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

Billionaires and trillionaires, and the 1% would be delighted. We are al squabbling, arguing amongst ourselves and blaming each other for the West's bankruptcy.

No one is looking their way.

It's worked a charm!

We are (now) two higher wage earners with a disabled child. We have not always been that way, but have both been paying in to our pensions since we started working. I worked in hotel housekeeping before minimum wage was a thing. I was living away from home and supporting another family member. I had a little disposable income and could have gone out drinking with my mates once a week, instead I did it once a month and paid into my pension. The reason I did this is because I saw my parents, who raised 3 of us on one very low wage, were always able to pay a little into their pensions, and insurance policies they had for us. The guy would come to the door for the money and mum always had it. We’d hide from the bloke who came for the money out of the TV, we’d put up with it when there were no more 50ps for the electricity meter at the end of the week, but that guy always got his money. My parents were adamant that money was the priority and that has always stuck with me.

Not that any of this is relevant to my point, which is based on the statistics available. They make it clear the 45% of people who are not paying into a pension, cannot possibly be entirely made up of people who can’t afford to.

Yep. Speaking from a place of privilege in their ivory tower.

Funny how you don't see someone on NMW start a thread about anyone else like them should be forced to ilve in a house share.

I swear sometimes that the more money you have, the more you lose empathy.

It is amazing how there is sympathy for people who may be forced to move because they cannot afford housing, but far less sympathy for someone who could effectively be taxed out of a home they may have lived in for 50 years because of the house price inflation they did not create and may never have actually benefited from in cash terms.

Australia have pretty much resolved this problem with their Superannuation. It should be a model on which the UK builds. The introduction of AE was a good start, but it needs to go further.

The post you quoted? I read your post. You seem to be against dropping the triple despite it being economically impossible to maintain. It’s not possible to keep the triple lock going continually. If you do that at some stage in the future there will be no government spending other than on state pensions.

This

I was a working private renter. I lost my job because I was with my son in hospital and was then rehomed in social housing so my son could be discharged from hospital.

As I said, we were fortunate that it was somewhere close enough that my son didn't have to move schools. It was pure luck, it was just as likely we would've had to move his school and be forced to live in a different area.

Peak MN.

This whole thread is typical yummy mummy “Let them eat cake” stupidity.

Bet you arent including ppl with kids in that. Bet its the child free who get "tough shit you havent got living proof that you have had sex without contraception so you get the shitty HMO

Because putting it into their own pension scheme gives them choices, gives them control over it and the government can never take it back. The government have proven over and over they can’t be trusted to invest properly for the nation’s future.

How much is your household income per year? Who earns it and how many dependents do you have?

and in some cases, even that doesn't happen.

My son's hospital wouldn't discharge him back home because it wasn't suitable for his needs which meant he went straight from hospital to a house he had never seen before. Thankfully, it is in the same area and it meant he didn't have to move school because it was all unsettling enough for him.

It was clearly the right decision as our old property wasn't suitable at all and I'm incredibly grateful that we were moved so quickly and he didn't have to spend any more time in hospital than necessary but he found it difficult to suddenly be uprooted like that.

There's no way in hell I would willingly move again. Especially as it would ultimately cost money, not save money but it's also about more than that.

But they just can’t afford it. What is she supposed to do, sofa surf so she can pay into a pension

No, there are 45% of people who are without pensions. There is nothing in the reporting suggests it’s because they all can’t afford it.

Children need clothes, food and shelter. Anything else is a choice. Too few people make the choice to prioritise other things either for their children or themselves and never consider whether actually it would be better adding something to a pension than say, having a weeks holiday in Turkey every year. Some people will save madly all year to splash out on Christmas gifts for kids and throwing a huge party. It’s all a balance and a question of priorities. People can choose to do other things with their money if they wish but the reality is, the number of people who genuinely have absolutely nothing to spare to pay in to a pension is much lower than people seem to want to believe.

Well it’s not dramatic is it, it’s the situation that many face, in case you’ve missed it there’s a mental health crisis in this country. You realise that many mental health conditions leave people very socially isolated so good luck sharing with friends.

And yes there’s such an overwhelming amount of support available for people with poor mental health🤦‍♀️.

Honestly, these threads always bring out people who, to coin a phrase “have no idea how the other half live”

There’s a group of middle class groups that seem to think that so many are the undeserving poor, if only they would “work harder” be less lazy, they deserve to live shit lives.

Your pension will cost you 7-8% as its taken before tax. You must really try to re-join when you can.

While this 25% might seem shocking the majority are students, mothers of young children, and early retirees.

where I live early retirees are a huge percentage of the working age population - I’m mid-50s and there are plenty who are younger than me!

Same here. I am settled where I am. My support network is here. I am happy in my house.
To uproot that would be awful. And it has happened at times when I have been in hospital, but you go home after that.

Maybe the way the work environment is structured prevents many people accessing work. Maybe we need to start looking into the government subsidising employers to offer better pay in things like caring roles. Maybe we should be investing in the mental health of people who are British born and bred.

Ive worked all my life in professional services with autism and adhd (not diagnosed til later life). It’s been extremely difficult, I’ve been suicidal trying to balance it all.. there’s a lot of coping mechanisms but they require being able to access this advice and employers being flexible as to how certain jobs are done.

Im lucky, I’m highly intelligent and have been able to navigate through lots of research to enable me work through the challenges. However, many struggle, many of the manual jobs have gone, many don’t pay any better than being on benefits. We need to really rethink the work and welfare environment to get people back into work.

But you can continue to force an increasing smaller and smaller percentage of the population to prop up an increasingly bigger percentage of the population. People are already cutting their working hours because they’re taxed too much.