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

I think that is a fair point, but not everyone on NMW is employed by some international company that rakes in £millions.
I am not sure of the exact figure, but there is a huge percentage of NMW employees that are employed by SME.
As an example, my DM has a cleaning company, and most of her staff are on £1+ over NMW... which is good for a cleaning job. But she does not take home much more than that herself. Her staff are on UC, not because of the wage, but because of the hours.

My parents both died before retirement, which frankly was the best financial planning they ever did. (We had about enough ti cover the funerals, that was it.)

But neither was on a huge income before death, so they wouldn't have been well off in retirement.

I have mostly worked in IT, and I think I'll be okay, though I still rent in my 50s. I won't be retiring early - but that's what a friend thought who can't work after a traffic accident in his 50s and the resulting injury, or another friend whose degenerative blindness worsened to the point he couldn't work in his career any more. They didn't have the choice.

I have friends who have been contractors. Some make sure they put a good chunk of their income aside for pension and the times between contracts, and they'll be fine.

But I've one friend, he's been a contractor most of his career, now early 60s. He's had 6 figure earnings most years since his 30s. He has no pension. He's currently renting a 6 bedroom place for himself and his cat. No house of his own since divorce. But he stands to inherit a lot from his mother, and his brothers are both well-off.

I've never earned anything like he does, though I do okay - but I also knew I wouldn't have anyone else to help, so I don't think I would ever have made the financial decisions he has, because I knew i would have to provide for me. And it is people like him who haven't saved that the government should be pissed off with, because he shouldn't have had earnings like that over his lifetime and have nothing to show for it. I struggle to be sympathetic, because he has never had to decide whether to have beans on toast or the heating on, or to pay the electricity but not the council tax.

The people paying eye watering tax are not going to find themselves in poverty though if their contributions have to go up.

Alright to be on the breadline until you retire then?

Quite frankly if they have done fuck all about their future not my problem beyond a very basic minimum. There are too many people opting out of any personal responsibility. 20, 30, 40 years ago what would they have done. We cannot sustain as a country this level of non-engagement with personal responsibility.

Before we start introducing draconian measures to means test state pension and make workplace pensions compulsory, should we not be addressing the rich employers who prefer to pay themselves and their shareholders bonuses and dividends rather than pay a living wage to their employees that doesn’t require topping up via UC at the tax payers’ expense ? Not to mention greedy landlords who raise their rents every year in line with UC rent payment increases.

I think the more money you have the more tax you pay the less empathy you have.

You cannot expect every person paying eye watering levels of tax and suffering ever worse public services due to a ballooning welfare bill to have empathy for those not paying in.

because its deducted at source and your employer pays in and you get tax relief so even I, on 20hrs @NMW will pay my pension , and Ive paid in a pensions fund since I was 21 when I went onto adult wages ( before NMW )

Yes Im like most, struggling with costs, but do I want to be on the breadline for the last part of my life when I finally have the time to enjoy it ?

Pensions are a great option if you've paid off other debts first but until then you'll likely be paying more in interest (also compound) to service the debt than you'll be gaining in interest on the pension.

The advantage of paying the debt down instead of paying into pension is that you have access to larger reserves of cash as you age which can be invested wisely as and when the opportunity arises. Like fixing a leaky window earlier to save on heating and prevent knock on maintenance costs.

Of course a lot of discipline is required to make sensible decisions when the money is readily available and it's a lot easier to save money that you can't actually access! But as others have noted there is more to preparing for retirement than a pension pot.

Many people also invest heavily their time and energy in local communities, friends and family which pay social dividends in old age that no amount of money can buy.

what a ridiculous response

Just as well you do, those wide screen TVs/nail bar appointments/top of the range iPhones won't pay for themselves!

I've been told on here that I should start my own business or try matched betting or just 'try harder' to find a job. I'm in my late 50s and haven't been able to work for 25 years because I'm disabled. But I'm perfectly capable of being the next Alan Sugar apparently. Or wazzing DH's salary up the wall online gambling.

Absolutely bananas.

Which is why the pension shouldn’t be means tested.

Ha, I had someone on here claiming to be on £150K tell me that I had more money left at the end of the month that they did. I am on UC.

I love it when someone with a £100k annual income living in a £375k house tells people on NMW or less that they're not saving hard enough for their future.

My parents are putting a figure around £250 a month into a pension plan which was topped up by transferring my former employer's pension which was £33-35k

My parents said to transfer the employer's fund as I don't want to be reminded of the last 4 months there when I retire in 2049.

Reminds me when someone told me to look into autophagy to save money on food.

"To recommend thrift to the poor is both grotesque and insulting. It is like advising a man who is starving to eat less"

Oscar Wilde, 1891

Yes, I suppose the nuance here is “I’ve made it why can’t others?” Theres lots of nuance in people’s responses

Extremely tone deaf. Perhaps if people earned enough to afford their skyrocketing rent and bills they might be “bothered” to put something away from their mythical disposable income. Yes, we ALL suffer when inequality gets this severe. You are blaming the wrong people for how and why we got here.

Exactly. Instead of berating people and pearl clutching, let's be looking at this miserable circumstance millions of people are in.

@FernFaery Someone may have already mentioned this, but I can't be bothered going through the thread so I will say it anyway.

It needs to be clarified that the 45% figure is not 45% of all employed people. It's 45% of all people of working age, including people who are not employed. This is clear from the following line:

"It warned as many as 45% of working-age adults were not saving into a pension at all, despite nearly half of them being in work."

To me, it seems like a rubbish statistic, because if just under 50% of working age people have a job to begin with, then of course I would expect nearly half of people are not saving into a pension, as having a job and a pension tend to go hand in hand.

Some people are not saving into a pension because they are very fortunate and very lucky to be living as a stay at home parent. Articles and statistics about work, employment, and pensions always overlook the fact that most people live as couples or in family units, rather than living and working by themselves. We don't need to be concerned about people not saving into a pension if they are a stay at home parent; the concern should be for people who don't have anyone else to lean on financially.

Many of the comments on here absolutely suggest that there are many people on here who absolutely cannot imagine and empathise with other’s circumstances. I’m sure there are plenty of well off people who can imagine and empathise with the situation of others they just don’t seem to be on this thread.

Nuance is a dirty word!

Nuance is a dirty word!

have never increased my woefully small monthly payments. I’m worried about it, but with school fees for the next 6.5 years, I have absolutely no money left over each month to increase my contributions

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