The changes to the State Pension age began with the 1995 Conservative Government’s State Pension Act, which raised the State Pension age for women from 60 to 65, bringing it in line with the men’s age.
The 2011 Pension Act then pushed the State Pension age further to 66 for both men and women. WASPI has been very clear about who’s been hit the hardest and who might get some money back.
They explained: “Because of the way the increases were brought in, women born in the 1950s – on or after 6th April 1950 to 5th April 1960 – have been hit particularly hard. Significant changes to the age we receive our State Pension have been imposed upon us with a lack of appropriate notification, with little or no notice and much faster than we were promised some of us have been hit by more than one increase.”
And since 2015, WASPI says around 270,000 of these women have died without getting any compensation for the pension changes they went through. This has saved the Treasury a whopping £4 billion, say the campaigners.
WASPI also points out that it took 14 years after the 1995 Pensions Act for letters about the changes to start reaching women born between April 6, 1951, and April 5, 1953. Some of these women only got a letter telling them their retirement age was going up just one year before they were meant to retire.
Others had only two, three, four or five years’ notice.
WASPI says: “Women were given as little as one year’s notice of up to a six-year increase to their State Pension age, compared to men who received six year’s notice of a one-year rise to their State Pension age. Many women report receiving no letter ever and others say letters were sent to the wrong address despite notifying the DWP of the address change.”
