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

Jane621

Not read the article. I am a WASPI and I think the 'cradle to grave' Nanny state is unsustainable. If you pay in to the system you should be paid out accordingly. If you haven't contributed then you should not qualify for any help whether it is housing, healthcare or whatever. The money isn't there to pay for people who have never put anything in. The sums don't add up. If you pay National Insurance you qualify for NHS care and a State Pension. Just my simple view of it all.

I agree, except that I think there should be support for those who can't pay in. Maybe they are sick, or disabled, or looking after someone who is sick or disabled, or maybe they are temporarily unemployed, or retraining. Whatever, I do think there should be a safety net. What I object to is people choosing not to work, but expecting to get all the things paid for by those who do. The welfare state should be based on 'From each according to ability/To each according to need.'

I think the welfare state will be rolled back before long. There are too many people taking and not enough putting in. Unfortunately, it could be that pensions will be rolled back too, despite the fact that many people paid NI for decades. The mantra of 'there is no pot' is firmly established now, as is the thought of a pension as a benefit.

Not read the article. I am a WASPI and I think the 'cradle to grave' Nanny state is unsustainable. If you pay in to the system you should be paid out accordingly. If you haven't contributed then you should not qualify for any help whether it is housing, healthcare or whatever. The money isn't there to pay for people who have never put anything in. The sums don't add up. If you pay National Insurance you qualify for NHS care and a State Pension. Just my simple view of it all.

Exactly, MaggieMaybe.

If this was an Ombudsman reporting on a consumer matter then the party found in the wrong, be it a retailer, a bank, car finance etc, then they would be ordered to pay compensation.

It is not as if the PHSO is suggesting that much and only to the most serious of cases. I wonder how many people have seen what has been suggested and the criteria?

There is money here to pay it. The National Insurance Fund is awash with surplus funds, some £50 billion, state pension that wasn’t paid to women, especially those caught up in the accelerated changes; changes that George Osborne bragged were the easiest savings he had ever made.

I was 23 years old when this all started with the 1978 EU directive that successive Thatcher governments did nothing about; age 40 when the 1995 Pensions Across was passed. I’m now pushing 71. To think the arguments are still dragging on is incredible.

I don’t think it’s helped by the different campaigns including those women who think they should have their pension backdated to when they were 60. That is never going to happy. It just muddies the water.

Of course, it's women's fault again. If only they weren't so silly

I consider myself a modern socialist but I am sick of whole working age families (that I know) thinking they are better off staying at home and lets face it, they most probably are in some parts of the country. It's wrong. I don't blame waspi women for this

It just surprises me that so many women seem to be perfectly happy with the fact that the findings and recommendations of the Ombudsman are being completely ignored. So what exactly is the point of the PHSO? Of the six year investigation that concluded there had been maladministration and compensation was due? Is this going to be the future then, that there will be no recourse for anyone who feels they have been unfairly treated by the powers that be? Because if that’s the case, it won’t only be WASPI women who’ll be expected to put up and shut up.

Yes, we knew, but potentially too late for some to begin a career of any high wage. Yes we knew but anything we earned was paying college fees etc for our children at the time, not to top up our pension.
Yes we knew, but the extra year for those after April 53 was pretty well hidden and definitely too short notice.
Yes we knew but the extra NI contributions that were slapped on at the same time should have been enough for this not to be necessary.
Yes we knew, but we are a generation that had 2 full time jobs, and are ready to give one up - it is younger women who are able to expect their spouses to pitch in to housework.

What is far less publicised is the "stamps" that we can claim for our child rearing years - many still do not know this

I always said if women has received equal pay alongside men this would never have been a thing.

Who are? Working age people? Everyone between, say, 20 and 67?

I don't think so.

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 they are the ones who do not sweep, and then moan about the weeds; they are the ones that spend on such things as bottled water, two cars, prepared meals and lots of clothes and then complain they are poor; they are the ones that expect free school meals and benefits for their larger families and then complain about a few extra pounds for a small number of women. They will realise what it is about when they have to wait until 70 to retire.

There were no plans to tell women born after May 1955.

The PHSO report makes that clear.

114. The proposed schedule for issuing letters included women who turned 60 between April 2010 and May 2015. We have seen no evidence of what – if anything – DWP proposed to do to tell women who turned 60 after May 2015 (whose State Pension age had increased to 65 under the 1995 Act).

Basgetti

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

What information was 'out there'?.

I found out in 2014 after my husband died. I was self employed and was checking my tax return. I had no letter or notification from HMRC or DWP about the age increase.

It was too late to do much about it by then. So now I am aged 67 and working part time. Partly because I need the money and artly because staying indoors drives my nuts.

I don’t understand the repeated argument about the old and new State Pension.

