No payout for WASPI women

[ErrolTheDragon]

Fury as women hit by pension age rise denied payouts www.bbc.com/news/articles/czr36842nd6o

Wow... it hadn't occurred to me that the ombudsman report on this would just be ignored.

It's not a shock. They knew. It's been years coming.

In that case, you could also argue that until the pension ages for men and women were equalised, men had always 'lost' 5 years of their pension (despite having had to pay in for 5 extra years to receive a full pension). Is that the patriarchy at work as well?

The rules were changed. At some stage someone was going to 'lose' some of their pension. I suppose it would be possible to arrange it so that changes only ever apply to people who had never yet paid in, but then the changes would have to have a 50-odd year lead-in time, so that's not really practical when changes need to be made on a shorter timescale.

But I don't think even the WASPIs are saying nothing should have been changed. Their claim is that when the rules were changed they weren't given enough information early enough to plan for the rule changes.

As others have pointed out, younger people are going to be working until 68 or later to get their pension, if they get anything at all.

Whilst thats true, its also true that many people in the UK either have no additional pension or a small private pension that puts them just above the PC threshold, these people certainly are far worse off then their European counterparts.

Govts of all colors haven't bothered to increase the state pension significantly, its still about half the NMW.

I do understand the complaints about the speed of the 2011 changes. My partner's planning to retire next year when he will be 63 - he's calculated that he can live on his occupational pension and savings for the time until he gets his state pension as well - if suddenly in two years he was told he won't get it for another year or so then that would give us an intake of breath!

But you can't spend £10 billion on "compensation" which in many cases will go to people who haven't lost out (because they were able to continue working) and don't need it. Younger taxpayers struggling with ever increasing housing costs and changes to student loans would be outraged, and quite rightly.

That's taken into account. What are their European counterparts? Which country are you comparing them with ?
The triple lock is pretty significant, what would say the state pension should be?

But a sense that five years was the likely age gap between husband and wife is why the women's age of retirement was set at 5 years below that of men. What was the mean age gap in 1860, 1740, 1390?
If there is a mean of 2.2 average then that means at least half of couples have a greater or lesser age gap (otherwise it wouldn't be the mean), or do you mean the mode (most frequently occurring)?

Actually, if you read the article further (page 4 of 8), the most common occurring age difference is 1 year!

But a sense that five years was the likely age gap between husband and wife is why the women's age of retirement was set at 5 years below that of men.

Do you have any evidence that that was the reason?

I found this document which says:
23. Before 1940, men and women’s State Pension age was 65. In 1940, women’s State Pension age was lowered to 60.

But I haven't found anything which says why women's pension age was lowered in 1940.

Replying to my own post as I've now found an explanation on a few random websites (haven't found an official source). It was because women tended to be younger than their husbands, and men could only claim the married couple's rate for pensions if their wife was also of pensionable age. So it wasn't to do with women getting their own pensions at that age, it was so that their husbands could get the higher rate to support their wives as well as themselves.

Yes, the age gap between partners has decreased, presumably because it is now no longer thought necessary that the male spouse should be capable of supporting a wife and family.
However, in the past much greater disparity of age was considered fine. Going back a long way, the Empress Matilda was c.8 and the Holy Roman Emperor c. 24 when they were formally betrothed and she was 12 and the Emperor 28 when they formally married - consummation not taking place until Matilda was 13. Matilda went on to marry the Count of Anjou who was fifteen - she was twenty-five.

How do you know they didn't vote Labour in 2019. Do they all wear Red Wall or Brexit badges? And anyway, the election pledges were for this election, not one done and dusted. Starmer has been making encouraging noises to the Waspis for months.

On the whole women in that age group didn't vote Labour.

https://yougov.co.uk/politics/articles/26925-how-britain-voted-2019-general-election

There simply are more deserving causes in 2024.

There simply are more deserving causes in 2024.

