45% of working age people not saving toward a pension at all

Again, pensions are worthwhile for everyone, from infancy. The younger it starts the less likely you are to have to worry or miss the money.

I have heard about this, work pensions should be compulsory. I am an advanced nurse practitioner in the nhs, started as a student nurse in 1984. I have paid into my pension ever since. Just before l qualified, nurses were allowed to cash in their contributions and start again, as a qualified nurse. The day after qualifying, me and my friends went to the fiance office , we wanted to cash in our pensions, but we're told, no, you can no longer do that...So glad l didn't , it was only 3yrs contributions, but because we're we all skint, we would definitely cashed them in. I also took out a private pension with Royal London. All my children pay into their work pensions and they too have private pensions. How much will be taken by tax l have no idea, unfair, paying tax on money l have already been taxed on but we are all in the same boat for that. I too will get a state pension, & l know its been said the government may not be able to sustain them...l would rescind my pensions if l could be 18 again....or even 30..

I do think it depends how you live ànd what your expectations are. My mum didn't have a private pension and she was the most well off she had been in her life when she retired. She thought a grand each month with no mortgage, no council tax, free bus pass, low bills was riches.

Never ran a car, never went on holidays. Vegetarian, always bought yellow labels. After years of waiting on maintenance payments from her ex-husband, redundancy, job-hunting then low, casual wages, a guaranteed, steady income provided enormous security for her. .

i don’t think anyone thinks it’s comfortable to live on

I did some mental calculations to stay in the (fairly modest) family home, with today’s state pension and today’s bills - one person would have about £200 a month for social, leisure, gifts, house maintenance.

Bills and food covered.

2 people could run a car have an extra £700 for social etc

But we don’t intend on staying in the family house once state pension age arrives and we have a private pension (kids well into their 30s by this time)

It’s enough to exist a very modest, very modest existence.

But does anyone think differently?

You know what, I didnt even realise you get state pension if you have a private pension! I assumed it would be means tested. So thank you for that comment! I feel stupid for not knowing that already, but it feels so far away I've never bothered to look into it.

The years of bringing up children are, have always been, and always will be, the most expensive years of your life.
I have no idea when and how the idea has taken hold that today's younger families have a uniquely difficult time compared to past generations.
Workplace pensions need to be compulsory and taken off at source. No arguments. It has ALWAYS been difficult to commit to paying a pension when there are so many calls on your money. This would take the angst away about making the decision in the first place.
I am sick of the endless bleating about the cost of living and how people are barely existing. I can accept it's tricky for a very small percentage of people, but the vast majority just need to learn to tighten their belts and cut back, a concept that seems to have become considered unimaginable hardship. It isn't.
And before anyone accuses me of being 'rich', let me tell you I've donre my share of hardship - we had a business failure and at one point I had 3p in our bank account and two children to feed. Luckily, I had a storecupboard (another thing that has gone out of fashion) and we managed somehow. You have just got to be resouceful and as long as you have the liberal left handwringing about how awful it must be and something should be done, people will continue to see themselves as helpless victims with no agency to sort themselves out.

I fully intend to stop (or at least not start) any treatments once I get to 75.

Many years ago disability benefits were not payable for mental health conditions, with the exception of a very few, for which robust medical evidence was required. Nowadays mental health issues can be claimed for as stand alone conditions for benefits like child DLA, PIP and attendance allowance. But they are, and remain very difficult to secure.

As I said in my previous post, they are not payable for anxiety and depression receiving standard treatment from a GP unless there are exceptional circumstances, which would require robust evidence. You need evidence of secondary care consultant (psychiatrist/psychologist) led treatment and detailed medical reports. Do you seriously think these trained medics don’t know what they’re talking about ? Can you give us an idea of how you ‘fake’ bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, BPD ? Because these are examples of the types of MH conditions which actually attract a PIP award. Anxiety and depression which we can all suffer from at various stages throughout are lives, are rarely enough on their own to secure an award of disability benefits.

Not to mention that once again, despite having it clearly explained, the poster is conflating disability benefits, designed to help with the cost of living with a disability or health condition and nothing to do with the ability to work, with out of work sickness benefits, which are.

This. I’m sorry but this will end up as yet another benefit bashing thread to which people who have little to no actual experience of disability and even less knowledge of how disability benefits work will inevitably be drawn. The concept that some disabilties present as much more severe in some than others and the willingness to accept government rhetoric designed to divide and rule is alive and well on MN.

This. State pension alone is not enough to live comfortably on. Anyone who thinks it is, is deluded.

And once again, PIP is not dependent on the ability to work. Having a disability which impacts your life costs money - disability related costs. PIP is designed as a contribution towards that extra cost to level the playing field of independence between disabled and none disabled people. It has nothing whatever to do with the ability to work - you can howl all you want about the number of young people out of work, it still doesn’t alter the fact that unemployment is not what PIP is paid for.

And elderly care homes are not ‘filthy’ and they are not stealing people’s inheritances. Inheritance isn’t a right. Free care at the end of your life isn’t a right either, and if you have the means to pay for it with assets which you have accumulated during your life, and which you now no longer need, then it’s right and proper that they should contribute towards the care you need in later years.