The old was a two tier system comprising basic pension plus additional state pension (ASP). If your employer contracted out of the ASP you should have a works place pension which contains a Guaranteed Minimum Pension (GMP) to be no less than you would have received had you not been contracted out of the ASP.

The new State Pension is a single tier pension.

When contributions to the ASP were abolished from 6 April, the rate of NIC remained the same but people were now paying into one single tier State Pension.

When someone reaches SP age, if their NIC years straddle April 2016, the DWP do a calculation to see if they are better off under the old or new systems. Many people are better off under the old. My NIC record is from 1971 to 2021. I am better off with old State Pension because COPE deductions substantially reduce the new SP.

When the rate for the new State Pension was determined for 2016 it was set at a rate roughly 125% times the old state pension plus a little for the graduated pension scheme which preceded SERPS.

The rates in 2016 were £119.30 and £155.65.

At current rates, the old state pension is £184.90 and the new is £241.30. £184.90 times 125% is 231.13.

So the better comparison to do is: (Basic old pension plus ASP (or GMP) plus graduated) V new State Pension.

The maximum ASP someone can have built or inherited is £230.54 so it is entirely possible to have an old State Pension of £415.44.

At May 2025, 758,363 people on old State Pension had a weekly state pension above £300. 9030 had a state pension more than £400 and 160 over £500. (Source StateXplore).

Retired at 60. When the proposal that male and female pension age would be equalised I thought that to mean both would retire at age 65 and given females wanted equality this would go somewhere to help achive that. Even before 2007 discussions were
constant amongst colleagues about the changes to come. It seemed to be a topic amongst women even before 2007.

Plunger

Why should all Waspi women be compensated when many admit they were informed or knew about the changes? I get the 'old' pension which is £3000 a year less than the new one for those born after 1953. As pensions go up by % each year the gap will get bigger every year. Should I demand I get the new pension or be compensated? Can't see that happening.

Knowing about the changes doesn't make them right, though.

How old were you when you first got your pension, Plunger? If you got it at 60, there is nothing to be compensated for. That age was what you expected, and you will presumably have got free travel etc from 60 as well as your pension, as well as SERPS if you paid into it.

Those on the NSP get a flat rate regardless of how much they paid in, and had to wait 6 or more years to get it, whilst continuing to pay tax and NI on any earnings before they retired. It may be a bit higher (although by no means everyone on the NSP gets the full rate) or it may be a lot lower, depending on circumstances.

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.

Agreed Doodledog but it's not just working age people who are fed up off all income tax raised being used to pay benefits but those who had to continue working past their expected retirement age in order to keep the wolf from the door while paying even more tax and NI to support those who can't or won't work.

I find comments such as the young male in the Times, totally disrespectful. My husband worked for 50 years with no work pension. I don't call that 'entitlement.' Whilst teaching I looked after two lots of elderly parents and cut my days down to look after grandchildren. What a lot of money we have saved the government and our children. We have paid in over the years and have earned our state pension. No such thing as working from home in those days. We worked very hard so I am not recognising these golden years the young gentlemean is talking about. And many pensioners are living on the breadline and should be supported not criticised .

I still find it difficult to believe that women were unaware of this change when it was so well advertised at the time and do not support the WASPI claims. I think we all owe it to ourselves to be aware of what is happening in the world and in particular in our own environment. If we choose not to read a newspaper or listen to the news or whatever then we only have ourselves to blame.

I was born in the early 1950’s and had to wait just 21 months for my state pension. However, I can not recall receiving any official communication regarding my pension being deferred. I too am on the old state pension and if I didn’t have a private pension, I would be struggling financially. We all paid in for our pensions, struggled during our younger years when interest rates were on 17% and we had no help from anywhere. I would like to know when “we had it good”.

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.

Why should all Waspi women be compensated when many admit they were informed or knew about the changes? I get the 'old' pension which is £3000 a year less than the new one for those born after 1953. As pensions go up by % each year the gap will get bigger every year. Should I demand I get the new pension or be compensated? Can't see that happening.

Mollygo.

Or won't
.

Eazybee

Who are you to say that they 'aren't entitled'?
.

Perhaps those who are saying they wish the WASPI movement would bow out or that they would rather give the money to low income youngsters receive the new state pension ?

Perhaps they would like to try living on the old one ?

Didn’t receive pension at 60 and because my birthday was one week before the new state pension was introduced I’m getting the old state pension

Every time the pension goes up the gap between what I get and what those on the new state pension get grows

HAD you meticulously planned your retirement finances around the expected timing and amount of your state pension? If you're that sort of person, you'd have been awake to the changes.

I wish the WASPI movement would bow out gracefully. I’m 68 and the information most definitely was out there. Blind and tone deaf not to
notice it. Enough already and high time to stop wingeing.