I wish those causes were where the money was going. They’re keeping the iniquitous two child benefit cap.

How dare you. I am in that age range - though not a Waspi as I am a little older - and I did vote Labour (can't stand the Tories or the creepy LibDems) but one's political stance, voting pattern, or political views have nothing to do with getting justice for being weasled out of several years of pension entitlement. That is a disgraceful and partisan view. But it's only women, isn't it? We don't count. And Labour has shown over the past decade or so that they care nothing for women's rights.

There simply are more deserving causes in 2024.

I agree. Like compensation for the Horizon postal scandal and the inject children with HIV scandal. These are groups that have suffered actual losses, up to and including death.

The Ombudsman didn’t agree that waspi women had suffered a loss, they ruled they had not suffered any financial loss whatsoever and the only injustice was that communication had a 28month delay for a teeny tiny % of waspi women.

There you go then. Maybe the press should circulate that message more, rather than perpetual victimhood

Women by nature give up what is theirs for someone they think has a greater need, as shown by the responses of many WASPI women who have responded to the OP.

The government would expect no less of them.

But it's only women, isn't it? We don't count

I really think it's this kind of attitude that will provoke a backlash. I'm gender critical and think Labour's actions on trans rights have been utterly shameful but the victim hood narrative needs to stop. If we're going to be critical of the "trans people are the most marginalised people" rubbish then we can't play the same argument ourselves.

Middle class female retirees are an exceptionally efficient organising group. The WASPI women managed to gain a huge amount of support from Labour MPs before the election and a lot of publicity for their case. Clearly now Labour are in power they've realised they simply don't have the money.

£10b is more than the total additional funding being put into our schools and half of the additional fundimg going into the NHS.

Perhaps they'd rather gave the money and forget the schools and half additional nhs funding. It has to cone from somewhere 🙄

The women weren't "weasled out of several years of pension entitlement". The rules were changed. The ombudsman only found that the government failed to communicate the changes adequately.

There have been lots of changes in pension rules. Younger people won't get their pension until 67 or 68. Have they also been "weasled out of several years of pension entitlement"?

No, because nobody who started work after 2011 was ever entitled to anything other than the specifications of the current rules. If someone expecting their retirement age to be 67 was suddenly told with virtually no notice it had moved to 70 I’d expect them to be miffed, wouldn’t you? What really rankled was the double whammy, hitting the same relatively small group of women with two changes in 16 years.

When I started work, my pension age was going to be 60 and I would have to pay in for 39 years to get the full pension.

In my 40s I was informed that I only needed to pay in for 30 years but my pension age would be 65.

Now I have to pay in for 35 years and my pension age is 67.

The rules have changed.

The ombudsman found that a very small proportion of women born in the 50s were given very short notice of one of the changes to pension age. For most of that small proportion of women, the change had little consequence. For a small proportion of that small proportion of women there was some genuine hardship because they didn't know about the change. This has been acknowledged.

If you're going to take the attitude that what you thought you were going to get when you started work is what you're entitled to, then all women who started work before 1995 should get their pension at 60 and men at 65. As I said in an earlier post this would mean that all pension changes would have to have a 50-year lead-in time which is totally unrealistic.

Just to clarify, when I said 'younger people' I meant anyone younger than the WASPIs, so anyone born after 1960. Anyone born after 1961 has a pension age of 67 or 68. The oldest of these might have started work in the 1970s.

What’s that got to do with what I said?

You said "No, because nobody who started work after 2011 was ever entitled to anything other than the specifications of the current rules."

I was pointing out that the pension age changes apply to all women born after 1950 and all men born after 1953.

This includes a lot of people who started work well before 2011.

Most people born in the 60s have a pension age of 67. Were we all "weasled out of several years of pension entitlement" like the WASPIs? Should we all get compensation? If not, why not? Where do you draw the line?

The only reasonable complaint (according to the ombudsman) is that some women born in the 50s were given less notice than they should have about the changes.