1950s women "Fight Back Rally"

Thankyou, Doodledog.

I genuinely didn't know about the pension age change beyond a vague awareness that something was going to happen. I didn't know it would go from 60-65 virtually overnight, and I remember my despair when I saw it has sneaked farther to 66.

And I had never, ever heard of contracting out until I finally made it to 66, roughly two years ago, and I posted on GN about not receiving the full pension, and people told me about it.

Still don't understand it; was not told about it at the time; had no explanation from DWP, even when I wrote and asked them; my letter inviting me to apply for my pension made no mention of it, simply gave me the full amount that they said I would get.

Since I did retire, almost nine years ago, on health grounds, I feel to have been chasing the financial stability of the state pension with a butterfly net: I nearly get it, then it flies just out of reach again.

Germanshepherdsmum

I really don’t understand the point you are making about being contracted out Doodledog. Unless people were in a private pension which went bust, as mine (Equitable Life, which largely dealt with professionals) did, their pension pots were considerably enhanced by government contributions and usually private pensions can be drawn upon earlier than the state pension nowadays. So not a bad result and unless their pension fund went up in smoke they are better off. They surely couldn’t expect government contributions to their private pensions AND a full state pension!

Sorry, it's not very clear from my post, and isn't particularly important to my post, really - I was responding to your response to a throwaway comment in my first post, if that makes sense?

What I was saying, admittedly not very clearly, was that whatever people on this thread (including me) may have known or not known, there are women who expected to retire at 60 on a full state pension, plus whatever they had accrued in their occupational one, and they made plans accordingly.

To then find out that no, they had to wait for years to return, and then that they are not entitled to a full state pension either was extremely difficult. Not everyone can afford to pay £800 for each year they were contracted out in order to get the full state pension (if you can afford it, then you can have it both ways), and not everyone can afford to hire an IFA or has the knowledge or confidence to seek out professional advice.

To deny that there are women who were not aware that the changes were going to affect them is not only to call those women liars, but is also to fly in the face of the findings of the Ombudsman, who, although finding against the affected women did find that the changes in 2005 were not effectively communicated and that the decision to write to all affected women was not followed up. Where you (generic), I or anyone else was aware of the changes is neither here nor there. None of us should hold up ourselves as touchstones for what others should know, do or feel. IMO it is offensive to do so.

silverlining48 that pension difference is much more unfair than any age related difference.

My daughter is in her 40s and she knew that women's pension are was going up by one year a year from 1950 to 1955 its the women born between 1953 and 1955 that were really shafted and no one else.

That difference in pension is far far more unjust. A pension should be a pension and everyone should get the same.

Yes, I'd have been content to get my pension at 63 as well - the first hike to the SPA seemed a big one, but I was resigned to it. But having been born one year after you, I had to wait till I was 66. Can't you see why some people feel that this is unfair?

Take a class of girls in one school year. The oldest born on 1 September 1952, the youngest, sitting next to her, on 31 August 1953.

The first girl reached state retirement age on 6 January 2015, the second on 6 November 2017. A difference of 2 years and 10 months. That's an awful lot of pension income for one classmate to lose.

I was born in 1953 so was I think in the first batch of women affected. I retired at 60, got a work pension straight away and State Pension at 63. I knew this would happen, and so did my friends of the same age. Don’t you think we should be aware of what’s going on in our lives? Watch the news, read the papers, ask HR at work.

I’m nearly 65 and presently, could not imagine a life where I didn’t work, as meaningful work validates ME and I’m sure could do the same for many others.
My mother worked part time until she was 83 and her mother until she was 80. Both lived full and active lives, my gran until 94 - ma still lives a very active independent life at 87.
Contrast this with others in my experience that recently retired at state pension age. Or even earlier, as a friend at the 42 year point (aged 60)where his pension would have accrued no further value. All quickly became health obsessed, with little conversation and a poor outlook.
I know in which group I’d rather be.

Absolutely, you can’t have it all ways.

Doodledog and again being contracted out wasn't exclusively for 1950's women. All people in an occupational/private pension scheme were/are contracted out. If you have been contracted out it means you are receiving at least 2 pensions and you will be better off. Furthermore during your working life while a member of the pension scheme, you were paying less National Insurance.

