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 )

My mother got her state pension at 60, and spent the next twenty years looking after my father, who retired at 65.
I know who got the better deal there.

It’s not as straightforward as many believe — in 1995 it was between 60 and 65, my ,retirement age, then extended twice after that.

• women born between 6 April 1950 and 5 April 1955 would have a State Pension age of between 60 and 65, depending on their birthday. Schedule 4 of the Act set out the State Pension age for women born between these dates.

30. The 1995 Pensions Act made no provision for how the changes to women’s State Pension age would be communicated. 31. Further changes to State Pension age followed. 32. Under the Pensions Act 2007, the State Pension age for men and women was to increase to: 66 between 2024 and 2026, 67 by 2036, and 68 by 2046. 33. The Pensions Act 2011 sped up the timetable for raising men and women’s State Pension age. Under the 2011 Act, the increase in women’s State Pension age was accelerated so that it reached 65 by November 2018, instead of April 2020.

it’s a bit glib to assume people should be happy to lose a year or twos pension. It’s a lot of money.
The govs in a bad way -perhaps they should hold back a years pension for all pensioners - I’m sure everyone would be willing to accept that (for the greater good of course) which is what waspis are expected to happily do.

I think it’s the last changes women are complaining about - not being informed.

I cannot understand your logic at all. Of course no one is ever going to be happy to get their pension later and given a choice of course everyone would rather retire at 60 than 67. I’m early 50s and my retirement age is 67 and could potentially increase to 68, my mum falls into the waspi age group and I can’t remember her exact retirement age but it was around 64 plus some months still retired earlier than I will and earlier than men of same age as her so I fail to see why she should feel harder done by than the rest of the population when she’s actually been able to retire slightly earlier, even the worst effected waspi woman would have had a retirement age equal to a man not older

So you’d be happy to have your retirement age raised just before your due retirement. You’re comparing things now with 30 years ago. Things weren’t equal for women in the job sector. Now they are (supposedly).

It wasn’t just before retirement though it was 15 to 20 years before retirement when they announced the change from 60to 65. I’m 16 years off retirement and mine may be going up another year if they raise it to 68, it’s the same for all people my age

It’s the women weren’t informed properly of the changes not whether they should happen.

The 1995 change wasn't from 60 to 65. There was a graduated timescale, so for me my pension would have been paid at age 64. I did know about the 1995 change, although I had to dig deeply to find out how it affected me personally.
The 2011 change by the Conservative Lib Dem coalition, and how and when it was communicated, is what the Ombudsman has criticised. My pension age leaped from 64 to 66 with very little notice. By then I had taken voluntary redundancy, having worked out that my lump sum would see me through until my pension kicked in at age 64. Adding on another 2 years actually made a big difference to me.
When the papers say that the pension age will change on a specific year it's reasonable for people to assume that it won't apply to them if their current pension age is before that year, so even though I twigged, I can understand why some WASPI women didn't realise that they would be affected by the 1995 change.

I completely get your position and why you’d be pissed off with the 2 year increase from 64 to 66, that is unfair. I think where public sympathy is lost is that the waspi position is claiming the whole change including the 1995 changes are unfair. It refers to women born between 1950 and 1960 being treated unfairly, whereas anyone born before 1953 should have know in the 90s that their pension age was going to increase. My mum is pre 1953 she knew about it for years before and her pension age didn’t change again. It’s a much narrower age range that you are in that would have had a pre 65 age from the original changes which ended up being increased to 66 by the acceleration of the gradual increase to 65 and then the increase to 66. Men of the same age would also have been effected in the same way increase to 66 although there increase of time was less.

the waspi website says that retirement age increased by 4,5 or 6 years and women didn’t know about it so they aren’t just referring to the increase to 66 such as your situation

But you can't "lose" a year or two's pension because you can't lose what you don't have in the first place.

I get that some people don’t keep up with the news daily, but surely you would get in touch with the relevant authorities and CHECK before you do bloody big things like quit your job or buy extra properties, like some of these women did?

I think most of them knew perfectly well but fancied trying it on to see if they could get an extra chunk of free money.

It was different days. There was no internet or email in 1995. I’m fairly plugged into the news but I only found out from my bank when changing my mortgage. This was in the days when you’d get a letter if your tax code changed so it could have been better communicated. For those born in the early 1950s it was hard when that change was speeded up. I was born in 1958 and had more time. The whole thing was badly handled … but compensation? I’d rather that money went towards restoring services cut under austerity.

It was different days in the 90s but I’d say on the whole people used to watch more of the standard news programmes than they do now. There was no on demand tv and not everyone had sky so people tended to watch whatever was on the standard 5 channels which would include the daily news programmes and adverts. In fact these days I think people are more likely to miss stuff in the news if they don’t actively look it up or are specifically told as there is so much other choice in what they can be doing instead.

Mid 90s people watched the mainstream news and read newspapers.

Most things were still mainly communicated by letters.

It was different days. There was no internet or email in 1995. I’m fairly plugged into the news but I only found out from my bank when changing my mortgage

And yet lots of us knew that the changes were coming because we read or heard about it in the media. Odd, that.

Yes I knew and I was in my 20s in the 1990s so shouldn’t have been remotely interested in pensions or the news

Why shouldn't you have been remotely interested in the news and pensions in your 20s?

becuase I should have been out clubbing and getting drunk 😂

Twitter's full of Waspies groaning tragically that "I was raising kids and working full time. I didn't have time to watch the news!!"

Yeah, right. You're asking us to believe you never glanced at a paper, never even saw a headline on a newspaper in the newsagents, never had the 6'o clock news on during dinner (or indeed while making dinner, or clearing up afterwards? I often have news on while doing housework! Being aware of the news does not have to be a dedicated, sit-down activity), AND never came across the topic during conversation with similar aged friends, AND didn't bother to check when making important financial decisions, which you must have made without any discussion with friends or family, because if you had talked about it with them, they would have said something like "Ooh, hang on, haven't you heard that the pension age is changing for women? Are you sure these plans of yours are going to work out? Hadn't you better check?"

They're just utter liars, seriously.

agree my mother was a single parent working a full time job as a low paid carer and she managed to get the message.

@RubyOtter and the working after 60 when knackered applies to every group after men and women, infact people after are worse off as they have to go till 67 or 68