Pensions ‘injustice’ leaves generation of women in crisis as inflation bites

theguardian.com:

Thousands of older women are struggling with the cost of living because of a pensions “injustice” dating back years that has never been put right, according to campaigners.

They say large numbers of women born in the 1950s are having to go without, or can only afford basics, often because they have used up their savings and do not have the financial cushion to cope with soaring living costs.

Fresh demands for action from the group known as Waspi (Women Against State Pension Inequality) have coincided with a separate campaign to highlight errors that have led to women being wrongly told they are not entitled to a state pension.

This is being spearheaded by former pensions minister Steve Webb, who says some women who have been told they weren’t entitled to anything were actually due payments of more than £4,000 a year.

While these are separate issues, both have particularly affected women born in the 1950s.

Waspi was founded seven years ago to fight for compensation for women who lost out because of the way changes to the state pension age (SPA) were made.

For decades the SPA for women was 60. An increase to 65, phased in between 2010 and 2020, was included in the Pensions Act 1995, but in 2011 the coalition government pushed through a speeding-up of the process. As a result, the SPA for women increased to 65 by November 2018, and then to 66 by October 2020.

Many say they had always expected to receive their pension at 60, then discovered their SPA had increased by four, five or six years. The government did not write to any woman affected by the rise for nearly 14 years after the law was passed in 1995.

Hundreds of thousands of women say they didn’t have enough time to make alternative plans. Some say they gave up work because