WASPI

I didn't get one

Born in 1958, I didn’t receive a letter.

Joanofarc99

I cannot recall if I got a letter but it was all over the news....come on! You'd have to be a hermit not too know, was massively talked about. Lot of people with selective amnesia hoping for ££££

Well said. I have followed the WASPI saga for years being myself born in the 1950s and so have read PHSO reports etc etc. At times I have been embarrassed for some 1950s born women who are obviously simply wanting some compo. Personally I remember listening to the Budget on the radio, sat in an office in the 1990s and groaning when I heard my state pension age was going to be increased. It was the constant subject of conversation with friends of similar age and basically we just got on with it. School Reunions it was a gripe but the conclusion was always well we are working until we are 65/66 like the guys have to. I'm much more concerned with the injustices like the Post Office Scandal and the infected blood scandal are righted and those folk are quickly compensated.

Women’s State Pension age: our findings on injustice and associated issues

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

This argument that just because you knew then others must have done too is illogical. People’s lives are lived differently.

The PHSO investigated this for over five years and determined there was maladministration. All the reasons are there in the reports and sample case histories you say you have read. Therefore you must know what those failings were and how people have been affected.

The PHSO’s recommendations for compensation means that few women will get anything. Few would be able to claim even level 3 injustice let alone level 6 but some will have. It is about those.

Have some compassion.

Just because you keep spouting this doesn't make away front the fact that it was all over the place. ££££

I did know about the first increase in age and I was prepared for it. BUT, it was the second increase, with so little notice that made a mockery of my forward planning.

Re WASPI - can I presume that all of you who were aware of the changes to state pension age will not take up any compensation (should it be offered) as you had made provision to address any shortfall

Overthemoongran

I did know about the first increase in age and I was prepared for it. BUT, it was the second increase, with so little notice that made a mockery of my forward planning.

Yes, that was Tory Iain Duncan Smith saving the government £30 billion between 2016 and 2025.

The National Insurance Fund into which our NIC goes and out of which our pensions are paid now sits with a £76 billion surplus. That's £40 billion more than needs to be there. The surplus is mean to be a short term annual contingency against temporary shortfalls in NIC receipts.

That surplus is now used to service government debt.

Nannynoodles

I can’t remember if I did or didn’t to be honest but I certainly knew about it because it was all over the news and in the papers.
I was born in ‘58 so had to wait an extra 6 years so definitely not happy about it but I can understand why it had to happen .
But what I can’t understand though is wether you got a letter or not what actual difference would it have made to most women,
How would you have been more prepared - would you have looked for a better job? Paid more into your own private pension?

I am one of the ones that certainly did not have that letter.

Maybe the difference between those who did get a letter and those who didn't boiled down to which office was actually sending the letter? Efficient offices sent one. CBA offices didnt send one?

Am so glad I read a newspaper article telling me all about it at that time. I wouldnt have known otherwise for sure and that would have been one heck of a shock. As it is I had duly thought "the ******s".

But I read that article when it happened - ie in my 40's and my first reaction was incredulity - as in "They can't do that to people as old as myself - we've already put in most of our worklife and are looking forward to 60".

As for me doing any preparation for this = I'd started buying myself extra job pension about 10 years before we were notified. That was done not to cater for being told that news in my 40's - instead it was because I didn't have any job pension prior to my 30's and so decided to get max possible job pension (especially as it might land up based on such a low income job) and the plan was to have a full job pension and a full State Pension. In the event that job pension (even poorer than I'd anticipated - when I'd thought it would be better!!!!!!!) had to do as my sole pension for about the first 3 years of my retirement. It wasnt enough to cover the missing State Pension too and I wasn't being paid enough to live on. So my pension lump sum and leftover house equity from starter house had to do three tasks in the event:
- subsidise my job pension up to enough to live on
- cover renovation work on current house
- be savings for Me personally

It wasn't up to the task and, by the time, I got to that revised State Pension Age I'd had to spend every bit of my savings and that leftover house equity money from first house and the work on my house was still far from finished. I felt I couldnt wait any longer for the kitchen to be done and to buy the couple of new sofas I needed - so I went ahead and got them (cue for every month for some time I was paying loan payments on my new kitchen and the sofas had been bought on interest-free credit). I was around £18,000 in debt! - though I'd cleared the debt from my low income years before - but the debt I got thrown into pretty much equated to my stolen State Pension to the penny. I reckon I wouldnt have landed up with any debt if they'd paid me that missing income - so my savings would have gone (ie on the house)...but at least I wouldnt have been in debt. So I just mentally detached from the debt and didnt "own" it mentally as mine and regarded it as "That's down to the government - not me".

In hindsight - what else could I do? and, if I'd known Lockdown was going to be put on us I'd have been even more convinced I needed to go ahead and at least finish the necessities on the house. So - thank goodness I ignored the "I've got to go THAT much in debt !!!!! Eek" in order to have a house that was reasonably fit to live in - whilst I waited for the stuff I could more easily wait for (ie garden revamp/replacing two exterior doors/adding a conservatory). Lockdown was miserable - but at least I'd got a manageable home to live in (if not finished at the time) and it was that little bit easier to cope with mentally than it would have been if I'd not done that.

Basically - I see distinct advantages to managing practically from the way I've been turned so cynical about others over the years - as I often "see them coming and plan accordingly". My added job pension plans would have been substantially ruined if I weren't a cynic - as there were a couple of options I could use to get myself some more of that and I looked at one of the options and thought "They should never ever let me down on either of them. It's their responsibility not to do that to us" and then thought "I don't trust them - so I'll take the option they can't be irresponsible about and none of their useless planning/"blow the staff" attitude can hurt me". The scheme I went in for was safe (I couldnt see how they could manage to steal any of that money off me basically - and they indeed couldnt) and the scheme I skirted round did steal (a lot!) from the people in it. I was gobsmacked they'd treated people that way and horrified - but at least I was saved by my cynicism from being one of them. So very thankful I had already evaluated them as "very far from nice people" (putting it extremely tactfully to avoid the swear filter).

