Today In Parliament: I'm sure they mentioned WASPI but.....

Daddima

growstuff

Mamardoit

Of course they won't. Look at what's happened in the past. People experiencing more injustice have waited decades.

The courts have ruled that WASPI women didn't suffer injustice but poor communication, which isn't the same at all.

This is true, so it’s about how long we had to make provision for retirement, meaning the age 66 retirers had longer to make plans than the 60+ months ones. I think the Ombudsman did recommend compensation for the lack of advance warning rather than lost pension payments.
I’m not holding my breath.

What was the shortest notice time people were given that their SPA would be changed?

Sorry, I'm one of those people who knew in 1995 that my SPA would be 1995. I was then given ten years' notice that my SPA would be increased by another year.

Maybe people like me shouldn't be given any compensation at all because I did know. In that case, I'd be penalised for taking an interest in current affairs and trying to keep abreast of changes, especially those which affect me.

I heard a brief but rather supportive mention of the Waspi Women on Today in Parliament last night, in the context of making people wait until they’re 67 or 68 to receive State Pension, and the hope that those affected will be given fairer warning than the Waspi Women were.

Delila

I heard a brief but rather supportive mention of the Waspi Women on Today in Parliament last night, in the context of making people wait until they’re 67 or 68 to receive State Pension, and the hope that those affected will be given fairer warning than the Waspi Women were.

One of my sisters, born in 1961, already knows that she will have to wait until she's 67 for her state pension.

Oops! Just noticed the typo in my earlier post. It should read: 'I'm one of those people who knew in 1995 that my SPA would be 65.'

theworriedwell

How old are waspi women? I'm 71 and thought I was at the older end so many must be 60s and very early 70s. I'm a bit alarmed that we are all dying off so fast. I thought I'd got another 15 plus years to go.

I must go and check dates.

I'm in the first contingent of WASPI women - ie before they cut it all a 2nd time - and I'm 71. The average age of death for British women to live to is 83 currently. The way they work out these "age of death" things seems to be on the basis that the most unhealthy ones will die first. At our age they start adding years of expected life onto those of us still alive - as we are the healthiest contingent and there I was thinking "83 - thank goodness it's not older than that" - but they've already added a year or two onto what they expect a 71 year old woman to live for and I think they've put my personal expected age up to 85? I'm thinking "Agh! If I live another couple of years are they going to revise it again (yes they are) and will that mean they expect me to live into my 90's !!!! EEEk! Oh no......I am NOT going to live into my 90's - I've long decided on that".

I've long had the government sussed well enough to know it will be a deliberate part of their plan that as many as possible of us will have reached the age where we personally die anyway (ie to save themselves money). Though the biggest saving they will make is that even those of us of an age where there has been maximum effect on our pensions will only get £3,000 anyway. BIG deal - not! - £3,000 thanks a bunch for the peanuts. At 71 I'm guesstimating I'll only be due for between £1,000 and £2,000. These days there isn't much one can do with that sort of payout. I'll only take mine on principle of getting what I can of my money back from them - but it wouldnt even be enough to cover a good holiday - so "Thanks for nothing" is my take on that.

So you want to look up actuarial tables. It's something like that where I put in what age I am now and found they'd added a bit for me personally and I tried putting in a variety of ages and it came up with a different "death age for me personally" according to what age I put in as my current one.

Not sure how I came by it but it wasn't there some information about no matter the decisions by a Judge, Ombudman were in favour of WASPIs there was no legal obligation on the government to pay anything. Don't hold your breath.

Yip....same as Post Office Scandal. Prolong and delay it long enough and they'll shuffle off the planet

CariadAgain

theworriedwell

How old are waspi women? I'm 71 and thought I was at the older end so many must be 60s and very early 70s. I'm a bit alarmed that we are all dying off so fast. I thought I'd got another 15 plus years to go.

I must go and check dates.

I'm in the first contingent of WASPI women - ie before they cut it all a 2nd time - and I'm 71. The average age of death for British women to live to is 83 currently. The way they work out these "age of death" things seems to be on the basis that the most unhealthy ones will die first. At our age they start adding years of expected life onto those of us still alive - as we are the healthiest contingent and there I was thinking "83 - thank goodness it's not older than that" - but they've already added a year or two onto what they expect a 71 year old woman to live for and I think they've put my personal expected age up to 85? I'm thinking "Agh! If I live another couple of years are they going to revise it again (yes they are) and will that mean they expect me to live into my 90's !!!! EEEk! Oh no......I am NOT going to live into my 90's - I've long decided on that".

