1950s-born women are ‘sofa surfing’ claims campaigner
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A 1950s-born woman has stressed her frustration at the rising state pension age during an exclusive interview with Express.co.uk. Standing in Parliament Square at a WASPI rally, Janet Fisk, a joint coordinator of Pension Justice for Swansea Women explained she was determined to represent the 1950s-born women who have died before being able to retire.
She claimed more than 200,000 women have died as they wait for the issue to be resolved.
Mrs Fisk said: “It’s disgusting. They’ve taken six years of pension from us. We’re very angry.
“The way this Government has treated women, and elderly women at that, is just shocking.
“We’ve paid into the National Insurance system for over 40 years. The phrase ‘we paid in, you pay out’ really sums it up completely.”
The retired social worker said she was shocked to discover she would have to work for several years longer than expected after her state pension age increased.
However, she said she was in a better circumstance than many of her fellow 1950s-born women.
Mrs Fisk explained: “I was lucky, I was only impacted for two years and 10 months – that’s the amount of pension they took away from me.
“I had a work pension and a husband who also had a work pension and a state pension.
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“But there are women out there that haven’t got that.
“I know women who have slept in their cars because they’ve had to sell their houses as they can’t afford to maintain them.
“I know women who are sofa surfing at 66 years of age. In a civilised country, the fifth richest country in the world, that cannot be right.”
Mrs Fisk said she did not expect the state pension age to revert to its former place of 60.
However, she said the campaign must continue to secure “justice” for those affected.
She added: “We’ve been rallying for over five years now, and they just keep ignoring us.
“Well, they can carry on ignoring us, but we’re not going away.
“The longer they ignore us, the more we will be a nuisance.”
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A DWP spokesperson added: “The Government decided over 25 years ago that it was going to make the state pension age the same for men and women as a long-overdue move towards gender equality.
“Both the High Court and Court of Appeal have supported the actions of the DWP, under successive governments dating back to 1995, and the Supreme Court refused the claimants permission to appeal.”
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