Goverment looking at compensation for WASPI women after new evidence

Yep...things certainly have changed re unemployment. Back when I had 3 spells of unemployment that totalled more than 1 year between them and one was 8 months in duration!!! things were very different to now.

I've watched dole money get cut and cut again and it was certainly not luxury living back when I was. The only thing I can recall (early 1980s) having to contend with was filling in my first dole claim, handing it in and the amount she told me I'd have was married womans rate (ie personal payment only and terminating at 6 months and no rent payment). I would have filled in the form as a single person and with no wedding ring showing clearly. Trying to remember whether I think she might have confused thinking the title "Ms" was "Mrs"....as my title has long been "Ms" and so maybe she misread it and very thankful it was a university city and quite a few women even then with the title "Ms" and so she should have been familiar with it. Thank goodness I knew what I was due for and put her right by firmly pointing out "That's wrong...I'm not married". All my rent was paid, all my Council Tax was paid, if memory serves me right all my water bill was paid and it was "my own" bills and living that was all that had to come out of that personal payment - though goodness knows it was far from generous for sure and I carefully shepherded my "redundancy" payments I'd been given in case I actually needed to buy anything much - as the dole money wouldnt have covered it!

We were only expected to apply for the jobs we decided to apply for as I recall and things started getting harder during my last spell of unemployment (the 8 months one) and I had two folders of job applications (the real one - ie jobs I would actually take if I got them) and the other of fake job applications (real jobs - but they werent right for me). Thankfully I'd read a Socialist Worker newspaper article about how to answer their "are you applying for work" by then. So whereas I knew that my work conditions are "Office job, around about 9am-5pm Monday-Friday and reasonable distance from my home" - I knew that I needed to put down "any type of job, any hours, up to a hugely unreasonable distance from my home" and do a lot of "job applications" for jobs I would never take anyway, as well as "my own type and location of job". I was so thankful that I was in a position I could manage to turn down what was an office job/near enough/etc - but I'd spotted a big health hazard - and I was able to avoid that health hazard and turn the job down and keep waiting for a more suitable job.

I do think "How on earth are people supposed to be job-hunting for 35 hours a week?!!!" I'd look at the local newspaper every day etc and whack off job applications/go for whatever interviews I got asked for and it took nothing like 35 hours - maybe 10 hours a week or so? - but very far from 35 hours. I've often wondered how people could put in that much time hunting for jobs and ostensibly hunting for others. Not to mention all the time one has to spend if the income is inadequate by doing things like shopping around/walking instead of taking a bus/etc/etc in order to make it possible to manage at all on the income.

That was the one blessing I had whilst on the dole queue, ie that after I'd kept up to date with my jobhunting I'd go off and do whatever voluntary work I'd decided on. That was a mixed blessing that a lot of my voluntary work was a couple of levels "higher" than what I ever managed to get paid for - grr! But I chose to see it as "At least I can work at MY level some of the time - though I expect I'll be back down a couple of levels once I've got a paid job again". I never really kept track of just how much voluntary work I did - but, at its peak, I expect I was putting in 50 hours or more a week.

I don’t think it’s possible to pretend to be unemployed these days. You have to show evidence of looking for work for 35 hours a week or benefits get cut. I don’t know how anyone can genuinely spend 35 hours a week on job-seeking, but that is the expectation, and you have to take any job you can do, whether you are temperamentally suited to it or not.

I know, Lilyslass. This is probably the only area where people assume that everyone must have known something just because they did. I don’t understand it. Even people who usually boast about their ‘excellent’ education, and generally assume their general knowledge is streets ahead of ‘ordinary’ people’s can’t accept that many thousands of women just did not know of the changes.

I do. I knew myself, but I have spoken to many who did not, and I have no motive to disbelieve them - I don’t know what the disbelievers think there is to be gained by lying about it. As I’ve said, l put in an FOI request, as l couldn’t be certain I didn’t get a letter, and was told that no, I did not. If I didn’t get told, that must apply to others too, and it makes no sense to expect people to happen upon such vital information by chance. In fact the Ombudsman has made it clear that information was not given in a timely manner. What more do people want? I wonder whether people would be so disbelieving if it were men who had been disadvantaged in this way.

