The government changed women's pension age and called it progress. Did anyone actually ask you?

Thank you * Fallingstar*

MawsRosie

Does the government EVER ask me about ANYTHING?

Perhaps it should😂

Graphite that is such an incredibly intelligent and well explained post, with sadness too. I'm appalled at the treatment of all of these women from mostly institutionalised mysoginists. But thank you for for being so informative. The example of Pat McFadden's recent comment is so shocking. Not to mention how your life was turned upside down.

NoraHayes

To Crossy
That's a point I hadn't even considered. Many people focus on the pension delay itself, but having to continue paying NI for years longer adds another layer to the impact. How did you adjust your plans when you realized you'd be working longer than expected?

Just very begrudging carried on working for another 4.5 years. An inheritance then enabled me to retire at 64.5 instead of 66

Kandinsky

Firstly, I’m so sorry to hear about your husband, wish you both well

Oops pressed post too soon.

Secondly, I don’t think Padstow intended to upset you

Plevey08

I agree Norah Hayes. But I think the brilliant representatives who have spent years fighting and managed to get it to court have been ignored. Before the last GE ministers always imply they are going to sort it. Andy Burnham has previously said he agreed with WASPI women. Now I hear he has said he didn't say anything about payouts or recognition. They all con the electorate until they get into power. I think this has been discussed on here before and many say they were informed in good time prior to the new women's retirement age. And many say they weren't informed in a timely manner. The DWP have apologised for not sending the info to all affected. But that's it. I don't think they will pay out as it's too costly and time consuming. And a blanket payout to all who potentially were affected would be even more costly. So I don't think it will happen. I know I wasn't informed and it has cost me.

I just miss out being WASPI by a few months.

If there was to be a pay-out, it would have to be a payout to everyone of that age group. It was publicised & discussed when the changes were made & I was always aware of the changes (they affected men too, though with more notice).

It would be massively unfair to compensate just one group (those who didn't receive letters) within the Waspi age bracket surely?When all have had the same financial disadvantage compared to previous rules?

I looked up my pension entitlement online some years before I retired to make sure I knew what I would get, and when. (& I am not good with admin/ planning). Although you probably couldn't do this online when the changes came in, there would have been information available allowing people to see what their pension was and when it was payable & surely that's part of the prudent planning process?

Yes, any payout would have to be to everyone. There is no way of proving whether someone received a letter, even if one were sent. I know I was not sent one, as I asked via a FOI request and was told that no letter was sent to me.

The point, however, is not just about the letters, but about the time between women finding out about the additional years and their retirement. For many that tie was very short, so they had no time to make good the gaps in the pension they thought was fully paid, or to arrange any other source of income.

I know I’m in the minority here but I was born in 1957 and fully accepted the rise in pension age. I was also well informed and would have had to be living under a rock to not know about it. I’m not behind the WASPIs and really hope the government stands firm.

Cossy

Thank you

I was born in 1948 and retired at 60, obviously on the old pension. I’d like to point out the anyone receiving the new pension not only gets much more than me but every time there’s a percentage increase, their increase makes the difference even larger!

No, no info except a shirt letter telling me I would work a shirt while more! I actually worked 4 yrs and 8 months more and by the end I was exhausted. As much as I loved my nursing career, 60 was the time to retire, even 61 I could have coped with but, I worked until I was 4 months short of my 65th birthday. And don’t get me started on the fact that my work pension cost me hundreds off my state pension!!

Like LaCRepescule, I was born in 1957 and I was fully aware of the change in retirement age. The issue though is that many women a few years older than me were not aware . DWP accepts some women were not told. Some had less than a year's notice. I worked with those women who had the retirement age changed from 60 to 63. I don't think the age should be reverted but there should be compensation for those who were not told and their employer did not allow them to continue to work . Yes it was illegal but it did happen.

I was born in 1950. I asked the pension department every year to send me an update in writing from the age of 55 as I was worried of new reforms coming in. I collected my UK pension at 70.

Thank you Plevey. I realise that my situation is different to many because it was bereavement which changed my plans rather than equalisation.

I don’t recall when it was that I became aware that the letter the Pension Service sent me was wrong but probably by 2011 at the latest.

