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Women's state pension age

My wife was born in January 1954 which means she has been made to work over 5 years longer than expected to draw state pension. And since the first increase an extra two years. Many of her peers born slightly earlier have to wait considerably less time. She knows that a rise in age is needed but the second rise is unfair on women like her. There is an organisation Women against state pension increase WASPI. if you agree with the points please consider looking on the website and support fairness


Created By on 16/09/2016

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paisley pattern
22nd Dec 2016 17:23:27
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I will get superannuation when I'm 60, but it would not be enough to live on. What I've wondered is that if I did decided to leave work after 60, but before I'm 66, then would I have to go to the Job Centre and sign on until I'm 66? I've never claimed an allowance in my life. It seems ludicrous if this is the case. Does anyone know if this would be the case? I've tried to Google it to no avail.
Response from jeanmark made on 22nd Dec 2016 19:18:44
My husband took early retirement when he reached 60 but is unable to draw state pension until he is 66. When he went to the Job Centre he was told he didn't have to 'sign-on' if he wasn't claiming state benefit and would receive his full pension at 66 if he had paid a full NI stamp for 30 years (now 35 years).

Hope this helps.
Response from Georgie Girl made on 22nd Dec 2016 20:41:45
Thinking your husband's situation would be different jeanmark as it was his choice to take early retirement, It must be a different story for those who have to work yet maybe can't find a job at 60 ish.
Response from jeanmark made on 23rd Dec 2016 15:42:15
I wouldn't argue with that Georgie Girl but I was just trying to help with answering a question that had been asked which was "... would I have to go to the Job Centre and sign on until I'm 66"....

My husband is still not able to draw a state pension for another 5 years but was concerned he would have to continue to pay NI contribution to guarantee his full state pension, the answer to that was no as he had paid his NI for over 30 years (now changed to 35 years). This also meant he did not have to 'sign on' if not claiming benefit.
Response from Canalletto made on 27th Jan 2017 16:04:21
Yes Paisley Pattern you would have to go to the job centre - even if you are giving up work for ill health and then depending on your savings and private income (works pension ) they would decide if you have and money due . You have to do assessments etc it's not much fun trying to get some money that is the equivalent sum if you had got your pension !
[deleted]
12th Oct 2019 12:22:40 (Last activity: 25th Nov 2019 18:15:38)
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[deleted]
Response from GeorginaW6 made on 25th Nov 2019 18:15:38
My goodness stop feeling sorry for yourself, You made tour own choices .Life was hard for most people then.This has nothing to do with the state pension. I received my state pension at 60 and need pension credit to top me up ,this means regular assessments ,its what we have to do if we arn't wealthy .Please what has a job interview got to do with pensions at 60. Stop whingeing
GeorginaW6
24th Nov 2019 13:05:57
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Do the ladies realize that to get the pension backdated 5 years a lot of things will be difficult to sort out. If they werenot working they will have been on benefits ,they cannot have both so th benefit may need to be paid back .If they were working and paying income tax then the pension will be taxable and need to be paid (backdated).I believe the only people to benefit from it is women that have been living with a husband and not worked for many years. Think of the hassle involved.Come on ladies ,it was unfair for men to wait for 65 ,a wrong has been righted .Dont forget the new pensioners receive £40 a week more than me and the older pensioners ,do you want to go back 5 years and lose the extra £40 ?We could kick off because this is unfair ,but it has been to the High Court and we have to accept that changes needed to be made .Think hard about what is best .
Elmosmum
17th Sep 2016 12:35:46 (Last activity: 11th Jun 2019 11:53:08)
1
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meant to say can't even get a buss pass yet
Response from Soupy made on 11th Jun 2019 11:53:08
Bus pass at 60 would help many of us .. whilst still being able to enjoy travel etc .. for those without or can't afford a car .. oh don't get me started!!!
Treehugger1
17th Sep 2016 19:21:27 (Last activity: 30th Jan 2019 00:21:52)
1
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As with everything it's all about cost to the government and there's no way they are going to change anything now. We early aged 60's are stuffed and as for women being equal to men, have men of the same age given birth to and raised children as well as working? I think not and please don't tell me that they have helped raise those children, they may have played with them when it suited but who was it that was up all hours of the night feeding and comforting while on their knees with exhaustion?