I've long had the government sussed well enough to know it will be a deliberate part of their plan that as many as possible of us will have reached the age where we personally die anyway (ie to save themselves money). Though the biggest saving they will make is that even those of us of an age where there has been maximum effect on our pensions will only get £3,000 anyway. BIG deal - not! - £3,000 thanks a bunch for the peanuts. At 71 I'm guesstimating I'll only be due for between £1,000 and £2,000. These days there isn't much one can do with that sort of payout. I'll only take mine on principle of getting what I can of my money back from them - but it wouldnt even be enough to cover a good holiday - so "Thanks for nothing" is my take on that.

So you want to look up actuarial tables. It's something like that where I put in what age I am now and found they'd added a bit for me personally and I tried putting in a variety of ages and it came up with a different "death age for me personally" according to what age I put in as my current one.

If you weren't affected by the 2nd change you weren't one of the big losers. I'm also 71 but was hit by the second change so probably close to 2 years older than you by the time I got my pension.

I certainly don't expect any compensation for the first change, it was well known years in advance. The 2nd change is more problematic as we didn't get much notice so I would understand people expecting some help with that.

21theworriedwell

I agree. I was one of the last of the original stagger. Took my state pension at 62. It's the women from 1953 to 1959 that have suffered the most. Even so ignorance is only half the excuse because I told my daughters all about it and they remember me telling them in the 90's. I think the 53-59 maybe up to 1960 births should receive so thing but no way will they get what they think they should. To be honest it wasn't a surprise once they increased the men to 65 it was only a matter of time.

growstuff

theworriedwell

So the oldest are 74 and youngest are 64. The way people talk it's like we are more like late 70s and 80s. Also the older ones only had to wait a fairly short time as it didn't just change overnight but was staggered. The second change was the bigger issue in my view.

I agree with you. I knew from the mid 1990s that my pension age would be 65 - the same as men. I remember when the second change was announced and my heart sank. By then, I was already starting the countdown to retirement and I felt really down about having to struggle on for yet another year.

I too knew about the first change but was never notified about the second one apart from hearing about it on the news - no official communication. I received my pension less than 3 weeks before my 66th birthday as I was born in 1954 so part of the 'staggered group. Thankfully I was still well enough to carry on working and continued for a short while after I got my state pension as I didn't want to retire during the pandemic without a sendoff! I left at the half term after returning to work in theSeptember. One of my colleagues is still working there at 68+ as there is no longer a requirement to leave when you reach retirement age like there used to be. I suspect there will not be compensation coming any time soon though it would be nice if it did. However the injustices suffered by the subpostmasters is so much greater and should definitely be dealt with more urgently.

I was born in 1957 and received my pension at 66. I was not told of any change to my pension age at any point. I did receive a letter from the DWP when I turned 58 in 2015 that stated clearly that I would receive my pension at 60. Obviously incorrect information, sent to me from the department that should have known that my pension age had been changed in 1995.
I have always read newspapers (more than one) daily and listened to the news, but was unaware of either change to the pension age.
I agree with it being equalised, but I also remember that it was definitely not equal when I joined the workforce. Women were often not allowed to pay into work pension schemes at all or not allowed to pay a full contribution. Our wages could be legally lower than men doing the same job and some (usually higher paid jobs) were not available to women. We were not equal until it saved them money to make it so.
I retired at 60 with a small workplace pension. I wouldn’t have done so if I had known, I would have lowered my hours, as I was not able to manage the full time work due to health and caring responsibilities. As it was, I found no one around here would employ a 60 year old willing to do almost anything and my former employer had already filled my post before I left.

Subpostmasters is much worse and I also think the victims of the blood scandal deserve their compensation paid as quickly as possible.

I worked till just before my 70th birthday, I knew for years the age was changing and everyone I knew in my age group knew. I don't understand how people didn't know.

Yes the post office and blood is far worse as they really suffered. We are just saying they we did not know in time so did not have enough time to plan. I must admit I knew years before so really have no right to complain. The change had to be made as it was illegal to discriminate against men and force them to work longer than women.

I'm not really getting the reasoning on "men put up to 65"??

As I've always known from birth that women were 60 and men were 65. Men's retirement age has been 65 as long as I've known it.

I know that I'm one of the ones that had read the newspapers/did realise they were going to do this to me as soon as they had decided it. I don't think I should be penalised by losing out on anything we can manage to get of what's due because I knew. Put like that - I could really be clocked one personally because I "knew" years before they'd even decided that. I was still in my 30's when I realised chances are the Government would do that at some point - though it wasn't until my 40's (some years later) that they actually brought that cut in. Should I be penalised for having a nature that's more cynical and/or more intuitive than most and so I made extra arrangements for them pulling that stunt years before they announced they were going to do so? After all - I saved them loads of money on the fact I never got married persons tax allowance, child benefit money, a degree course at university (back when grants still existed and loans didn't).

