Times article claim that Waspi women are tone deaf and should read the room

I am one of the cohort who lost out but I am in the fortunate position that I have other pension provision. Other women do not have this safety net and I feel for them.

I am also one of those who was unaware of these changes and my husband didn’t know either, despite him always being all over our finances in those years.

I find the argument that ‘the information was out there’ utterly bizarre. In what other areas do we apply this denial of liability? Obesity? Overeating and poor quality foods made you overweight - the information is out there, so you don’t deserve help in managing your condition. You smoked and now have lung cancer? The information is out there that smoking is bad so no NHS treatment for you. There are a million similar scenarios out there and I think this ‘info’ argument is a spurious one.

I’m a WASPI, but I do think the battle is lost now, so there is no point in keep bringing up the grievances, because the time has past when compensation might have been forthcoming from successive governments. It makes little difference who is to blame once it’s water under the bridge. That doesn’t mean I’ve forgiven.

Doodledog

That's hard lines. There should have been a sliding scale so that for every year you lost you got £X on the pension. It's not just the pension itself that was lost, either. Or the extra years of working for those who couldn't take early retirement. It was the years of free travel and so on.

I think a lot of people who want women to be quiet about losing so much forget that 'equality' didn't happen on the day the new rules came into effect. Years of lower pay, fewer opportunities, lack of childcare etc had already worked to ensure that most women's pensions were well below those of their husbands, and the amount of notice given those who got it was not enough to make that up.

Good points by DD. It seems that some imagine that 'the information was out there for everyone'. Well, it genuinely wasn't for me - I didn't read the publications they put notice in like 'The Lady' or 'The Timnes' and I certainly didn't get notified by post.
I had no private pension as these were not offered in the jobs I had and sometimes when I was bringing our children up, I worked up to 5 part time jobs (sometimes taking the kids with me) to make ends meet. Many of these jobs were manual. Of course, these didn't offer pensions either and there was no chance of me affording child care.
I lost £48K of pension that would have been very helpful to get accommodation for my old age that is suitable for my disabilities which could be attributed to the types of work I have had to do.
The other consideration is that men (in my experience older than me) who were 60 were allowed to give up work and claim ESA! What's good for the boys was Not good enough for the girls.

Yes Chardy. So much for CEDAW.

There is so much more to this campaign than petty arguments over women allegedly not seeing "information that was out there” e.g. leaflets put in job centres and benefits offices or distributed by trades unions. Fat lot of use if you were working, not going to the job centre or benefits bffice or not in a trades union.

And what about his cited advert? Again, fat lot of use if you didn’t happen to be reading the Angling Times in November 1998 and even if you were, it says nothing about women's state pension age changing. At that stage, the increase in SPA to beyond 65 had not be leglisated so that ad can only have been aimed at women.

I am not going to take notice of what some young male reporter on The Times who doesn’t appear to have any qualifications in finance, worked his way up from being a hack on the Daily Mail, says about the campaign and using the usual trope of one person’s pocket being picked to pay for someone else.

As Ali61 explains, the was all made much worse by the acceleration that George Osborne claimed saved £60 billion. Those billions saved are sitting in the National Insurance Fund.

If Jeremy Hunt could take £10 billion of that to give workers a 4% NIC cut as a pre-election sweetener, so this government could take another £10 billion to settle this. The money is there.

When I read in today’s news that the country is spending £1 billion a year on vape disposal I wonder if we really are all going slowly mad.

I totally agree with earlier posters who are pointing out the fact that women in that particular cohort may have known their SPA was increasing, but were not informed at all by the DWP.

As explained below it was the acceleration by the Coalition government that did the real damage. Women were informed their SPA would be 60, 61 or 62, so naturally made decisions based on that fact re stopping work or cutting down to part time. To then find that they had to wait another 4 or 5 years must have been devastating. These are the women who deserve some compensation.

The UK Coalition Government accelerated the state pension age (SPA) for women in 2011 to reduce public spending and achieve gender parity. This legislation sped up the equalisation of women’s state pension age from 60 to 65 by 2018—two years earlier than previously planned.The acceleration was enacted under the Pensions Act 2011 with the following key details:The Timetable: Instead of waiting until April 2020, women born in the 1950s saw their retirement age gradually reach 65 by November 2018. Furthermore, the legislation brought forward the planned increase in the SPA for both men and women from age 65 to 66 (achieved in 2020).Impact on Women: The accelerated timescale meant that around 500,000 women had to wait 18 months to two years longer than they had originally expected to collect their state pension. Many argued that these changes were implemented abruptly without adequate or timely notification.WASPI Campaign: The acceleration sparked significant backlash and led to the formation of the Women Against State Pension Inequality (WASPI) campaign. Protesters have continually lobbied the government to provide transitional compensation for those impacted financially.Official Findings: Following a lengthy investigation, the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO) published reports criticising the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) for maladministration regarding their failure to communicate these accelerated changes clearly to the affected women in a timely manner.

Allira

Chardy

eazybee

Did men have the option to retire at 60 with full pension?
Despite the fact they generally worked more years yet tended to die younger?