The Pension Act 2007, which increased the SP age to 66, was passed on 26 July 2007 which was only four months after DH died, when I was trying to juggle being back at work and dealing with his estate. The latter meant winding up a business as well as his personal estate. It was a time when, best will in the world, my brain would not have been functioning at its best. I may have been vaguely aware that SP age was increasing to 66 but as it was going to happen between 2024 and 2026, long after I turned 60, I probably thought it didn’t apply. Anyway, the Pension Service took a long time to process my claim for Bereavement Allowance and the letter telling my SP age was 60 came after that Act was passed. One doesn’t automatically think that a government letter is giving false information.

I think I must have been aware by 2011, when George Osborne accelerated the changes, just four years short of when I had expected to receive my SP. I keep meticulous records and certainly never received any letter from the DWP.

The 2024 PHSO report Annex A says my cohort (dob 6 April 1955 to 5 April 1960 of women affected by the Pensions Acts 1995 and 2011, were sent letters between October 2012 and November 2013 (including a pause from January to May 2013). 4,475,000 million letters were alleged to have been sent but paragraph 89 of the 2021 PHSO report says DWP does not have a record of who it wrote to.

I’m not expecting compensation. Here’s the PHSO’s Summary of the levels of injustice and ranges of compensation in our severity of injustice scale - see Annex C here:

www.ombudsman.org.uk/sites/default/files/Women%E2%80%99s-State-Pension-age-our-findings-on-injustice-and-associated-issues.pdf

As most, I might fall into Level 2 and be paid £100 to £450. I’m annoyed that the Pension Service sent me wrong information and the letter allegedly sent in 2012 or 2013 was not received but it’s relatively low impact injustice. I had a well paid job and a good pension scheme and also receive widow’s pensions from the schemes my DH paid into, so I could not by any stretch claim hardship. Had he lived, his SP age would not have been altered by the 2011 Act but mine was. Nevertheless, I have “lost” around £40,000 as a result of equalisation, income we were expecting to have and would have taken into account in our planning in the mid 2000s. Would we have changed our plans if we had realised I would not be getting my SP at 60? Probably not as we had good workplace pensions and other assets.

And there’s the crux. Of over 3 million women affected by equalisation, everyone’s case is different and DWP are never going to review them all. Looking at Annex C, I doubt many could make a case for the higher levels of compensation which at level 6 is only £10,000 roughly the equivalent of one year of pension.

As things turned out, I could argue that I was worst affected by the abolition of the State Widows Pension in 2001. Had that not been abolished I would have received a State Widows Pension (albeit reduced as I was under 55 when widowed) from 2007 until I finally reached State Pension age in 2021. That’s 14 years loss of pension. But then I accept that too, in the same way that I accept equalisation. It was a move away from inherited state pensions because by 2001 most married women now worked outside the home, had their own income and built their own pensions. Widows were now expected to work or continue to work after a major life change just as separated and divorced women are expected to do, rather than rely on state support.

The irony is that when MPs were debating the abolition of State Widows Pension, Hansard shows that it was to put the money saved into the old age pension, which for women and later men, was now going to be further away.

The bottom line is that State Pension rights are being eroded bit by bit for everyone. The point of the introduction of the single tier State Pension from 6 April 2016 was to make it cheaper per capita to pay in the long term. Less variable Additional State Pension to pay as older pensioners who paid into SERPS/SSP die and are replaced by younger pensioners with no SERPS/SSP. But it’s going to take another 20 years or so for most people with aSP or Protected Payments to die. Meantime record numbers of people are reaching State Pension age due to the baby boom of the 1950s and 1960s.

It would nice if the government were to make some financial gesture in recognition that they did maladminister equalisation, not least that James Purnell, who seems to be Burnham's pick for Chief of Staff, was in post at the DWP when the worst of the maladministration was happening but I doubt many women would be happy with what was offered.

I am a WASPI woman and worked out many years ago I lost about 43k of my pension. Jist have had to get on with it but it makes me mad!

ordinarygirl

Like LaCRepescule, I was born in 1957 and I was fully aware of the change in retirement age. The issue though is that many women a few years older than me were not aware . DWP accepts some women were not told. Some had less than a year's notice. I worked with those women who had the retirement age changed from 60 to 63. I don't think the age should be reverted but there should be compensation for those who were not told and their employer did not allow them to continue to work . Yes it was illegal but it did happen.

