the job!
I know so many more people who haven't lived to claim their pension than those who live for 20 years after retirement.

I started work in 1987 and had a working assumption that I wouldn't get a state pension at all. I'm currently projected to receive one at 67 and because I also have a private pension will be able to work part time from 60. I appreciate that I'm in a fortunate position, but I have that pension because I have always worked, even when I had children.

I think the Waspi women were treated unfairly, but so were my DC who had to pay £9000 + a year for their degrees and will be the ones, whose Taxes abd NI will end up paying for the WASPI generation's pensions.

We can't load this onto the next generation.

Sorry to say this again, the compensation is nothing to do with who deserves what.

The compensation is for Government failure.

Ideally of course it would be great to get the individuals in Government at the time to cover the cost of the compensation.

But as is usual with Government mistakes the tax payers cover the cost.

The only relevant question is the one raised by a PP.

If the second announcement about an even later age of retirement was badly handled, does this imply that men caught in that bracket were also not properly informed.

And this line about the young pay. Its just silly. Again as said before whoever is currently paying tax is paying for pensions, compensation or whatever.

Its how the system works. When the welfare state first started people didn't sit about whinging about how some people were going to retire or get sick pay, never having paid a penny into the system.

On a total side track, I have no sympathy for all those who have fallen for the hoax being carried out of having to have a degree that you pay for, over years and years. It hasn't helped increase people's employability. It is just another trick like mortguages to make everyone wage slaves.

And is based on another poor little me having to pay for higher education, baby boomers never did. And that's because less than 20% of the population at that time went to university.

In fact this wasn't even a conservative con, this was Labour.

And all the evidence shows that it doesn't actually created young people better educated for work as first time employees. The old system of apprentices and articled clerks created a better structure for getting people educated for the job. A lot of the problems today are graduates being parachuted into jobs they have no relevant knowledge or life skills. (Not forgetting the idiots who spew out Government policy - never forget it was a young female scottish graduate who helped draft the EA and the SSE!)

Most of what has been posted is really about how the society we live in that has been shaped by political decisions and consumerism and media inspired aspirations are what are deciding how we live.

And that includes those who for whatever reason enter a partnership to have children that technically are a joint responsibility.

The reason why most of us are rolling our eyes about the WASPI women is that most of them, almost by definition, are women who had the means to retire early and did so.

If you were a normal human being, this misunderstanding would never have happened to you, because you would have just kept on working, which would have resulted in your automatically being aware of your SPA.

Hence, very few of these women are objectively poor in any sense. If they are struggling, it will have been as a result of silly financial decisions, like biting off more than they could chew in terms of buy-to-let properties.

As PP said, sorry, but the baby boom generation have had quite a lot. The WASPI women need to read the room, because they are not getting much sympathy for the above reasons.

@user1477391263

I agree completely. I think the boomer generation will be remembered in history as the most selfish. It’s incredible that the waspis are expecting tax payers to compensate them for something that was better than the following generations will ever have. I hope they don’t receive anything extra.