9m men have retired at 60 on their workplace pensions because Margaret Thatcher paid their NI contributions for 5 years
When 50s women asked for similar support, it was denied

Really?

Just checked and it was introduced by Geoffrey Howe, the Chancellor, in 1983, in order to reduce unemployment and open up jobs for younger people.
It operated for 35 years until 2018.

I've never heard of it. DH would not have taken advantage anyway, he carried on working until 67 because he enjoyed it!

The estimate is that under 200,000 men retire each year (that's based on ONS data). That means that a large proportion of men took advantage of it in 35yrs.
2018 is an interesting date. Eight years of women whose SPA was rapidly increased, were denied it.
So much for CEDAW

eazybee

I agree; the information was there, and I cannot support a demand for payment of extra pension to which people are not entitled.

To people who parrot "the information was there", I imagine your husband was kind enough to tell you all about it........

Doodledog ''The welfare state should be based on 'From each according to ability/To each according to need.'"
Sums it up for me!

Chardy is absolutely right.

David Hencke, who has done a lot of campaigning in support of the women affected by equalisation, wrote about his this in 2020 when a FOI request revealed that 9.8 million men had had their NIC paid from age 60.

davidhencke.com/2020/07/28/exclusive-now-9-8-million-men-over-60-had-their-national-insurance-contributions-paid-by-the-state/

Extract:

The new disclosure makes it even more galling for the women who were originally promised they would have their national insurance contributions paid between 2010 and 2018 only to have the offer withdrawn a year before it was due to start. A number have had to pay thousands of pounds to make up the sum for a full pension while others simply have not been able to afford it.

Chardy

eazybee

Did men have the option to retire at 60 with full pension?
Despite the fact they generally worked more years yet tended to die younger?

9m men have retired at 60 on their workplace pensions because Margaret Thatcher paid their NI contributions for 5 years
When 50s women asked for similar support, it was denied

Really?

Just checked and it was introduced by Geoffrey Howe, the Chancellor, in 1983, in order to reduce unemployment and open up jobs for younger people.
It operated for 35 years until 2018.

I've never heard of it. DH would not have taken advantage anyway, he carried on working until 67 because he enjoyed it!

Thankyou for this.

eazybee

Did men have the option to retire at 60 with full pension?
Despite the fact they generally worked more years yet tended to die younger?

9m men have retired at 60 on their workplace pensions because Margaret Thatcher paid their NI contributions for 5 years
When 50s women asked for similar support, it was denied

The contributory pension was introduced in 1925 with the age set at 65. A married couple's rate of pension was paid if both spouses were aged 65 or more. As many men tended to marry women younger than themselves, that meant many men had to wait for some years after they reached 65 to get the higher rate for their wives.

In 1940, pension age for women was cut to 60 to try to ensure for most couples that the married rate would be paid as soon as the husband reached 65. That’s the reason there was a five year discrepancy in SP age. (Source Paul Lewis, Moneybox.

The unequal pension age was always rooted in this, that many married women did not work outside the home or if they did, they opted to pay the small stamp, relying on their husbands for a pension. This is why there are still hundreds of thousands of people receiving Category B pensions for which no NI was paid. Married men paid no more NI than a single person and yet can claim up to £110.75 per week more pension for their spouse.

Category B pensions were not abolished but were phased out (along with Category C and D pensions) for anyone reaching State Pension age on or after 6 April 2016. With that also went the entitlement to claim a late spouse’s pension which is also part of Category B.

It's another reason why, when people grumble about the difference in old and new State Pension, they are not taking all the factors into account.

eazybee

Did men have the option to retire at 60 with full pension?
Despite the fact they generally worked more years yet tended to die younger?

No, but many men had far more opportunities than many women.

The gender gap for pensioners is still embarrassing. For much of the last century women were discriminated against, and that didn't stop when the EA was passed. There were years of historical discrimination before that, which meant that even women who were fully aware of the changes couldn't catch up.

The NSP treats people as individuals, which is fair in many ways, but many women who thought they would benefit from their husbands' pensions no longer do, which can make a big difference - particularly to widows.

It is just not fair to compare the position of men with that of women when it comes to pensions. Yes, men worked for longer, but they earned more, had more opportunities to pay into occupational pensions and did not have years added to their working lives at short notice.

keepingquiet

eazybee

Did men have the option to retire at 60 with full pension?
Despite the fact they generally worked more years yet tended to die younger?

Yes but they also earned more- even those without families to support.

No, men's retirement age was 65.

They may have been able to draw a works pension before 65 but not the State Pension.

Allira

Doodledog

Agreed, Molly. I think working age people are fed up with being the ones who have to subsidise everything. The government needs to wise up to that and somehow make it the case that people are always better off in work than not. If they don't, the populists will take advantage of public discontent, and heaven help us all.

But did we not subsidise everything - or nearly when we were the ones working?

In fact, any pensioners are still paying income tax and it only takes a little additional income above the State Pension to bring pensioners into the first tier of taxation, with exactly the same Personal Allowance (frozen until 2031) as working age people.

The only difference is we no longer pay National Insurance.

Many pensioners are still subsidising those unwilling to work.
Unable to work is yes, they need help, but there are people of working age who do not work when they could.