Quite - re not given the time to make alternative financial arrangements. It was only because I had (very deliberately!) chosen an employer in my early 30s that would provide me with a job pension that I was in a position/had made the arrangements that landed up covering me when the Government did that in my mid-40's. Partly I had "seen the writing on the walls" (ie as they were on the verge of having a go even at the "unemployed against their will"). It was clear that measly £6,000 of allowed savings that was all one was allowed to have (even if it was there specifically as a house deposit) might well get cut - and it was. All these years later and it's still only £6,000 (ie no allowance for the inflation in all those years since).

If I hadnt done that - there would have only been State Pension for me and it would have been much more difficult (maybe even impossible) to retire still at my own retirement age (ie 60). Thankfully I managed - because I'd arranged that job pension and so that was where part of my pension lump sum went (ie subsidising my job pension through from 60 to my revised SPA). That approx 3 years took a heck of a lot of my job pension lump sum and wasnt available for me to use because of that.

I'm not quite sure what I would have done if I'd had a job that didnt have a job pension and think I'd have had to take the risk of finding a way for my employer to get rid of me at 60 (so dole money started right away - as a replacement for that State Pension) and then found whatever jobs I could on the side to bump it up to enough to manage on.

I would not have been a happy bunny at all to have to pretend to be unemployed when I was actually really retired and benefits had gone down from "just about enough to manage on" when I was on the dole in my 30's (the 1980s) to "not even enough to pay the bills/gawd knows how people managed" by the 2010's.

My friend was born in March 1960 and will get her SP in March next year at 66 . I will be 66 in November next year and wont get mine until the following July . When I started work in 1978 I expected to retire at 60 and to only have contributed 30 years of NI . Then in comes The New SP and I have to have 35 years . I've ended up having to pay for 7 missing years in order to get the full SP .
Where is any of this fair 🤔. I fully agree that Waspi Women should have some recompense, they simply weren't given the time to make alternative financial arrangements .

I think we do need to keep at it though - as the government does sometimes reverse things.

I remember noticing when they said they weren't going to pay benefits for 3rd and subsequent children and they did give more than 9 months notice (I counted - they gave 10 months notice) and thought "They've given enough notice for anyone that wanted a 3rd/or beyond child to change their mind about it before the pregnancy starts = fair enough and that's enough notice". Yet - here they are - years later (after some people went ahead and started extra pregnancies anyway - including a friend of mine!!!!!) and it looks as if they're going to roll back that thing that is under personal control (ie people control whether and when they start a pregnancy).

So surely they'll roll back re the thing that isn't under our control - ie the date we were born (as we can't get into a time machine, head back and talk to our parents and say "You've got to have us sooner than you did - or we will suffer later in life"). If I tried to head back in that time machine = my parents hadn't even met each other yet at 3 years before I was born. I think my mother was "dating generally"...but my father was having little to do with women until my mother selected him as a husband from across the dancefloor (yep....she looked at him and at another man heading towards her and decided "There is my husband there the other side of the dancefloor" and waited for him to head across to her). They didn't waste any time - 4 months later they were married...so they couldnt exactly have speeded up the process. Even allowing for the miscarriage that happened before me...I think they could only possibly have had me at most a year before they did.

With you on that Lilyslass. I too thought they'd lower mens State Pension Age to be fair and not go the other way - but they had their excuse, ie a man saying (correctly) "It's unfair - make it equal for both" and they had their excuse...but they went the other way and put us up, rather than putting men down.

I certainly watched the "acceleration" and thought "Thank goodness they've not attacked my exact age group again" and I was worried they'd make up some excuse to have another go at us and heaved a sigh of relief when I got to 60 and they hadn't been able to find one.

Thank you for confirming that - yep....at least some of us never got told. I'm only too thankful I was reading those financial pages of a newspaper - or I wouldnt have known either.

I can also understand why people don't follow the news and just "tune it out" - as it's all about wars, celebrities, more wars, more celebrities and it's a struggle at the best of times to actually see real news that might affect us. So - yep...I was only following it personally because of that short-term businessman boyfriend I was trying to learn from and I became a political activist for years when I learnt another country (ie America) was/is using my country towards fighting their wars and started following things more closely to see just how they'd managed to do that/how to stop them trying to do that.