That's a tricky one. While I see that situation should be compensated, how many employers are going to admit that they told their staff that if they didn't retire, they would be made redundant? As you say. totally illegal particularly when they hadn't reached state pension age.

This has happened or is happening all over Europe, where men as well as women have had their retirement age changed, without being consulted or having any legal redress.

Now those of us who are retired are being begged to return to work and our children's generation is facing retirement age at 70.

Medical consensus is that yes, we live longer than former generations on average, but are not necessarily capable of working until 70 or older.

Politicians refuse to listen, nor have the increased their own retirement age!

Trade unions are not being listened to either, when they say that no-one doing hard manual labour, looking after small children, nursing etc, can work to 70. This too politicians refuse to believe.

After all, they are not digging drains, looking after toddlers, teaching seven year olds,nor lifting geriatric patients with restricted mobility, are they?

And now, completely doing away with any form of OAP for the young generation when they reach 70 or 75 is being mooted.

So it is time to start complaining to our politicians.

And ...to top it all our pensions are going to be taxed!

There will never be agreement on this because we all have different experiences.
I’m not a WASPI as I am a couple of months too young, but I was always aware when changing the dates for women were discussed/enacted and happened.
I have always known exactly what my retirement date would be because I’ve checked.
The retirement age for men is going up too. There isn’t a big money pot that spews pensions out - it’s paid by current tax/NI payers and thanks to the change in age demographics there just isn’t enough to support the old style pension.
And someone mentioned equality? I must have dropped off and missed that one 🙄

Born in 1946, on the old state pension , my pension is £2500.00 a year less than those born after 1953. My partner and I both worked for the same nation wide company. I worked just as hard (often longer hours and more stressful) but was paid the basic hourly wage. His rate was higher, and his pension is over £2000 a year more although we are the same age, both worked as hard as each other and retired at the same age. ( company went into receivership ) .I believe everybody should be paid the same rate, times the number of years worked.
At 60 I received a cash payment from my company pension fund , then I received another letter a few months later stating that as I had paid higher N.I. contributions due to the fact that I had retiring at 60 I was entitled to another cash payment.
I urge every Waspi woman, if she still has pension paperwork to check her N.I. Payments to see if she was paying more in N.I.
Than her younger counterparts. As I never married, I paid full stamp.
BTW - my 4.8% Triple Lock payment was £350.00 this year - much less than the £600.00 that Keir Starmer stated that pensioners were getting. Based on the approx £12.000 state pension his figures are worked on. So to all those entitled Journalists, Politicians and TV. Presenters and Pundits that cherrypick what they want you to believe, and want to abolish it - would you be happy to have your pay rise based on the first £12.000 in salary. We are not all ‘Champagne Pensioners’.

I'm a WASPI woman who was told I would retire at 64 and a half as I was one of the group whose retirement age had moved part way. Meanwhile the age changed again and I wasn't told about that at all directly.
I was lucky that I was still fit enough to work the extra years but I certainly couldn't have afforded to retire before getting my state pension as my private pensions are tiny having been a SAHM for a few years thenworking only a few hours a week unti myyoungest was at secondary school. Being a divorcee with a mortgage that has over seven years to go I'm struggliing. The triple lock is little comfort as the freezing of the personal allowance means it disappears in extra tax. I'm not poor enough for pension credit but if I was, the extra benefits that kick in with it would probably make me better off! I had hoped that if the campaign succeeded it would help a little but the country can't afford the compensation, how ever well deserved.

It makes me angry. I remember the pension minister on tv saying its only a couple of years for women. It's not! It's 7 years for me and women like me, a couple is 2! I've paid 45 years of full contributions and yet have another 3 years to wait. They've stolen 7 years of my state pension.

Not a Waspi woman and born in August1950 so received my state pension aged 60 years and five months! It is the old pension and , as pointed out by others, considerably less than the new rate! However, I did know everything about my pension as I made it my business to ensure I received what I was entitled to on the correct date!
My other half thought he would receive his pension at 65 but no, he had to wait another year! He had worked non stop for 44 years so it was not good to have to wait another year! Men have been affected too!

Did you delay taking your SP mokryna?
Born in 1950, you’d get the old rate at 60?