Muchamiel
January 29, 2016
If you, like me, were born in the 1950s you have been robbed of up to £40,000 state pension.
I was born in 1957 and with no official notification the date I will receive my pension was moved from age 60 to 66.
I planned for my retirement and paid in 29 years’ contributions, meaning I only had to pay one more year (approx £700) to get a full pension at 60.
I now understand I will have to pay six years’ contributions – over £4,000 – to get the new full pension as the qualifying years are now 35.
If you are in a similar position to me, please join the protest group WASPI. This group are holding a protest rally on March 8, in London, to raise awareness of our plight and have employed a London law firm to take the government to court to address the injustice that has been done.
Their website is www.waspi.co.UK
Claire
Muchamiel
Dear CB News,
(Previous letter from Claire – CB News, Feb 3-9 2017)
Like Claire in your previous letters page, I was born in the 1950´s and have had to wait for my pension to be paid out after working all my life since I was 16. My husband was born in 1955, and has had to wait longer than myself, too, which has left us without a regular income, and like Claire, would like to question why the Government has witheld the monies owed to us, for years, just because we are judged to ´live longer´by some statesmen, who already are millionaires, so they, and many others in parliament do not understand how important our state pensions are to us.
We got married in 2011, thinking all would be well, and made great plans for our future together, I moved to Spain to be with him, and all was worked out by us to wind down and enjoy life together. Sadly, I learned just 1 week after moving here, that the Government had moved the goalposts (yet again) and I had to wait for the money that was due to me, which was another 2 years and 9 months away. I telephoned the pensions office and they told me that I was already over paid, and that I had paid in 4.1/2 years surplus money then. I asked if there was any chance of a rebate, but the answer was no, it has gone to the Government.
I received my pension at last, but I do believe it has been frozen, as I live in Spain, and will not get any increases or anything else from the UK. I am using the money to get by for us, but have seen no benefit from it, as my husband also has to keep working,very long hours, for extremely low pay, for his N.I., taxes, bills, etc, so we have a roof over our heads, and we use my pension money to eat. People say often, that it so cheap to live here, but if you live by the Euro, it is just as expensive as living in the UK, AND you have no top ups, or anything to help you, like pension credit, jobseekers allowance, or any benefits, you are completely on your own. We have recently put our house on the market to sell, as this is the only assett we have, and downsize to a smaller place sometime this year, so we have enough funds to keep us going until he receives his pension in his own right.
I cannot join the protest group in London, later on, but will be there in heart and mind, and hope it realises a result from the people dealing with these issues. Personally, I would like one of these people who make these decisions to come and live as we do, then decide whether we should get our dues, or delay them even further, making us too old and incapable to do anything we planned to do in earlier years, not only in Spain, but also in the UK.
By the time we both receive our due amounts, in full, we will have been struggling for the best part of 10 years together, and this is definately not what we wanted when we made plans in 2011. I think government people should be held to account of the hardship it has caused people, and made to repay what is owed in back payments to us all, who have suffered at the hands of these people in Parliament.It´s time the younger generation realised who actually has contributed to many lives they have now, and stop this constant ´blaming´ of the older folk, who just want a quiet life now, one that we´ve all earned when we were their age, give us what is due to us, and stop making excuses to delay it any more.