Also, men don't enjoy the delights of the menopause when there are enormous physical changes which certainly make make many feel less fit and able.

Glad I got that off my chest but it's just a shame we can't change it. Keep on working girls, ain't it grand to be equal 🙁
Response from Kazzaj made on 17th Sep 2016 19:58:39
I quite agree I was born in 59 and have to work till I'm 67 at the moment, it's ridiculous really they say they can't afford the pension payments but there are plenty of young people not working and living on benefits! how fair is that! I think we are an easy target
Response from JanW64 made on 30th Jan 2019 00:21:52
It has been 3 months since started my claim, I left work due to my health at the end of Sept. I have had a work capability assessment and an appointment with a long winded form to fill in. Still waiting a decision. Having to buy food with what little savings I have.
As long as the government are lining their own pockets they do not care about the elderly, the poor or the vulnerable.
[deleted]
5th Sep 2018 18:00:39 (Last activity: 1st Dec 2018 09:11:22)
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[deleted]
Response from JanW64 made on 26th Nov 2018 10:31:42
I really sympathise, i am in the same situation, born in 1954, retirement age of 66.
I have worked all of my life, i had a horrendous divorce in 1992 and have managed my own since. Five years go I was diagnosed with a heart condition, on the right medication I still worked but part time. Since then I have steadily reduced my week until I could not even cope on 3 mornings a week. I left work in September feeling exhausted, Although for the last 3 years I have been treated for Sleep Apnea it has now been discovered that the treatment was to the wrong sleep Apnea apparently my brain does not tell me to breathe while I m asleep so I was constantly waking up due to lack of oxygen. I am now on a ventilator for 9 to 10 hours a night. The job centre has no intention of getting me to look for work, but to get assessed I need my GP to confirm via a Fit Note what is wrong with me. He has refused to do this and said there is nothing physically wrong with me. 3 different agencies have told me to put in a complaint. I am now suffering from severe depression. Unable to work unable to prove I am ill, with worry that I will have to cancel my claim if I am forced to look for work. I have a 92yr old mother who I have to keep the news from as I do not want her to worry. It appears the government wants people to die before they retire so they will save more money.
Women in our age bracket have had the retirement age raised twice. There must be an awful lot of propping our situation and it is covered up. I would happily take a reduced pension, but my local MP has said no chance of that happening.
Response from ArchieUK made on 28th Nov 2018 10:44:50
i deply understand your medical problem and have great sympathy, but, I am lost to what it has to do with the state pension age.
Response from JanW64 made on 30th Nov 2018 15:04:47
If I was able to retire at 60, as I expected to do I would be able to cope better with health problems that have occurred since I turned 60. I could care for my elderly mother without having her worry about having to go into a care home. The older you are there is a bigger risk of ill health. Having to struggle at work with ill health knowing how difficult it is to get financial help when forced to leave not being able to get your state pension even after you have worked for almost 50yrs.
Absolutely it is to do with the change in the pension age, it has been changed twice on me now.
Response from JanW64 made on 1st Dec 2018 09:11:22
Thank you MaryPoppins
It appears women in our situation understand, some men apparently do not. I was planning for my retirement age 60, my company retirement age was 60. I did not even know the age had been changed and i was affected until I checked on line for my pension date. Then it was changed again and another 18 months added.
People may be living longer but in what state. Campaigns for women caught up in this fiasco to be able to retire before age 66 on a reduced pension, according to my MP, is NOT going to happen. How will it save the government money when affected people are costing the NHS more, having increased mental health problems, are not able to care for elderly relatives again costing them more as they have to go into care homes unnecessarily and making their lives miserable. Plus when we are forced to leave work early we have to claim benefits which we have never done all our lives just to feed ourselves. Maybe married women can be supported by their partners. Single or divorced women living on their own don't have that luxury.
Hi how many are dying before they get to retire. Is this what the government want so they don't have to pay any money at all. What did Scrooge say ".......and decrease the surplus population"
ceruela
26th Mar 2018 20:31:32
2
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Hi, I was born in 1956 so am one of many women affected by this change as well. I found out about it years ago, I can't remember how, but I remember feeling sick to my stomach about it. I have worked all my life as a teacher and brought up my two children alone with no financial support from their father. Working in this profession was exhausting, often doing a 55 hour week and feeling I was getting burnt out. I knew I could not continue doing this past sixty and felt So angry being stuffed by the government in that way. They could have raised the pensionable age gradually, like the Spanish government did.
As I found out early on, I made plans, left my job and left England for good. Fortunately, I now run my own business which gives me a living wage without a lot of hard work. I understand a lot of women can't do that and that they must feel very angry and bitter at such unfair and unjust treatment, as I still do. It seems unlikely that anything will change but still worth trying for with WASP.
Silverpostie
27th Jan 2017 16:35:18 (Last activity: 11th Jul 2017 00:13:16)
1
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WASPI Women Against State Pension Inequality The aim of the Waspi campaign is to seek transitional help to women born in the 1950’s, many of whom have had 6 years increase in their State Pension Age.
The Department for Work and Pensions has confirmed that it did not write to women affected by the 1995 Act until 14 years later, in 2009. However, these letters were halted in 2011 because the Government was planning to make further increases. So only women born up to 5 April 1953 were written to in that round of letters. DWP started writing to women born after 6.4.53 in 2012 and I received my letter in 2015 aged 60yrs and 2mths that my SPA would be 2021 at age 66 years . There are approximately 2.6million women in the country affected by these reforms and many are suffering severe financial hardship.