I am awaiting my first pension payment in feb after having to work an extra six years. I do hope it goes in after my long wait! 😂

That is one extra year; the age for retirement was until very recently is 65 and I have never been able to understand why some women think they are entitled to work five years less than men to gain their state pension.
Equality for women? Then equality for men also.

eazybee maybe that would be fair if women had had equal opportunities for the 40+ years most of us paid in. However, some looked after young children, others suffered the well known gender pay gap. Such facile statements as yours are enraging. Just think about it.

I was born in 1953 and never received a letter. However the Assistant Bursar at work explained that my pension would be delayed. It was, by three years. I always read the news diligently so shouldn’t have been totally uneducated about this pension thing.

I have never been able to understand why some women think they are entitled to work five years less than men to gain their state pension.

Because it was the law and had been since 1940.

The state pension age for women was set at 60 in 1940. It was rooted in the history of the contributory state pension which was introduced in 1928 and set the SP age at 65. (It replaced the 1909 non-contributory but heavily means-tested pension paid at age 70.)

Most married women did not work outside the home so did not pay NI for their own pension. When a married man who had paid NI retired from paid work at 65 and claimed his SP, he could claim nothing extra to support his wife until she also reached the age of 65. As most men married women a little younger than themselves, that left them struggling to support two people on the same pension as a single man.

This was how it remained until 1940 when the pension age for women was set at 60 whether the woman paid her own NI or relied on her husband for support. It would have been unfair to have a distinction between the two.

Now a married man could claim extra pension to support his wife when she reached age 60 (despite paying no more NI than a single man or a working woman paying full stamp).

In 1948 there was a further change. If a man's wife was still under 60 when he reached 65 and retired he could now claim a dependant's addition for her.

In 1978 the EU issued a directive that all pension entitlement should be equalised. However, it allowed member states to set their own timetable to do so.

In 1979, Thatcher came to power. Her three successive governments over eleven years did nothing about it.

It wasn’t until after the 1992 election with Major as PM that his government published the 1993 White Paper ‘Equality in State Pension Age’ which set out the Government’s intention to equalise men and women’s State Pension age at 65. This was made law by the Pensions Act 1995.

No, I didn’t receive a letter.

My main problem with these changes is that telling someone only 3 years before increasing the pension age left no time for anyone to prepare for it.

another here who had no letter - lived at same address for 40 years too. I wasn’t aware until it was too late - got made redundant at 61 and just try getting another job at that age. Age discrimination is covertly (and not so covertly) widespread - don’t get me started on some of the comments I had….

eazybee

That is one extra year; the age for retirement was until very recently is 65 and I have never been able to understand why some women think they are entitled to work five years less than men to gain their state pension.
Equality for women? Then equality for men also.

I guess you maybe don't know that a noticeable number of women got paid less than men then?

I was certainly basically paid a "womans" wage rather than a "persons" wage for much of my worklife and I was far from the only one. There was a point where I was able to translate my exact same skill from womens pay to mens pay when I went for one job (which unfortunately didnt last long) - as there was variation enough courtesy of the fact it had traditionally been men doing it. Cue for approx 50% payrise - for basically the same skill!!!!

Another take being that some women have carried on doing full-time jobs - but been expected to do some of the 50% share of housework that their husband was due to do (ie because he did little - if any - of it). Others of us have had to do extra work on top of a full-time job - because it was only paying us a "womans wage" and so we therefore werent earning enough to be single on (but we were single - and so we had to get some extra income from somewhere or other to cover that missing partners wage helping to cover the mortgage/bills).

So yep...some women have only done part-time job or no job for at least some of the time after they got married. But others of us have had to do extra work one way or another (whether it was extra paid work or some of His share of the housework too) and that is draining.

As someone who has always been single - I dread to think just how much extra work I had to do on top of a full-time job because of that - but it was a LOT and would probably certainly cover five years extra doing the basic job. No time off working at all in comparison to a man for many of us.....(ie because of all that leisuretime spent working as well or doing some/all of "his" share of the housework as well as their own).

I was envious too of women who could go part-time or no time for years of their worklife (because they were married) - but there's a LOT of us that couldnt and got all that extra work chucked in on top of a job.

The important point is that the change should not have been made so close to people's retirement age. It's a bit like changing the terms of your insurance payout after you have paid the premium faithfully for decades and then you find out the agreed payout has reduced significantly.
Major changes on pensions and retirement age should be made at least 15 years before implementation, allowing people the chance to plan and save.

I have never been able to understand why some women think they are entitled to work five years less than men to gain their state pension

Women didn't decide upon the discrepancy any more than they decided they should get paid less or have to give up work if pregnant in previous decades.

Equal pay for equal work and equal age of retirement is all fair, changing retirement age so close to retirement is not fair or reasonable.

I did have a letter but I didn’t realise the implications of it as I had no intention of retiring - ever! However circumstances beyond my control forced my hand at 69 to retire.

I didn’t get a letter or see it anywhere advertised. Consequently I retired at 60 then could not find another job!

Did anyone. like me pay the "Married Woman's stamp". ?
I paid it from 1972 till it's demise in 77, being told only that I could not claim sick benefit. No mention of pension. Because of that gap my pension has been reduced by 50%

I didn’t get a letter but was aware because I was seeing a financial advisor about my work pension and she told me.

I was expecting to be told by DWP but it didn’t happen.

Born in 1955 definitely did not get a letter . I worked until I was 70 years and 4 months old when I had to retire due to health issues