Pension theft

JanC1 More men than women in their early 60s are living in poverty. What about them?

The benefits system needs a thorough overhaul for all working age people, which includes those whose SPA was delayed with 25 years notice.

What I really hate about Waspi threads is the entitlement of people who only think about their own group. Maybe if there had been more solidarity with all people in poverty, Waspi women would be more successful.

So many women now affected by the increase in the SPA will have had HRP credits added to their pension. I think they're called something else now - NI credits maybe?

Thank you for the info about HRP suzie. As I thought, it started well before the SPA was raised in the mid 1990s.

It really is a pension-snatch, no other excuse.

I've done it myself a few times

@grandtanteJE65 ?
I think you might have miss-posted -
This is a pension related thread

I need typing lessons sorry, I hope you can decipher that!

Mealybug youndon't know that. You could live to 100.
I know people who have died shortly after retirement, people who lived just long enough so that they got less out of a private top-up pension scheme than they paid in (no refund to next of k) and someone who died 1p2 weeks before retirement.

We just don't know. It's no good at all being resentful or envious because you may think someone has done better out of the NI scheme than you; I did wonder why all our pensions would not be going up to the new amount as mine would be £40 per week more if that happened, but then again, I have received it since the age of 60.

JanCl I completely agree about the way in which 50s women have been discriminated against throughout our working lives having an impact on their pensions. This is why I feel that we should get them at 60, and if there has to be an increase in the SPA it should be introduced much more slowly.

I have lost the full six years, and whilst I was lucky enough to be able to partially retire at 60, I am certainly not having the retirement I was led to expect, and budgeted for for years. I have paid NI for over 40 years, contributing to the pensions of those who may not have worked, but got their pensions at 60, and feel that 50s women have been discriminated at both ends of our working lives.

I started work the year that equal pay became mandatory, but my employer simply re-named the jobs, so that men were called something different, continued to get paid more, and were given access to better training so that they could move up the scale whilst women were kept in lower status roles.

I moved out of that job, retrained and changed sector, but even when I left work a couple of years ago there was a 20% gender pay gap in my place of work.

I find it baffling that other people feel entitled to decide whether or not we 'need' a state pension - we paid for it, and were promised it, so it was on that basis that we made our financial plans for old age. To pull the rug from under us is morally repugnant, and whether or not it is illegal, I think that we have every right to feel short-changed and discriminated against.

Don't worry, !maddyone*

What this kind of thread does do is encourage us to investigate further and someone who knows a lot about a subject will post and share their knowledge so it is not a bad thing.

Lost my husband at 55, I have since found out that I can claim some of his pension when I am 66 in 2 years and 10 months. I could not work when the girls were younger as their Dad worked 3 months every year in America, hence I will get a reduced State Pension. The whole pension idea is a nightmare x

I am really surprised at the tone and attitude of many posters on this thread. It's true these days it can be hard to tell fake news from facts. But the reality is that thousands of women, especially single women, are living in poverty because of the changes made to SPA. I am a Waspi woman, having to wait the full 6 years for my SP. I am fortunate, I have small widow's pension and small private pension. As a former journalist, I have done a lot of research and reading around the SPA changes. I have read from several different sources that successive governments, of all colours, did not make the expected contributions that could have been used for pensions. We hear a lot about how we are the 5th largest economy and yet our state pension is considerably lower than those of other major advanced economies. Some say that's because UK pensioners get a higher proportion of their retirement income from work pensions or savings. But previous unfair policies, plus child or parent care, mean many women have very small private pension pots or none at all. Usually they are a third the size of men's. Peter Lilly, the relevant Secretary of State in 1995 when the first act was passed, made the decision not to write to all affected women. No government changed this. Some women got a letter, many didn't. I don't know about you, but when my children were younger, I didn't read the papers much. No internet then. If an employer or private company changed the Ts & Cs of their pension schemes without directly telling members, that would be illegal. Seems there continues to be lots of unfairness surrounding pensions. Let's be supportive of each other and the different challenges we face.

grow HRP started in 1978.

