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

This.
it is absolutely the reality here, some people can only just get thru the month and some don’t even manage that.
It’s going to be a problem but I guess people without enough will be topped up with pension credit?

Again, this. I'm genuinely pleased for those who are comfortable enough to be able to save. Some of us are drowning and shouldn't be. Until the tax threshold gets lifted, my person situation will only get worse, not better. And I know for a fact I am not the only one.

Schools do this or they try at least
Some pupils engage some pupils do not

You could put it in Lisa worst case scenario you have to pull it out and you have to pay tax on it but you’ve still had the capital gains
Best case scenario, you don’t touch it and you benefit from the 25% government contribution and the capital gains
I believe it’s kept at £4000 a year though

If you look at the data the majority of these 45 per cent are either unemployed (can’t find work), economically inactive (can’t work due to eg disability, or don’t want to work eg SAHM), are ineligible for self enrollment (likely due to rolling v short term contracts/gig economy), or are self employed and therefore dealing with an unstable income stream. The last group worries me (I have been part of it some years), but the rest is self explanatory. We need to fix growth first before any of this group are going to be changing behaviour

Exactly. The OP has just painted all the self-employed who don't pay into a pension as being feckless layabouts who will be sponging off the state in their retirement, but I'll be willing to bet that my total assets are higher than theirs.

My current circumstances (mainly the flexibility) mean that self-employment is right for me at the moment, and I can very much afford to be self-employed, I just prefer to keep my money accessible for several reasons, including fluxuations in income.

Maybe I'd be dead from the stress of making the end of the month each month?

100% this.

Those that are able to pay in and comfortable have no idea how the other half live.

Around 25% of working age people are not employed which would account for a large portion of this

Housing costs eat into incomes & the old pension schemes don’t exist for most now, the current ones are often not enough particularly in the private sector.

I agree, not all parents set a good example or educate their DC about the importance of savings and pensions therefore schools could fulfil this gap in PHSE.

Employers will have no choice but to employ the 16 and 70-year-olds because there aren’t any babies being born to replace them
They will have to work with what they’ve got
I’m quite old, actually.
I’m fully intend to milk the system for all it’s worth whilst we still can but I’m also making provision to ensure that my youngsters don’t end up in many of the situations we see described day and day out on Mum’s net because people are self-employed when they don’t actually really have a purposeful job?
People have the second child that they can’t afford
Then the third and then the fourth
It will take a generation or 2 to sort itself out, but people will learn the hard way

Appreciate the feeling.

But the effect of compound interest over time is huge. Pay little if you must but pay something. Even a little put by over say 30 years can rack up to something very worthwhile.

I can't work but it's something I try not to think about because it's one of several things that keeps me up at night if I think about it for too long.

I put most of my retirement savings into a pension but also some into an investment isa. This is because there's no point in having a great pension but going bankrupt in my late 50s. I'd advise anybody self-employed to have a pension pot but also a 'hopefully won't be dipped into till retirement' savings pot that can be if the worst were to happen before then.

It's not about affordability, it's about risk. When you're self employed, you're much more vulnerable to economic circumstances beyond your control. Covid is the obvious example. The recent change of government is another. So the self-employed can't risk sticking money into a pension as much as an employed person can.

It would be interesting to know how many of the self-employed people that they say don't have a pension do have money elsewhere so that it is still saved for the future but more accessible in an emergency. I'm a good example of this. My pension is mediocre against my earnings but I have considerably more assets than many. It would be crazy for me to put everything into a pension when it is totally inaccessible.

State pension is deducted from public pensions. Well not deducted, sort of included in their pension amount.

2 million of those “millions” are people who have retired early or chosen to leave the workforce because they are financially stable

I think we seem to get dumber and dumber as a nation...

Are you really unable to understand why people who reach old age and are seeing their physical and mental capacity decline drastically can no longer work?

Or that employers will not employ people in their 60s/70s or 80s?

You will get old one day. Maybe then you will understand.

Why would it

If you pay into a SIPP why do you think you would never see it? It would be a personal pension in your name.

But they will make PIP harder to claim.

Money from the state will become increasingly more difficult and less generous.

Everyone is aware that the state pension is not a lot of money to live on, and you don’t receive it until you are pushing 70.

Almost everyone wants to work, if nothing else people want warm, secure housing.

A functioning society has state welfare payments as a safety net it’s not a family trust fund.

Everyone past working age should get the state pension. That’s just civilised. It should be a percentage of the welfare pie divided between the number who require it.

If absolutely loaded pensioners say “keep mine” theirs should go back into that percentage to be divided between their peer group. This is just being practical because the country still needs everything else the state provides.

This is the start of a decline in the standard of living and that includes retirement. It’s the same for everyone, we are all in the same decline. The golden age of retirement is fading away.

I told my DC to pay into a pension immediately they take their first job then increase payments each year. It's never to early to start and if they have never had money to spend it's not missed. Some people just don't bother until they are about 40 then suddenly think I have no pension.

I'll be honest with you. I was auto enrolled and paying in for years. Then I had a child. Then the cost of everything rose. I ceased deductions, thinking. When childcare costs drop, I'll opt back in. Then childcare costs dropped and the price of food went up and up. Then the bills. Then the food some more, then the bills some more, then the food, then the fuel sky rocketed. I keep saying I will opt back in. But frankly. I barely make it to payday without breaking into a sweat. I simply don't have the cash to put a couple of hundred a month into a pension pot that I may never see. I'm one of what we call the squeezed middle. I earn "enough" on paper. The reality is, I don't have enough cash. So, shoot me when I get to retirement age.

Which means the young people can’t get jobs