Though I certainly do agree obviously that the Post Office situation is a scandal and being compounded by how long the Government is playing one of their favourite tactics (ie the "drag it out as long as possible" one). I also sympathise with those that received faulty blood transfusions in the past and with those that will find at some point over the next few years that they also received faulty blood transfusions that have made them ill (ie which I know because a friend of mine is having to accept blood donations regularly now and asked for "clean" ones only - ie only from people who've not had the Covid jabs - and they refused and said they don't separate out "jabbed" and "unjabbed" blood) and they then refused offers of blood from unjabbed people he knows.

To say our blood is unclean if we've had COVID jabs is rude.

Is that really how some people are viewing blood donations from vaccinated people cariad? they think it's 'dirty' blood and would prefer not to be given it? I find that insulting and outrageous

I don't think there is any suggestion that women should be compensated differently depending on whether they knew about the plans or not, or whether they are in WASPI or not.

If there is to be compensation it has to be across the board, as whether we knew or not is not the fault (or achievement) of the government, but about the circumstances of the individual women.

Is the thought that those who knew might somehow be singled out to be refused compensation what is behind the perception that some women are lying about not being aware until too late? I've always wondered why there are those who refuse to believe that just because they knew about it meant that everyone else should have done.

Doodledog

I don't think there is any suggestion that women should be compensated differently depending on whether they knew about the plans or not, or whether they are in WASPI or not.

If there is to be compensation it has to be across the board, as whether we knew or not is not the fault (or achievement) of the government, but about the circumstances of the individual women.

Is the thought that those who knew might somehow be singled out to be refused compensation what is behind the perception that some women are lying about not being aware until too late? I've always wondered why there are those who refuse to believe that just because they knew about it meant that everyone else should have done.

I don't refuse to believe anything, but a survey was done about 20 years ago which seemed to indicate that about 70% (from memory) of those women who were going to be affected did know.

sassenach512

Is that really how some people are viewing blood donations from vaccinated people cariad? they think it's 'dirty' blood and would prefer not to be given it? I find that insulting and outrageous

This reminds me of a 'friend' of my mother, who was due to have a hip replacement. Before the op, she had her own blood saved to be used if she needed a transfusion, in case 'black blood' (ie blood from black people) was used. It's difficult to understand how some people can be so ignorant.

In the current financial climate there is no way they are going to acknowledge that the government at the time was wrong. If Labour were still in opposition they would be bringing it up at ever opportunity as it wouldn't be their problem to find the cash.

Agree 62Granny - we are never going to see any compensation, they are just not interested or tbh have the money to do this with which is extrememly frustrating for us WASPI women.

I don't refuse to believe anything, but a survey was done about 20 years ago which seemed to indicate that about 70% (from memory) of those women who were going to be affected did know.
I'm not sure of your point. If one in three people didn't know, according to official figures, then that was a communication failure of the first order, and in no way suggests that people are lying. I wasn't saying you personally thought that women were lying, but that there have been many posts on here from people who very definitely suggested that. The word 'liar' may not have been used, but 'I can't believe that people didn't know' amounts to the same thing.

I did know, but I was not informed. Years later, I couldn't be sure whether I had been or not, so I submitted a FOI request and was told that no letter had been sent. I don't remember how I found out.

sassenach512

Is that really how some people are viewing blood donations from vaccinated people cariad? they think it's 'dirty' blood and would prefer not to be given it? I find that insulting and outrageous

I agree, but anyway, how would they know? I have never been asked what immunisations I’ve had, just when the most recent one of any kind was.

What on earth are people expecting to happen if they are given blood from a vaccinated person?

Doodledog

*I don't refuse to believe anything, but a survey was done about 20 years ago which seemed to indicate that about 70% (from memory) of those women who were going to be affected did know.*
I'm not sure of your point. If one in three people didn't know, according to official figures, then that was a communication failure of the first order, and in no way suggests that people are lying. I wasn't saying you personally thought that women were lying, but that there have been many posts on here from people who very definitely suggested that. The word 'liar' may not have been used, but 'I can't believe that people didn't know' amounts to the same thing.

I did know, but I was not informed. Years later, I couldn't be sure whether I had been or not, so I submitted a FOI request and was told that no letter had been sent. I don't remember how I found out.

So 7 in 10 women would be receiving something to which they're not entitled because they did know.