More on KentOnline
More on KentOnline
Home Canterbury News Article
Women “pushed into poverty” by changes to the pension age are preparing to take their fight to the High Court.
Campaigners from groups including Back to 60 and Women Against State Pension Inequality (Waspi) will congregate in London today and tomorrow as a judge looks at whether the raising of women’s pension age to 66 has been handled sufficiently.
Deena Wild, from Canterbury, who will lose £51,000 in pension payments under the changes, and Ursula Corbett, from Whitstable, who will miss out on £27,000, are involved in the fight.
They are two of 3.8 million women born in the 1950s forced to wait up to an extra six years to get their state pension under a government shake-up.
The Waspi pair, along with 738,000 other people who backed a judicial review, claim the phased change of pension age - from 60 to 66 by 2020 and 67 by 2028 - was brought in by stealth and that 1950s women were not given enough time to prepare for the lost payments.
Ms Wild, 60, who runs the Persistent Pensioner blog, says she is working part-time but is also relying on her dwindling savings to pay the bills until she turns 66, when she finally gets her pension.
“I need to stress how much this is affecting people, not just me - women are stuck in a poverty trap,” she said.
“We think this was brought in by stealth by the government in the hope that once it occurred we would be too old and too tired to fight it..." Deena Wild
“I didn’t ever receive a letter from the government telling me about the changes - very few did.
“I have no problem with equalisation - I do have a problem, however, with being reduced to near-poverty without a choice or the chance to prepare for that massive blow.
“We think this was brought in by stealth by the government in the hope that once it occurred we would be too old and too tired to fight it. But we are fighting this.”
Retired nurse Mrs Corbett, of Palace Close in Whitstable, says she is fortunate to have inherited some money to live on, but that her former colleagues, some older than her, are working 12-hour days in a pressured hospital environment to make up the lost payments.
“I’m fighting this for them - they are working 7.30am until 7pm in a fast-paced hospital theatre, dealing with many cases each day. The ironic thing is many of the patients are younger than them.
“Some of my old school friends have had to downsize their houses due to the loss of money they were expecting. They were banking on getting their pensions and budgeted for that with their mortgages.”
In November 2018, the Back to 60 campaign group was granted permission for a judicial review against the Department for Work and Pensions.
