Women's state pension age
Watch this postMy 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
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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.
Absolutely it is to do with the change in the pension age, it has been changed twice on me now.
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"
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 🙁
As long as the government are lining their own pockets they do not care about the elderly, the poor or the vulnerable.
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.
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.
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.
Hope this helps.
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.
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.
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!
This along with the bedroom tax is just outrageous.
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 .