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.

Good. I think it's the right decision. I'd rather the money that was going to be paid out was spent on other things.

I've never really got what this is about. Something about only sending one letter telling them about change?

It boils down to older people wanting the working population to fund a retirement that those working people won't get themselves. Can't get that worked up about it.

They also took away the WFP from pensioners on basic state pension

You must really dislike pensioners to be joyous about that. Even Age UK said it would put over two million in hardship

That article has all the information you need to "get" what this is all about.

I assume some pp lament not being the worst due to the change

Please don't assume we all just selfishly want to be funded by the working population. A state pension is important, and I sincerely hope my working age children, and my grandchildren, and their children, etc, etc all have access to enough money to have a decent life in their old age. That depends entirely on all governments taking this issue seriously and not ignoring the face that NI contributions, as they stand, are not sufficient. I think pensioners who have an income over the personal allowance threshold for income tax should pay NI. After all, we use the NHS more than any other age group, relatively speaking. And yes, I have enough income to pay NI if that system was introduced, and so do most of my friends.

I can't think of a way politics isn't involved in a demographic that vote more than any other. The comparison with other countries was always very difficult due to the way state pension works in other countries. I remember seeing a graphic that was posted for years on Facebook that told half a story about European state pensions.
At some point in the future triple lock will go or be modified I can guarantee that will involve alot of politics.

Spot on.

I'm a waspi and I never expected it.

I think if this happened now there would be very few people who failed to find out that their pension age had been moved back 6 years as mine was. Media / internet etc make information on things like this more obvious.

I admit I didn't realise until my mid 50s that I wouldn't be getting my pension at 60 as originally expected or even 62 as I thought. Apparently we were told or there was a poster campaign or something. Hands up I must be stupid but I missed it. I had to wait until 66 and finally got it this year.

Having said all that I would rather see the money go on the NHS, education or other priorities.
I also feel like there's enough resentment from the younger generation without adding this to the mix.

Well, TBF the GRA introduced by Labour 2 decades ago, is often blamed by MN posters, for why the Tories never got rid of it or even amended it.

And the state of the public services & finances is also blamed on Labour causing the Global Financial Crash in 2008...

I believe i may have even read you arguing this too on the feminist forums.

For me it all comes down to trust. Previously starmer described the waspi situation as a 'real injustice' rayner stated that Labour would compensate, kendal and reeves have both supported WASPI women.

When it was politically expedient to do so they were all behind the campaign, now they are in power, a complete turn around.

I wouldn't trust Labour anymore than I would trust the tories.

Good decision. Women have been highly,y favoured as regards State Pension for decades. It's the men who have had a raw deal.

The thing is, it's really hard to compare UK state pensions with those in Europe because with the exception of the Netherlands, European pensions all have at least some earnings-related component.

The Thatcher government tried to bring something like that in with SERPS but it didn't last very long. I don't know what happens with people who paid in to SERPS retire.

The basic Dutch state pension is currently about £250 per week for a single person or £340 for a married couple. Both of those amounts are after deduction of basic rate tax and health insurance contributions (income tax kicks in at a much lower threshold in the Netherlands). But the Netherlands has a very long tradition of workplace and private pensions (backed up by generous tax deductions on the premiums) and so not many people retire on just that amount.

For almost any other country it's a bit meaningless to compare, because someone who earned close to the maximum that the scheme allows for (typically you pay pension contributions over an amount like £50k per annum, although it varies per country) will get a lot more than a UK pensioner, whereas someone who worked minimum wage all their life will probably get less.

And took the wfa from people with an annual income of under £12,000 and no means to increase that. Happy with that too?

They should be taken to task over this. Obviously they were just promoting one line in opposition and now this

Yes stupid tying themselves to this, though doubtless they would argue the economic outlook is far worse, which it is.

Like i asked earlier "How would raise £10 billion?"

We really cannot be paying out '000s to people who knew perfectly well the SRA was increasing.

To the very few who genuinely didn't know, perhaps.

I was born in 1961, my sister in 57, my best friend born in 1958. I can not understand how people were not aware of the changes to pension age. It was common knowledge. I had letters and was a talking point at the mum and toddlers and baby groups in the 90s. It was in the papers,on TV and at least one letter. Had updates from my union.

We pushed for equality and we got it. The pension age is the same for both sexs.
It is not discrimination.

We should think ourselves lucky when you consider it will continue to rise.

Any ideas how you would raise £10 billion?

Or is it a case of "making hay when the sun shines" ?

Thing is : the country has no money. Something has to give. We can’t afford to fund the NHS , defence , education, mental health, roads etc etc if we keep paying out on everything. I say this as a Waspi myself. Yes, it is difficult for some . Meantime over 30% of children in the Uk are living in poverty. I’d rather the money went to help them.

That's just your problem, and I have now doubt among younger voters and MPs they just see it as student politics.

And I am by no means a supporter of Party politics in the UK as being the best in the world.

But every now and again MPs as a whole do agree "something" needs to be done.

And as PP have pointed out, there needs to be a much larger, wider discussion about how state pensions will be sustained in the future.

Because unless the UK starts having more babies, there wont be enough working people to sustain any benefits.

It isn't helped that the media just turns everything into a bun fight, instead of discussing in an informed way, what can be done.

Would have hoped on FWR it would be possible to have those sort of discussions.

But then given the experience of the Elections threads, many that started out as being about and informed discussion and exchange of views, were inevitably hijacked by party hacks.

Labour ran a completely populist election campaign based on purely soundbites and straplines. They did practically zero due diligence/impact assessments prior to the election. They have u-turned on many things promised pre + during campaign.
Don't just blame the media, Labour have a lot to answer for themselves. Hence having to "re-brand" a mere 4 months after winning the election.

Or is it a case of "making hay when the sun shines" ?

Eh?

What are you referring to wrt your party reversing on this

As in pp

For me it all comes down to trust. Previously starmer described the waspi situation as a 'real injustice' rayner stated that Labour would compensate, kendal and reeves have both supported WASPI women.

When it was politically expedient to do so they were all behind the campaign, now they are in power, a complete turn around.

True. Although they can keep rebranding and resetting at will but each week their polling goes down

I don't think the majority of the public are as happy to see their resets as some on mn

This is exactly the type of arguement that helped Labour cut the WFP.

Just because your alright doesn't mean everybody is.

In the same way as rich pensioners could have joined together to donate their winter fuel payment to a support group, those women who dont want the payment, or dont need it, could donate to a charity.

The point of universal benifits is that it is the cheapest method of disrubuting the payments.

The issue here is that the Government of the time was found to be at fault through a process that was the agreed method of doing it.

Can you imagine the uproar in the Government had decided to reject an agreed pay rise for train drivers.

How much money is spent each year so that MPs (who do get a fuel allowance and other perks) can have cheap lunches, a second home and all the rest of it.

Why give ammunition to those who as we have seen with Labour dont care about those at the bottom.

Didn't you see the way the media lept on the few people who driveled on about I spend my fuel allowance on eating out or something.

As a country we really seem to have lost the ability to take into account how our actions may under mine the rights or others.

Like all those people who bought council houses and now boast of who well they did out of it.

The issue is about sucessive Governments not dealing with growing issues.

But we manage to fund train drivers, doctors, MPs heating allowances and subsidused bars, gay people in past military service, foreign wars.....
We have to make choices- the ombudsman felt this one was worth funding.