In exchange for a delay to the changes being introduced, a higher pension age was finally agreed on. It is hoped that the delay will soften the blow of a sharp rise to the retirement age, allowing women in their 50s time to make plans for alternative retirement savings.
With retirement put back by as much as two years, it was estimated that for over 330,000 women who were born between December 1953 and October 1954, the increase to the retirement age would have had the biggest impact on their retirement plans as they would have faced the steepest rise in their pension age.
There has been wide acceptance that changes must be made to the state pension age due to the fact that life expectancy is rising and the burden it will have on the tax payer. However, many eyebrows have been raised at the rate at which it is rising.
Ros Altmann, the director general of Saga, said: “We have been inundated with letters and emails from women affected by these unfair changes and we believe that the Government's timetable for raising the state pension age should be adjusted.
“Some even said it feels as if the Government has gone into their bank account and robbed them of £10,000.”
Conservative Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith and Liberal Democrat Pensions Minister Steve Webb are understood to be “sympathetic” to the arguments.
A report published today by the charity Age UK says a worrying number of women are confused by the reforms. When asked when they will get their state pension, one in five women in their early fifties said the answer is 60.
For more information, please visit www.glazers.co.uk
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