Yes, we subsidised everything when we were younger, and many of us pay tax now - I haven't argued otherwise.

That doesn't alter the fact that workers (which includes retired workers) are fed up with paying for others not to work.

eazybee

Did men have the option to retire at 60 with full pension?
Despite the fact they generally worked more years yet tended to die younger?

Yes but they also earned more- even those without families to support.

Mollygo

Basgetti
Looking at the prospects for our adult children, sorry, I agree with him.
The information was out there 🤷‍♀️

“The prospects for our adult children will be heavily affected by the increasing number who can’t or don't work.“

No experience of that, Mollygo. Our adult children work and study (on their own time) far harder than I ever did, for longer hours and unsociable shifts, one whilst parenting (brilliantly, as a child psychologist studying for their MA).
Both have their own homes: because as higher earners we were able to help them out.

I missed out on waspiness but was very well aware of the changes. At 62, I shan’t be the least surprised if my entitlement to a state pension vanishes with the next Goverment.

Did men have the option to retire at 60 with full pension?
Despite the fact they generally worked more years yet tended to die younger?

Sorry , l should have said Gransnet.
Hope you will all forgive me.

Graphite

This has all been argued over many many times and explained many many times.

I suspect that many claiming the information was “out there” have not bothered to read the PHSO reports. Nor are they aware of the surveys that were done in 2003/4 and 2007 that showed just how many women didn’t know what their new State Pension age was.

Otherwise, the PHSO would not have concluded after a six year investigation that there was maladministration and setting out a chart for compensation.

I was in the cohort of women who were never going to be told personally what their new SP age was - those born after May 1955.

What I do have is a letter from the Pension Service (part of DWP) dated 2007 with accompanying leaflet categorically telling me that I will be able to claim my SP when I am 60. I was then 52.

In other words, twelve years after the 1995 Pensions Act, DWP were still sending out wrong information.

Coincidentally, in 2007, the DWP finally admitted that its information campaign was not working. They knew this is 2003 but did nothing about it.

Extract from PHSO.

115. Unpublished DWP research from 2007 found 85% of women aged 48 to 59 knew State Pension age was going to be equalised, but many women did not know when it would happen. The research also found that 50% of women whose State Pension age had risen to between 60 and 65, and 36% of women whose State Pension age had risen to 65, still thought that it was 60. DWP told us that if people are aware of the changes, they can find out their own State Pension age.

116. An internal DWP memo from April 2007 described the 2007 research findings as ‘depressing reading’. The memo reflects on the lack of progress since 2004 and the prospect of future complaints from women. It states:

‘You floated the idea of contacting the Ombudsman to get a feel for how she would react to claims from women saying they had never been told or were not aware that state pension age is increasing. In the light of the lack of upward movement from our 43% base figure from 3 years ago, we suggest putting this off until we can explain our strategy from here to get the message over. If we go now, we face being painted into a corner. Despite a really strong defensive brief, we still have 50% “ignorance levels” with three years to go. [The Ombudsman’s] first question will be what are you proposing to do about it?’

117. A ministerial submission from December 2007 shows DWP knew people did not understand the impact of the changes for them. It says: ‘One of the key issues is that whilst some women do in fact have an awareness of the impending change, they do not understand how this relates specifically to them’.

When, at the outset women were supposed to be given fifteen years notice of the change, it took the DWP from 1995 to 2009, 14 years to get around telling only some of them.

I don’t expect compensation but I will challenge any women or man who trots out the tired “information out there” argument.

*Ready the PHSO reports and surveys.*

Thank you Graphite for explaining everything and that the information was not out there..For me and plenty of other women it was certainly not.

I was born in early 1955 and had 6 years added to my Pension Retirement Age. That is to 66.

I have written about this in Mumsnet before so l am not going to repeat myself at length again.

But l am still annoyed that the know alls keep parroting that same message that the information was out there.

Millions of Women were not written to by the DWP to inform them.of the change.

Also, Women born after a the 6th of
April 1955 were never promised a Pension at 60. See the original Pensions Acts.

Also Labour kept quiet about this for years. Another one of their underhanded, shitty little tricks.

I agree too the info was available.

I had a letter telling me of the delayed pension BUT I am told that in the end the government did not want to spend money on telling everyone. So the information was out there for the majority but not everyone. The change was brought in too soon for many women and some had given in their notice on the assumption that they would be able to retire at 60 - not 62 or later.

any
many pensioners

Doodledog

Agreed, Molly. I think working age people are fed up with being the ones who have to subsidise everything. The government needs to wise up to that and somehow make it the case that people are always better off in work than not. If they don't, the populists will take advantage of public discontent, and heaven help us all.

But did we not subsidise everything - or nearly when we were the ones working?

In fact, any pensioners are still paying income tax and it only takes a little additional income above the State Pension to bring pensioners into the first tier of taxation, with exactly the same Personal Allowance (frozen until 2031) as working age people.

The only difference is we no longer pay National Insurance.

Many pensioners are still subsidising those unwilling to work.
Unable to work is yes, they need help, but there are people of working age who do not work when they could.