UK Pensions Minister Ros Altmann claims that she has been the center of a hate campaign by women's group Women Against State Pension Inequality (WASPI). The claim and the campaign comes a few days after the Tory peer issued a statement that the government is not in any position to help the women who found that their stage penson age had been increased from 60 to 65 years old.
in a story broken out by the Telegraph, Altmann says that she had been "bullied" and "vilified" by thousands of women from the United Kingdom after WASPI released her email. The angry messages had come in many forms, from tweet, trolls, emails, to outright threats and wishes that she die by cancer or be confined to a wheelchair all her life. Altmann calls the campaign unjust, as she had fought for the welfare of elderly women and other retirees all her life.
Meanwhile, Anne Keen of WASPI says that the group is not responsible for the hate campaign. Neither does it condone any attack on Altmann. WASPI admits giving Atlmann's email address to women who had asked for it as it was publicly available on her website. The organization has since stopped giving it out after Altmann asked them not to.
The Guardian's report might explain the reason for the unorchestrated campaign against Altmann. The change of SPA will cost each woman at the age of 60 a loss of 30,000 pounds. Neither does it give her enough time to accummulate more income while the pension she had expected to receive will not be given her for another six years.
Under mounting pressure to help this women find a way out of their economic predicament, Altmann made the following statement, which probably many had misconstrued as unsympathetic: "I've been looking at whether we can do anything. We haven't found a way. Obviously I feel for these women - I'd love to be able to say I've got a magic pot of money somewhere, but this is taxpayers' money. That is the decision governments have to make, and this is about equality and equalisation."
A related report by This Is Money makes these women's situation harder. Apparently, a new rule this April will prevent a woman from leaning on her spouse's state pension. All state pensions will be counted according to each person's individual contributions.