I really don’t understand the point you are making about being contracted out Doodledog. Unless people were in a private pension which went bust, as mine (Equitable Life, which largely dealt with professionals) did, their pension pots were considerably enhanced by government contributions and usually private pensions can be drawn upon earlier than the state pension nowadays. So not a bad result and unless their pension fund went up in smoke they are better off. They surely couldn’t expect government contributions to their private pensions AND a full state pension!

I too was contracted out for some years. Whilst that reduces your state pension, it swells your occupational or private pension pot.
Yes, I know. My point though, is that none of us can say what others should have been aware of, any more than we can say what others can and can't afford. The implications of contracting out were not made clear, and many women (wrongly) believed that they would get a full state pension because they had paid in when others hadn't, only to find that they would get less than someone who had had their 'stamp' paid for them when it was too late to fund the difference. Whether they 'should have known' this or not is not the point, IMO.

I also worked full time, but on renewable contracts before my F/T post, just with unpaid holiday periods. I have over 40 full years, as it was the occupational pension I was barred from, not NI contributions.

I shall ignore the dig about transgender issues, growstuff. Apart from being entirely unnecessary, it is irrelevant to this discussion, and dragging things from one thread to another is against the spirit of Gransnet. Please don't bother addressing me in future, as this is at least the third time in the past week that you have been needlessly personal and I really can't be bothered.

If WASPI had ever bothered with all the other changes, I'd support them. Why wouldn't I? My birthday means I was one one of the first women to be affected by the changes.

Most people aren't aware there were also changes to entitlement for over 60s (men and women) to Universal Credit and Housing Benefit. WASPI doesn't care about the men who were also affected. WASPI doesn't care about the women who were born on or after 1st January 1960 either. Most of them will be even more badly affected.

Glorianny

Can you explain then if you are interested in equality Gsm and notgran why all men were personally informed of a one year increase in their pension age but all women were not personally informed of a 6 year increase in theirs. How is that equality?
And why company pension schemes were not equal for women until 1990?
What's equal about any of this?

You'd have to go back to the mid 90s for the answer to that one.

Presumably everybody was informed of the 2011 changes. Or are you saying that only men were informed?

Doodledog The reduction from opting out didn't start until the 2011 changes and it was included in the details which were made public. I well remember working it all out and pointing it out in a group I belonged to at the time. However, nobody took any notice. They were more interested in more interesting topics - such as the state of the Royal Family, transgender issues or whatever the latest dead cat at the time was.

I read newspapers and I listened to the news every day. There is no excuse for being uninformed about what is going on in the world.

How’s about poor reading skills, a low level of education, a lifestyle that doesn’t allow for reading newspapers every day while struggling to keep your family afloat, even, dare I say it, a low IQ? Have you just never met anyone in any of these categories?

I get a letter from my credit card supplier every time there’s a minor change to its terms and conditions. Would it have been too much to ask for every woman to have been sent a letter to inform them of this massive change to their future finances?

We’re comparing apples and oranges Doodledog. My situation was very different to yours. I worked full time for the whole of my career. From 1970 until the mid 80s I worked in public sector legal departments then moved into private practice where again I had parity of pay and pension scheme participation. When I became a partner I was self employed so had to take out a private pension. I too was contracted out for some years. Whilst that reduces your state pension, it swells your occupational or private pension pot. Unfortunately my pot was not swelled because I was with Equitable Life.
There really is no excuse for women saying they didn’t know about the intended increases in pension age. I knew, though my age is such that I’m not affected.

I was aware of the change to SRP age, but do think it could have been done a but more gradually, many, myself included, had 6 more years. I still stopped working at 60, but I am aware that a 60 year old cleaner or carer, for example, would find the additional 6 years physically difficult.

Germanshepherdsmum

We have posts here saying that the posters received letters. Maybe not all men received letters? Impossible to prove that.
My occupational pension scheme from 1970 was open to all men and women and their contributions were the same percentage of salary, matched by the employer.

Lucky you. Mine wasn't. I started work in 1976, and whereas the pension scheme was open to all, girls were given different jobs to boys with the same qualifications, so were very unlikely to progress in the same way and earn the same salaries (which would translate into pensions). I got wise to that and left to study again and went into academia, where the majority of women are on fixed-term contracts for years before getting full-time jobs. The gender pay gap in most universities is over 20%. I was not allowed to join the pension scheme as I was technically part-time, although I worked full-time during term time and was not paid in the holidays. I was 37 when I got a F/T job (like gold dust in my subject) and could pay into the pension scheme. By then I had two young children and couldn't afford to over pay. I don't know a single man who was in my situation, but knew several women.

