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Women’s state pension age increases from today to match men’s

Joanna Faith
Written By:
Joanna Faith
Posted:
Updated:
06/11/2018

The state pension age (SPA) for women has gone up to 65 from today, matching men for the first time.

This is just the first in a long line of planned increases to the SPA. It will increase for both men and women to reach 66 by October 2020.

Then between 2026 and 2028, it will go up again for both sexes to 67.

A recommendation to raise it to 68 by 2039 has been accepted by the government but it has said it will carry out another review before legislating.

Today’s landmark change equalising the SPA has been a long time in the making.

Plans to increase it to 65 were first announced by the Conservative government in 1995.

In the intervening 23 years, there were numerous adjustments to the planned increases but one in particular has hit women especially hard, according to a campaign group.

In 2011, the coalition government announced it was speeding up the timetable for equalising the SPA to 65. The increase was due to be phased in by 2020 but the accelerated plans meant it would happen by 2018.

WASPI – Women against state pension inequality – say hundreds of thousands of women born in the 1950s (on or after 6th April 1951) were treated unfairly and unequally because they were not given adequate time to plan for the changes.

It says some women were given as little as one year’s notice of up to a six-year increase to their SPA.

To find out more about the WASPI campaign, go to https://www.waspi.co.uk/

To find out your SPA, go to https://www.gov.uk/state-pension-age