There is cross party support for the call for transitional arrangements and an All Party Parliamentary Group was established in May to consider options. Bindmans Solicitors have been instructed to take the DWP to court over Maladminsitraion, following a very successful Crowdfunding appeal

I believe that the significant loss of income to women who were expecting their pensions at 60 will have an adverse effect on our local areas and the country as a whole. There will be less disposable income and there are many women having to sell their homes, claiming housing support and/or finding they need to claim ESA or JSA in their 60s to survive. Not all women are able to continue working due to ill health, caring responsibilities for parents and/or grandchildren, redundancy, etc.

If you are affected by this most cruel injustice please visit www.waspi.co.uk and join your local group.
Response from Fruitcake13 made on 11th Jul 2017 00:13:16
Silverpostie, I've only just come across your post here and I'm still blazing mad about this injustice perpetrated on women born in the 1950s. I too have to wait for my pension until I'm 66 and, like so many other women, I was not aware of this until quite a while after my 60th birthday when I began to wonder why I had heard nothing about my pension. The Government evidently felt that there was no need to actually inform those affected.

My now soon-to-be ex husband chose to join the RAF just a few years after we married, we had two small children by then, one a toddler and the other a very young baby, so I mostly wasn't working at that time. I did work while pregnant with my first child, but in those days you had to leave once you reached the 6 months pregnant stage. Once my unexpected and unwished for life as a military wife started, we were moved around constantly for the many years of his military service, often to outside of the UK, or to remote places in the middle of nowhere with scant or no public transport, and always with no say in where we were sent to. Consequently, it was almost impossible for me to get work, we had a car, but husband needed it to get to and from work, and no matter how hard I tried, and if I did manage to find some (very menial) job, within a short time we were posted on again and I was back to square one. My work record was appalling compared to that of civilian people, so after those years were up, it was still very difficult for me to find any employer prepared to even give me a chance, so I applied for any work I could, no matter how uninteresting, beneath my capabilities, or badly paid it was. All to very little avail, hardly any employers seemed to want to give me a chance, or refused to employ military spouses, but I did manage to find some work (mostly only part time, as I couldn't afford to be fussy) for an overall total of about 8 years of that time period.

I then discovered that my husband was having an affair with an American woman, using his military trips to the US as a cover. I found out when I called him while he was in the US to tell him that our son had had a serious accident and was in hospital having surgery. During the course of the call, this woman suddenly grabbed the phone from his hand and bluntly informed me of the affair. It turned out that it had been going on for some time. Naturally, I was very upset at the time, but we survived it.

Some years later, he embarked on another affair, this time with a local woman here in England. I figured it out pretty quickly this time, and he admitted it straight away, so I left him. By this time, I had been diagnosed with a serious bone and joint problem in my legs, which had been present since birth, but which I had been totally unaware of, despite it causing me intense pain and difficulty in walking. Daft as it sounds, I thought everyone's leg bones hurt when they walked, because I'd never known anything else. I have since had major corrective surgery on one leg, but am still waiting for the NHS to fix the other leg. I can only walk for a short distance, and some days can barely walk at all, when the pain is particularly intense. I have applied for loads of jobs, but to no avail, as they consider me either too old (at 61) or too decrepit, so I do a voluntary job, which is mostly part time now, and which I've been doing successfully for over 10 years.