I asked for a copy of all correspondence sent to me (using FOI), with particular reference to notification of the increase in SPA, and was told that no letter had been sent. Also, it was not made clear that being opted out would reduce entitlement to a state pension. I, like most people, glanced at pay slips, noted the large sums paid out in tax, NI and pension, but was more interested in the net sum that would pay the mortgage and for childcare.

Whether or not others think that I 'can afford' to lost 6 years of pension, or whether I 'should have known' about changes is irrelevant, IMO. People like me paid into the system on the express understanding that we would get a pension at 60 in return for funding the pensions of others (many of whom did not pay in). To renege on that and not bother to inform women is a disgrace, and to heap that on top of years of discrimination is even more of a travesty of justice.

Chardy

Most women saw little equality (in pay and/or promotion) for 40+ years of their working life, but apparently equalizing pension ages at the end of their working lives is equality. Many women of the 1950s generation were not allowed to join works pension schemes before 1975.
The notion that women would not be informed by letter about a 6 year change, while men were personally informed is beyond parody.
It breaks my heart to hear of women losing their health and possibly their homes, while some of the sisterhood say 'Well I knew all about it'. Personally in the mid-90s I never read a paper or regularly watched The News, as I was responsible for 2 kids and had a demanding full-time job.
Lastly it was men who encouraged women's retirement age being reduced in 1940.
www.web40571.clarahost.co.uk/statepensionage/SPA_history.htm

Very well said, Chardy. Good for all the posters on here who never saw discrimination in their working lives, lucky, lucky them. But trying to deny that gender inequality was widespread is disingenuous to say the least.

I was paid in a couple of jobs on a lower scale than the men working alongside me in the same job. I wasn’t allowed to join one company pension scheme because it was only open to men, blocked from another because I was only working part-time due to family commitments (I wonder what proportion of men that applied to ?).

Of course the pension age had to be equalised. Other countries have managed to do it gradually, not rushed it through with such ineptitude that a small cohort of women were unfairly impacted by a change of 6 years, and dirt poor communication. The Parliamentary Ombudsman, after a lengthy investigation, has judged that maladministration took place.

www.ombudsman.org.uk/complaints-womens-state-pension-age

For many fortunate women with partners and/or other pensions to call on (and I am one of them) this was on a scale of slightly annoying to infuriating. For others, like friends of mine who struggled to carry on with low-paid manual jobs in failing health, and for one in particular who was suddenly widowed and bullied by the system into doing three cleaning jobs while barely able to walk without pain, it was life-changing.

And a bit of empathy for others less fortunate never goes amiss.

We have posts here saying that the posters received letters. Maybe not all men received letters? Impossible to prove that.
My occupational pension scheme from 1970 was open to all men and women and their contributions were the same percentage of salary, matched by the employer.

Can you explain then if you are interested in equality Gsm and notgran why all men were personally informed of a one year increase in their pension age but all women were not personally informed of a 6 year increase in theirs. How is that equality?
And why company pension schemes were not equal for women until 1990?
What's equal about any of this?

I entirely agree notgran.

Germanshepherdsmum your experience mirrors mine and millions more women. I do think the future state pension age increases to 68 and beyond are possibly worth the younger generations protesting about before they become law. However that is a seperate issue to this one, where a group of women think they are entitled to compensation for them not keeping themselves informed. Barmy.

I agree notgran. It is not true of ‘most women’. It is not true of any woman I know.
I joined an occupational pension scheme when I started work in 1970 and was paid on a par with male colleagues throughout my career.
I too had a demanding full time job and a family, but I read newspapers and I listened to the news every day. There is no excuse for being uninformed about what is going on in the world.

Chardy

notgran I'm not entering into a to and fro discussion which takes over a thread, as has been seen on other threads recently.
I said Most women saw little equality (in pay and/or promotion) for 40+ years of their working life. 'Most women' is a majority, over half. I stand by that.

*Chardy" You are incorrect in your statement regarding most women. I am more than happy to end our to and fro discussion with my valid point being the last word.

notgran I'm not entering into a to and fro discussion which takes over a thread, as has been seen on other threads recently.
I said Most women saw little equality (in pay and/or promotion) for 40+ years of their working life. 'Most women' is a majority, over half. I stand by that.