I was self employed on a low income, and filed tax returns since the age of 27, paying both tax (when I earned enough) and National Insurance.

I was involved in research which needed attention to news, but did not see any of the adverts mentioned here. Three of my slightly older sisters-in-law retired at 60 and it was only when a fourth was shocked to discover late on she would not be able to retire until 62 that I tried to find out.

I kept meticulous records because of the self employment and there was no letter at any point. After several phone calls, I was informed I would be working to 62, which I thought I would manage, even though work had been much harder to get since 55. Ironically, that was because firms didn't want to take on someone who - they believed - only had a couple of years to go.

When I reached 62, with no word, I again asked and was told (not by letter) it would be 64, but before I got there, I discovered it would be 66.

I really object to being thought of, by some Gransnetters, as ignorant and inattentive because I did not receive a personal letter, and did not see the newspaper stories/adverts they did.

I'm so glad there are other voices on here, explaining why the Ombudsman's ruling should not be ignored by any government as it is a dangerous precedent.

For what it's worth, I always understood pensions should be equalised, but I thought they would gradually raise women's to 63 and lower men's in the same way.

It was the lack of notice and the acceleration which I felt was unfair.

I also felt the loss of the Winter Fuel Allowance last year and have been very sad to read the comments on this site from people who say we are all too wealthy. We are not.

You need 35 years contribution now. It's changed more than once.

I do feel for the WASPI women, that small group caught in the trap of those few years where substantial changes were made.

When I was checking the Government website, what i hadn't realised re the old State Pension was:

"Can I claim the old State Pension?"
"You need to have at least 30 years of NI contributions or credits to receive the full amount. If you’re a woman born before 6 April 1950 or a man born before 6 April 1945, you may need more years of NI contributions. If this applies to you, it's a good idea to seek specialist advice."

That, too, is discrimination.
30 years for a full old State Pension compared to 39 years (women) and 44 years (men) for older pensioners?
That is grossly unfair.

Allira

Maggiemaybe

I actually paid £4000 to buy in 5 of those missing years, otherwise my state pension would have been even lower.

If only we had a crystal ball.

That has reminded me.....I do...and I've never tried it yet. West Wales after all - so I've got that/got dowsing rods/got some very "interesting" books....hmmm.....as that was always one of my "plans for retirement" - as I just had to work so darn much to get extra for years whilst I was still working. I think the most I had was 4 jobs at a time (my full-time one and 3 part-time ones).

That didn't leave a lot of time for "interests" by the time I'd done all that for years and was still looking for Mr Right until into my 40's (at which point I gave up and thought "If I can't find him living in a city/with a pretty active life/usually working in fair-size workplaces, etc etc = he can't be here = goodness knows where he's got to but he musta got lost somewhere along the line.....).

Cariad it isn't that simple. Married me has been my husband's carer for 35 years, he had to give up work jn his 40s. I went back to work with an 8 month old baby as his employment ended then when sick pay ran out. I'd not only have been better off financially i also wouldn't have been caring for someone eight inches taller and several stone heavier than me.

Oh yes!

Maggiemaybe

I actually paid £4000 to buy in 5 of those missing years, otherwise my state pension would have been even lower.

If only we had a crystal ball.

Doodledog

CariadAgain I said that people would rather get the best of all worlds - ie pay less when young and also get the same pension as if they had paid the full stamp. If you pay less in you get less out, and it would be penalising those (like you) who paid the full stamp to give the same pension to those who didn't.

I'm not sure that pension systems can (or should) take account of marital status. Two married people are paying two lots of contributions, so it would be wrong to pay them a single pension. How did you lose more than a married woman from 'this cut'? Do you mean the change to the SPA? I lost six years' pension as a result of that, which was more than £20k - if memory serves, and based on the rate of state pension at the time of the Back To 60 court case, was about £45k. That sum would be the same for both married and single women, assuming they had paid the full contributions for the full number of years.

I wasnt saying I lost more than a married woman. I was saying that - because I am/always have been single = I've been way worse off.

Single me = way worse off than married me would have been
(ie only one income to pay for everything - eg buying and renovating houses on just my income and paying more than 50% of the bills that my house received). Single people are thousands of £s a year worse off than equivalent married/coupled-up people.