There is no 'fund' as such; but people born in the 50s will have paid NI for decades by the time they reach 60. Each generation pays the pensions of the one before, so the 'fund' effectively comes in each month as the NI contributions come off the salaries of younger people, just as it did from ours. The fact that there is not an actual pot of money is a red herring, IMO - there never was, yet pensions have been affordable until a political decision to defer them was made.

When there were fewer women in work, the contributions of workers had further to spread, yet it was possible for women to retire at 60. Many of my mother's generation, for instance, retired and got bus passes etc, at 60, without having contributed much NI, having left work when their children were born. They also got things like Child Benefit/family allowance that wasn't means tested, mortgage tax relief and so on, all from the NI contributions of those in work.

I am, of course, generalising, but in subsequent generations more women have contributed, and more will be doing so now. There have been many cuts to universal benefits such as child benefit or MIRAS, so I just don't buy the line that paying pensions is unaffordable.

Also (and changing the subject a bit), as has been said, not everyone will get the full amount of the new pension - it depends on NI contributions - so initiatives to raise the threshold at which people start paying NI should be treated with caution. It might save the low paid a tiny bit of money now, but it will cost them dearly in the long run.

Men live even less in retirement than women.

Why would be helpful to hear from people who shared beds as children?

It would be helpful to hear from some adult sisters and brothers who shared beds as children.

Recent medical research tends to show that we certainly live longer, but sadly are not necessarily healthy for longer.

IMO raising retirement age is a scam and all governments that are doing so are breaking the promises implicit all our working lives.

They should be ashamed of themselves, but of course they are not, as they are not living with the results of this.

teacheranne and jillybird as teachers we paid into our teachers pension scheme and therefore were opted out of SERPS. This resulted in us paying less NI which in turn means we receive our TPS and our (reduced) SPA.

Jillybird The reason Teachers' Pension affects state pension is because, like all people in a public service pension, you paid reduced National Insurance contributions.

Younger teachers now have to pay full National Insurance (12% of salary) plus Teachers' Pension contributions plus tax (of course) and paying back student loans. We were the lucky ones!

So, you could have paid into the state pension or "contract" into a private pension using some of the money which would have gone towards the state amount. You made the decision that paying into the private pension was better for you.

I, on the other hand, did not contract out although I could, I was advised not to and took that advice. Everyone was recommended to take advice. So should I now be complaining that although my state pension wasn't reduced no one is paying me for an additional private one?

It sounds like you want to have your cake and eat it too Jillybird. If you can have the full state pension could I have the extra pension I didn't pay for please?

etheltbags You are lucky that you will receive the maximum pension. Many people (men and women) won't. You are one of the people who will neither gain nor lose anything, because the "old" pension amount would have been topped up with pension credit.

The problem for you is the benefits system for people of working age, which is totally inadequate. I have never been able to understand why people of working age are supposed to be able to cope with less than half that for pensioners.

Mealybug I sympathise with you, but I don't believe it's the role of the pension system to fix that. The benefits system is too harsh, not pensions.

4allweknow I'm not sure when Homes Responsibility Protection started. I thought it was before the mid 1990s changes, but I could be wrong. I do think it's unfair that I was a working mother, who was "opted out", yet I'm not eligible for the HRP extra years. If I'd have stayed at home, I would have been credited with the same number of years. How is that fair?

There are loads of unfairnesses which Waspi women could have campaigned to change, but they haven't. They wanted something totally unrealistic and which would have been unfair to those who would have had to pay, yet wouldn't have received themselves.

Many of the EU immigrants go back to their country of origin and don't become UK pensioners.

I actually see loads that I don't particularly want to see. I don't know about you.

I have always understood there was no 'fund' set aside for retirement pensions. The changes were to me publicised since the 90s. With the new system credits are given when a parents gives up work to look after their children. This was not for those before the changes which I consider to be unfair. Why is looking after your children now of more value than previously. Loads of women especially had no option but to stop working. No childcare allowance for nurseries etc.