Waspi...

 

What an odd group the Waspi women are ...they say they are for pension equality but their claims for compensation seem to be based on the thesis that no one told them far enough in advance that the State Pension age was changing from 60 to 65 for women.  One feels a lot of problems could have been avoided if they had bothered to use google before stopping working.  

The framing of the issue as something to do with how the information was communicated is, of course, a fig leaf to disguise the fact they don't really want equality at all.  They are in fact a lobby group whose moans are listened to simply because of their sheer numbers.  However, Sir Keir has probably done his numbers and worked out that he can wait for most of them to die before paying the compensation he promised....

But then is Equality all it's cracked up to be?  In France they have riots in the streets when the state pension age goes up.  In Britain some Waspi women write some slightly angry letters to MPs.  Perhaps the deeper issue might be that women take some years out of the workforce (or at least some months) for pregnancy and families ...reducing their number of qualifying years... so quite a few of them are not actually qualifying for the full state pension and that they didn't know this before doing so ... but that doesn't quite add up either...

When the State Pension was introduced in 1909 it was for those over 70 and above of "good character" and was means tested but there were no qualifying years - you just got it ... the contributory dimension started to be added in the 60s and 70s ... I think it's up to 35 years now so I'm almost there ... whoopee!