CariadAgain I said that people would rather get the best of all worlds - ie pay less when young and also get the same pension as if they had paid the full stamp. If you pay less in you get less out, and it would be penalising those (like you) who paid the full stamp to give the same pension to those who didn't.

I'm not sure that pension systems can (or should) take account of marital status. Two married people are paying two lots of contributions, so it would be wrong to pay them a single pension. How did you lose more than a married woman from 'this cut'? Do you mean the change to the SPA? I lost six years' pension as a result of that, which was more than £20k - if memory serves, and based on the rate of state pension at the time of the Back To 60 court case, was about £45k. That sum would be the same for both married and single women, assuming they had paid the full contributions for the full number of years.

This is from www.gov.uk.

I actually paid £4000 to buy in 5 of those missing years, otherwise my state pension would have been even lower.

Not if you were contracted out at any time before 2016. I was for many of my working years, and consequently paid a lower state pension contribution. This didn’t matter under the old scheme, where those years would still have counted towards my pension as well as to my Local Govt one.

Maggiemaybe

This has come up so many times on GN, yet people still firmly believe that all those getting the new pension are better off. The “new pension” so often quoted is the maximum anyone can now get, and only around 50% of claimants get that. Lots of people get more under the old state pension scheme.

Contracted out years before 2016 don’t count towards the SP now - they did count towards the old pension. I got my pension at 66, and had a letter weeks before that detailing in full my entitlements under the old system and under the new system. There was a difference of less than £5 a week for my 44 years of contributions. I was awarded the higher amount. Which is well below the full new state pension.

I'm even more confused now!!

I thought 35 full years of contributions meant a full new State Pension.

35 full years meant only 35/39th of the old State Pension for women, 35/42 for men.

Doodledog

theworriedwell

FriedGreenTomatoes2

Had I received my pension at 60, I would have received around £40,000 of pension between age 60 and 66 which, as a widow, would have been very helpful. I will break even on the loss around age 83, if I live that long

Exactly PaynesGrey
The enhanced pension will take about 14 years to ‘break even’ on what we’ve missed out on.

Many of us won’t see 83.
Saving the government of the day money.

A small amount (token) would go a long way in the acknowledgment that ‘goalposts were not only changed but then brought forward too’.

My old style pension is higher than the new one due to S2P, many others will be the same. Won't be possible going forward. Are people who contracted out and enhanced their private pension going to share with us?

I'm not sure what SP2 is/was, but I doubt it. Just as people arguing for the Old pension to be equalised with the New aren't looking at payments for SERPS and inherited spousal pensions being reclaimed, or 6 years of payments being deducted. Those who contracted out don't get double, by the way, their SP is penalised to balance out the enhancement to their occupational one.

It's human nature, but everyone wants things to be 'equalised' in ways that advantage them, and the differences in the way contributions have been made is too complicated for that. I'm sure everyone would rather have had extra money when young and struggling, payments for looking after children, then a better pension paid six years earlier when they got older. I certainly would.

Unfortunately, as long as women keep turning on one another, assuming that because they knew about changes then everyone should know, or because they now regret opting to pay less in they should get the same as those who paid more, or whatever (the permutations are endless) the government can continue to play one off against another and ignore the issue of maladministration which has already been proven in court.

No - not true that "I'm sure everyone would rather have had extra money when young and struggling".

I was defo struggling - as I've always been low-paid and single and it was the being single that really hit me financially. Looking back and I'm gobsmacked just how much extra work I had to do on top of a full-time job and how much economising and do wonder whether I'd have married someone/anyone if I'd known just how much of a struggle it was going to be financially to be single. There was many times where I had to remind myself that if I'd married anyone other than "Mr Right" there wouldnt have been a hope in heck of me being faithful to him - as I know myself well enough to know I would have kept looking for him and it wouldnt have been fair to do that to Mr Someone Else - and I would have laid a bet on it that I'd get divorced.

I've always looked to getting as reasonable a pension as I could and my own loss from this cut is somewheres around £20,000!!!!! That's a lot of money to have grabbed out of one's retirement pot - especially for someone who had already decided "Whatever they get up to - I'm still going at 60 as per plan".