This is true. But there are somethings you cant plan for.

People dont plan to be ill.

People dont plan to be single parents

Etc

One change in circumstance totally out of your control can have massive ramifications on your ability to work, your income and the ability to save/pay into a pension.

Lots of people are just one little change away from their lives changing and would then see what its like from the other side of the coin so to speak.

There is an argument to that, and is part of the current/future problem. But this thread has prompted me to check my pension account, as it stands currently, at late 30's, I currently have about £300k in my account, so if nothing changes with how state pensions are distributed in the future i.e. it doesn't become means tested, I'll have my state pension on top of whatever I have in my pension account whether it goes up/down, whereas your friend and a lot of others will just have a state pension, my dad only has a state pension and it's not a nice way to live, and I plan on trying to avoid that as much as possible.

People can barely afford to live. Never mind spend money on a pension. We'll be a right wing banana republic by then anyway.

Would we be better off sticking our pension money in a savings instead? At least we’d get the full lot we saved.

ADHD can present differently and be more severe for some people.

Just because you know one person with ADHD capable of working, it doesn't mean that everyone with ADHD is capable of working.

As PP said, DLA is difficult to claim. A child is very unlikely get it for mild ADHD alone.

Lets tell the truth here, anxiety and depression are used to take the piss because it's nice and easy to lie! Anyone can lay it on thick and how do doctors disprove anything? They can't can they! Once you open up things like that as an excuse not to work, you'll have loads of people spinning fairytales that they know can't be argued. Many years back I knew someone who did it, he laughingly showed his cupboard full of boxes and boxes of unopened anti depressants meanwhile he was coining in the cash jobs and benefit money.

But the guy has had jobs! He's capable! He's able to work - see the point? He didn't need the money and never has! People are being encouraged to make claims they don't need to make! We've got to stop paying for everything and anything! They need to work, we need more money in elder care so everything anybody has isn't being stolen to fund care fees! These filthy care home owners wanting £1500 upwards a week whilst paying their staff a pittance and stealing people's inheritances. Stop encouraging the young and healthy not to work!

The thing is though, disability benefits such as PIP are not paid in respect of mild depression. It’s a myth which is always compounded on these threads If you have a look at the eligibility criteria (freely available online) for disability benefits you’ll find that claimants have to meet a very high bar to be able to make a claim for any mental health issue as a stand alone condition. Anxiety and depression treated by primary care doesn’t qualify for PIP unless there are other factors. Generally you need to be under secondary care, consultant led mental health teams to even begin to qualify and then, it’s still very difficult. Assessors will used everyday observations against you - the fact that you can look them in the eye, hold a coherent conversation, and even just turning up for the interview can all be used to deny a claim.

No, I was just mentioning HS2 because of the high cost from taxpayers money. Pensions should be funded from NI contributions but ring fenced, that way the pot would build up over time. Those who do not contribute by choice (I do not mean people who are ill, disabled or carers) but those who actively 'play the system ' and never work, those people should NOT receive a pension from contributions paid by workers. I heard a conversation once whilst in the Post Office queue, a chap was saying that he "had managed to 'not be offered' jobs that the Job Centre made him apply for and that when he got to retirement age he would be ok because he would get Pension Credit". Someone said he should be ashamed of himself and his attitude was that the government had a duty to keep him because work made him anxious. There are a lot of people who could work but won't, they get generous benefits and housing costs and laugh at those who do work for low wages.

Firstly, PIP isn’t paid to children under the age of 16. It would have been child DLA which switches to PIP at age 16. Child DLA is particularly difficult to claim. All children are dependent to some extent, but for child DLA you have to demonstrate that the level of age related dependency caused by disability is beyond the expectation of that of a child who is not disabled. To then make a successful claim for PIP, once DLA ends, you have to demonstrate that to a much higher standard, because the criteria for child DLA and PIP are very different.

PIP looks at the level of disability caused by the condition and the effects on daily life. It does not, and has never, assessed capability for work, and payment of it is regardless of whether the claimant can work or not. The award of PIP is intended to cover some of the extra cost that disability brings about and it’s a very difficult benefit to claim, despite the general MN attitude that DWP hand these awards out like sweets.

I had a conversation with someone online the other day who said her son got diagnosed with ADHD and when he was 15 and still in school he was given PIP money for it! Forward wind to now, he's 20, and gives up any job he tries and is sat at home on benefits! Would he have that mindset if he hadn't have been labelled as disabled and given free money before he'd even left school! My brother has just been diagnosed at the age of 52 with ADHD, he's always worked, still does and he's about to become a retained firefighter! These kids are being written off needlessly how many of today's kids will be sat on disability benefits in 15 years time!

The species most likely to survive are not necessarily the strongest, but those most adaptable to change. That is a truer representation of what the phrase ‘survival of the fittest’ is trying to convey.

At this point, the truly wealthy are "adapting" whilst everyone else is fight over the ever decreasing scraps falling from the table.

Well said. The high levels of unemployment in 16-24 year old is shocking. The problem is being compounded by Labour, not resolved. Work shy youngsters seeing how easy it is to claim for mild depression etc. No wonder they aren't motivated to map out a career. I suppose the X box is more appealing.