WASPI

I have no idea whether or not I received a letter, but I do know I was well aware I would not receive my pension until I was 62 and three months.
I am amazed that on so many social media pages there are people saying things like they were informed two months before their 60th birthday that they would not receive their pension until they were 65!
Another common belief seems to be that we all paid into our own personal ‘pension pot’, which has subsequently been misappropriated by ‘the government’. I have even seen posters ( not on this site) who seem to feel they are entitled to £60,000+, and that they have been advised to instruct their lawyers to include it in their estate!
No wonder I fear Elon Musk’s statement that social media will be the only accurate source of news, and that ‘citizen journalism’ is the way forward.

I had a letter a long time ago saying I would retire at 64 and a half. Meanwhile the dates changed and in the end I could retire early in the month when I was to reach 66. I wasn't told direstly but knew from watching the news. I find it astonishing that some women were totally unaware. If compensation is ever given we should all get it, not just those who didn't keep up to date with the situation.

I can't remember receiving notification and was disappointed to have to wait until age 66 to receive my pension but am very grateful that I receive the new pension which is approximately £50 per week more than my sisters receive who retired some years before me.

Can't remember if I had a letter but I certainly knew about it as did all of my acquaintances. It was talked about on the radio/TV, in the newspapers and discussed widely in the office and amongst friends and family. Cannot believe so many say they never knew about this.

Milest0ne

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%

Yes I worked full time and elected to pay married woman's stamp but to honest I don't see that I received any benefit from it at all. I was born in 1953.

StoneofDestiny

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.

Absolutely.

I knew about it from papers and news I remember checking to see whether I would be affected or not.

I was born 1958 and I got a letter , can’t remember when but I’m self employed and also got a letter from my accountant, with advice for adding to my private pension. I also remember reading about it in the financial pages and seeing it on the news.

Rosies21

No letter. Main newspaper items included two cartoon dogs talking?!? What an insult. The government website was still stating my pension was payable at
age 60, when I was 58. Financial advisors were still working on Age 60. So as much as people like to tell us we knew, we should have paid more attention etc. Tell that to the professional bodies, divorce lawyers etc. Who were still working on age 60. WASPI are seeking compensation for lack of notice, which has been proven by the ombudsman. No one I know received a letter.

That is just SO negligent that it's unbelievable. I wonder if WASPI have any way of getting a screenshot of that page then - ie to prove that not only did many of us not get our letters - but checking the government website then would have given us outdated information.

Surely that's got to be worth throwing that one on the table - if someone can provide that proof?

I never got a letter. My older friend retired and got her pension at the age of 60. I had to work until I was 62.

No letter. Main newspaper items included two cartoon dogs talking?!? What an insult. The government website was still stating my pension was payable at
age 60, when I was 58. Financial advisors were still working on Age 60. So as much as people like to tell us we knew, we should have paid more attention etc. Tell that to the professional bodies, divorce lawyers etc. Who were still working on age 60. WASPI are seeking compensation for lack of notice, which has been proven by the ombudsman. No one I know received a letter.

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

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.

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 or see it anywhere advertised. Consequently I retired at 60 then could not find another job!

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 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.

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.

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.

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….

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.

No, I didn’t receive a letter.

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.

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.

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.