Catalogue Number
NMLH.2024.67.1
Object Name
badge
Title
'Fair and Fast Compensation NOW'
People
Women Against Pension Inequality (WASPI), Department of Work and Pensions (DWP)
Description
A purple badge with the wording 'Fair and Fast Compensation NOW' on it.
The badge was made by Women Against State Pension Inequality (WASPI), a campaigning group protesting the way in which women born in the 1950s have been impacted by legislative changes to women's state pension age. Legislation brought in by the Conservative government in 1995 decided to raise the age from 60 to 65, bringing it in line with men's pensionable age at the time. At the time it was recommended that women who would not become pensioners at 60 as they had expected should be told 15 years in advance. However WASPI argue that women were only notified when they turned 59, or not notified at all, so they had no chance to appropriately plan their pensions or their work life as older people and many are now struggling financially as a result, either because they retired thinking their state pension would arrive at 60 and it didn't, or they are forced to work in low paid jobs inappropriate for their physical health.
WASPI was founded in 2015, when women started to come forward about the issue, and initially campaigned for bridging pensions to support the women who had not been properly notified that they would not get their state pension at 60. However, now those women have reached the new state pension age, WASPI are demanding compensation for women who reached 60 only to be told they could not access their state pension until 65. The Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman ruled in 2024 that the Department of Work and Pensions had failed to appropriately notify these women. WASPI's campaign for compensation is ongoing.
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