I accept that many others didnt know - though I myself had found out through my own personal means (ie reading a newspaper/keeping informed). That was the fortunate part of having had that temporary businessman boyfriend in my case and trying to see what tips I could pick up from him to earn some more money for myself. If I hadnt - then I might not have read what has turned out to be so helpful/protective myself. He still turned out to be a "right little......." but at least I had learned a few helpful tips whilst he was around.

This has come up so many times on GN, yet people still firmly believe that all those getting the new pension are better off. The “new pension” so often quoted is the maximum anyone can now get, and only around 50% of claimants get that. Lots of people get more under the old state pension scheme.

Contracted out years before 2016 don’t count towards the SP now - they did count towards the old pension. I got my pension at 66, and had a letter weeks before that detailing in full my entitlements under the old system and under the new system. There was a difference of less than £5 a week for my 44 years of contributions. I was awarded the higher amount. Which is well below the full new state pension.

Thanks for clarifying. I know that many people on the old pension get far more than many on the new, but you wouldn't think it from posts on here. Obviously, there are losers on both schemes, and I'm absolutely sympathetic to people who have to manage on very little, but as you say, when people talk about 'equalisation' there are numerous variables to take into account, and I suspect that there would be many furious people if everyone got the same when some paid full stamp and others not, some retired at 60 and others at 66, some got NI paid when bringing up children and others paid their own when also bringing up children, some were able to pay into SERPs (or SP2), some inherit their husband's pension and others can't and so on. Equalisation could well mean that a lot of women on the old pension would be worse off, and it is often forgotten that by no means everyone on the New pension gets the full amount anyway.

Women have historically been treated much worse than men in the workplace, and I would guess that the vast majority of women of pensionable age would have far more pension had this not been true. That is what we should be fighting to have equalised, but I don't know how it could be done fairly when there are so many different sets of circumstances.

S2P replaced SERPS. If you contracted out your private pension was enhanced and you didn't get SERPS or S2P but you got the state pension. If you were in a decent pension scheme you did better by getting the extra on your work/private pension. I had some years contracted out and some contracted in, contracted out was better as a good pension with that job.

I'm just clarifying the mistaken belief that the new pension is always higher as S2P or SERPS means some of us, maybe many of us, get more from the old pension and if you don't well hopefully your private pension did well.

theworriedwell

FriedGreenTomatoes2

Had I received my pension at 60, I would have received around £40,000 of pension between age 60 and 66 which, as a widow, would have been very helpful. I will break even on the loss around age 83, if I live that long

Exactly PaynesGrey
The enhanced pension will take about 14 years to ‘break even’ on what we’ve missed out on.

Many of us won’t see 83.
Saving the government of the day money.

A small amount (token) would go a long way in the acknowledgment that ‘goalposts were not only changed but then brought forward too’.

My old style pension is higher than the new one due to S2P, many others will be the same. Won't be possible going forward. Are people who contracted out and enhanced their private pension going to share with us?

I'm not sure what SP2 is/was, but I doubt it. Just as people arguing for the Old pension to be equalised with the New aren't looking at payments for SERPS and inherited spousal pensions being reclaimed, or 6 years of payments being deducted. Those who contracted out don't get double, by the way, their SP is penalised to balance out the enhancement to their occupational one.

It's human nature, but everyone wants things to be 'equalised' in ways that advantage them, and the differences in the way contributions have been made is too complicated for that. I'm sure everyone would rather have had extra money when young and struggling, payments for looking after children, then a better pension paid six years earlier when they got older. I certainly would.

Unfortunately, as long as women keep turning on one another, assuming that because they knew about changes then everyone should know, or because they now regret opting to pay less in they should get the same as those who paid more, or whatever (the permutations are endless) the government can continue to play one off against another and ignore the issue of maladministration which has already been proven in court.

JenniferEccles

Linked to this I can also remember, back in the 70s when I was newly married, being advised by a couple of older women in the office to make sure I paid for the full National Insurance stamp and not the reduced married women’s one, as the latter would impact negatively on my state pension in the future.
I think the idea at the time was that women would be able to claim on their husband’s contribution for their own state pension.

I took notice of the advice and was glad I did.

I worked out I could pay the lower stamp for five years and still get my full pension. The extra money helped at the time and didn't impact my pension.