The trajectory for state pension policy, “Taking pensions early so the young can work”, Letters, July 24, is already in the opposite direction. Nearly four million women born in the 1950s have to wait to receive their state pension, the retirement date having been revised upwards from 60 or 66 or 67 depending on their birth dates. Individual circumstances vary but it would be viable to surmise the desperate income gap incurred (up to £48,000 of losses) cannot be made up by working extra hours, even supposing this generation of women could all find work, or made up from likely limited private pension income.
I personally have lost £38,000 in the almost five additional years I have had to wait before receipt of the state pension. I was forced back to work at the age of 58 on a part time basis. This worked until ill health at the age of 63 forced a break before a return working even shorter part time hours.
It is highly unlikely that women of this 60s age group can “make up the income gap” between the state pension they would have received and the nil sum they do receive before the revised state pension age comes into play. Unsurprisingly, this issue is subject to a Court of Appeal judgement imminently on the grounds of unfair discrimination and late notice of changes to pension rights for women.
Elizabeth Smith
Woodmancote
Glos