Bottom line, I will have a very meagre pension to live on anyway, and now I have to wait till I'm 66 for the pittance to arrive.
Georgie Girl
22nd Dec 2016 18:53:49
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This is what I was wondering mentioned below, I am not in this situation but it is as you say PP a question that needs to be answered.
Georgie Girl
22nd Dec 2016 17:09:14
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What should have happened really is that both men and women could retire if they wished when they were 60.
ArchieUK
17th Sep 2016 07:47:06 (Last activity: 22nd Dec 2016 17:07:35)
-1
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Please blame the women of this country, they were the one's who shouted for equality or did they mean selective equality that is just pick out the bits where I like that bit, but ignore the rest, that seems to be a common point.

As for starting work at 14 years old, that went before you were born, I was born in 1940 and in 1955 was the first time I was entitled to work in a proper job.

Both my wife and I knew at least 20 years ago that if this equality thing came that the state pensionable age would alter so we were ready for it.
Response from Dysone made on 20th Sep 2016 12:08:49
I do wish men would stop saying we wanted equality as if its a privilege - as a 1955 woman I was born into equality as a female British citizen. It was the men who ran the country that decided we would have selected equality, we wanted our natural equality recognised by law - that was achieved. Don't have a problem with retirement age being the same as men, its how the changes are implemented and the goal posts constantly being changed.

I congratulate you on being so clever, informed and having the brilliant foresight to know 20 years ago that in 2011 the government of the day would raise the retirement age ...... again!
Response from Georgie Girl made on 22nd Dec 2016 17:07:35
Actually I rather agree with you Archie, equality and the consequences aren't as possibly contemplated.
Georgie Girl
22nd Dec 2016 17:02:18
1
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It is an absolute disgrace, I can't imagine how I would have felt if this had happened to me, so does it mean all the women who have not worked for some time have to actually sign on until they are of retirement age? Basically they are hoping people will die younger from all the stress so pensions don't have to be paid at all.

This along with the bedroom tax is just outrageous.
paisley pattern
22nd Dec 2016 14:15:06
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I'm 58 and will have to work until I am 66 and it really annoys me. You don't really think about these things until you are older. No one knows what kind of health problems you will have by that time and you just hope that you will be fit and able to enjoy your retirement. I have signed an online petition to reduce the age back to 60, but doubt if it will make any difference. I've never been out of work in 40 odd years and it just seems as though retirement will never come. It's so unfair. I am on my own and therefore I can't afford to retire any earlier.
Sparkle15
30th Sep 2016 23:38:51
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Hi i will be 61yrs in Janurary and have to wait to get pension 2022
Canalletto
30th Sep 2016 20:47:28
1
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Im surprised that there is not more on silversurfers to support the 1950s women who have been made to wait 6 years for their pension , its been so unfair the way it has been implemented with my friends a couple of years older waiting a couple of months and I have to wait 6 years with no notice , so unfair .
Elmosmum
17th Sep 2016 12:35:04
1
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I was born in September 1955 so I am stumped too, can even get a bus pass yet
Agedbird
16th Sep 2016 22:52:27 (Last activity: 16th Sep 2016 22:54:10)
0
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I quiet agree I was born February 1954 and have to work until I'm 55 now had I been born in 53 I would have retired earlier .. Having been at work since I was 14 it seams now a long time to wait ... I will look at the website .
Response from Agedbird made on 16th Sep 2016 22:54:10
Should say 65 sorry
BirdieVal
16th Sep 2016 14:42:01
0
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I quite agree with you on this injustice Paul. My friends birthday is

4th April 1953 and has had her full state pension since February 2016
My birthday is
3rd April 1954 and I don't get a penny until September 2019

How can this be fair??? I follow WASPI , signed the petition, written to my MP,
watched the debates , and got friends to sign both the on line petition and the paper one.

The campaign seem to have stalled and I wonder if we will ever get the justice we deserve after we have worked all our lives, looked after grandchildren and elderly parents. Unfortunately I think a lot of people don't know about this until
they are directly affected .

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