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

[FernFaery]

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2026/may/19/britons-not-saving-enough-retire-pensions-commission

Another looming crisis!

That's not nuance, that's binary thinking.

That way of thinking is sometimes very MN-style. Poverty and wealth get treated entirely the only two position when inface it is a spectrum responsibility and individual agency are often downplayed. Of course luck, upbringing, health and opportunity matter. Some people absolutely do start life from a much harder position than others. But there also has to be an expectation that people try to make the best of what they have and take some responsibility for their choices and or social responsibility where they can.

What frustrates me, and I am sure many others, is that when someone shares their own experience of working through hardship, instability or adversity, it often gets dismissed as simply “luck”, as though hard work, determination, discipline and sacrifice played little role at all. The reality is usually somewhere in the middle. Neither “I made it why can't others?” nor “people have almost no control over their outcomes ”fully reflects real life.

This is nuance.

That’s great if you have a decent income and you can have a good life now too as well as putting money away. My mum died at 73, only 6 years over what the pension age will be for me. For ten years before that she had health issues she wouldn’t have been able to work with - copd, macular degeneration.

Unless you have a good enough income to put a decent amount away and able to retire early the rising pension age means fewer people are going to see the benefit of money into pensions. I’ve only got the NEST type, I can’t afford to put more away despite working full time.

As ever it is people in key worker type roles - ie those who spend a lifetime caring for others - who will miss out on decent retirement incomes due to low wages now.

Another thing with proposing means testing the state pension, as someone else commented you can generally choose how to draw your DC fund so what’s to stop someone flexing their DC in such a way as to maximise the state pension. How could you regularise that?

btw the point they ask you to repay the winter fuel allowance is £35,000 so I expect if a cap comes in it might be around this kind of level. Eg reduce by £1 for every £2 above £35,000.

Why do they get to retire? They have to keep working. It’s that simple.
In whatever capacity they can manage, topped up by universal credits if necessary but they need to be subjected to the same conditions as single mums are back to work after 12 months of giving birth

Yeah so who's going to look after the grandchildren while the parents work?
Tbh I'd rather still be holding down a paying job than running after toddlers for the second time around. You know, a lot of women retire so they can help out their family this way?

She'll, more likely than not, never opt back in. In this day and age, once you gets your hands on a bit of extra money you never manage to do without it again.

But get moaned at if they dont so cant win.

Not really, I'm self employed, I do quite well, part of the reason I'm self employed is because I don't want to be employed - if I retire, and that's a big if, I will downsize and take some money that way.

No way am I rolling up my hard earned in some scheme, not a chance.

Can’t understand why this is surprising at all . Have you seen how much people are paying for student loans together with the of living many can’t do it . I earn considerably well but pay £400 a month if student loan so a lot less for pension

I think I have little sympathy for those that are on low wages because they perhaps didn’t apply themselves at school because I went to a truly dire school where at least half of my fellow classmates spent the whole time arsing around, continually disrupting lessons and beating up anyone that did want to work for being geeks. If these particular little scrotes grew up to find life tough then that’s karma. I had to work hard to get good grades as we didn’t learn much in class due to the messing around which left no option but to get the textbook and teach myself.

But hey I’m probably just lucky and my former classmates are probably just unlucky.

There are of course many life circumstances which make it tough for people after leaving school, and I have empathy for those who have suffered genuine misfortune.

So lets get this straight. Its peoples own fault if they are on low wages but its ALSO their fault that migrants are doing the jobs they dont want to do!!!!!!!!!!!

What frustrates me, and I am sure many others, is that when someone shares their own experience of working through hardship, instability or adversity, it often gets dismissed as simply “luck”, as though hard work, determination, discipline and sacrifice played little role at all. The reality is usually somewhere in the middle. Neither “I made it why can't others?” nor “people have almost no control over their outcomes ”fully reflects real life.

It’s definitely not somewhere in the middle! Climbing out of poverty now is so much harder

Schrodinger's foreigner/job.

Thank goodness in Australia we have compulsory superannuation. Employers must pay a minimum of 12% on top of your take home pay into your superannuation account from day one. You can add more if you want. (I do) UK could benefit from this setup. Honestly I’m surprised that the uk isn’t already doing something like this.

More binary, over-simplified thinking...

Getting out of poverty may well be harder now in some respects, particularly around housing, and the cost of living. But living standards within poverty are also much higher than they were decades ago.

That is before we even get onto what growing up in poverty in London looked like in the 50, 60s, 70s and 80s, with sink schools, poorer housing, fewer opportunities and far less access to information and fewer routes out.

More than one thing can be true at the same time.

The thing which annoys me most about stories/scenarios like this is that the government will step in, of course it will, but it will probably do so by:

(a) increasing the state pension to support those that have done nothing to help themeselves, and

(b) making this means tested to keep the overall system affordable, cutting the state pension for those that have had the foresight and discipline to do what we were all told we should and put money into our own pensions too.

😤

I’m in Australia, we moved here a long time ago (25 years). The superannuation system in Australia is a godsend. Paid for by employers, yes we still get salary increases. I’m very grateful and don’t understand why the UK system doesn’t expect more of employers.

Well if they are in poverty, they can do nothing, there has to be a safety net for genuine people?

And because you were bringing up children, your state pension payments were credited to you - the whole time you claimed FA , your stamp was paid - by the taxpayer

One of my children has significant learning and physical disabilities and I was able to look after her at home, myself until she was 35, by which time it all got a bit too much. Her disabilities were such that she could have gone into supported living when she was 16 but I felt I would be 'letting her down' somehow.
Anyway, I figure I saved the taxpayer millions, yes millions of pounds so I won't feel too guilty when I claim my state pension.

I realise you can't have known all that, but an example of why someone might not work for years, or be able to pay into a private pension.

But some people don't have a disposable income to contribute to a private pension/

TBH, unless you have a family willing to fund you in older life, you need to plan and not expect the tax payer to fund you

I don't, as it happens, but as I said earlier, I've saved the taxpayer millions.
I will feel no guilt at claiming state pension.

Yep, there seems to be far too many people on there assuming that anyone who had not made private pension contributions must be feckless, lazy etc.

On a similar thread, I mentioned my grandmother, who only worked as a teen, then was married and childrearing (which was normal in her time), then was a full time carer for my disabled grandfather. Another poster berated my gran... called her feckless, lazy, and scrounger etc. Because she had no private pension and was claiming Pension Credit.

She spent her whole life either child rearing, or being a carer. She had a handful of years to herself in reasonable good health for her age until vascular dementia took hold.

Anyway, I figure I saved the taxpayer millions, yes millions of pounds so I won't feel too guilty when I claim my state pension

You haven't saved the state millions, she was your child and your responsibility. The state and, by default, tax payers are doing you a favour.

So you'd like to see eighty year olds working until they drop from exhaustion? While copng with serious health issues, walking with frames and squinting through failing eyesight and partial deafness among other things, you'd like to see them working? Doing what exactly out of interest?

My grandad said if he could press a button to end his life, he would have at 75 (he lived to 87).
I am not sure what work he could have done. He spent his waking hours in a chair in front his TV or at his dining table.

You haven't saved the state millions, she was your child and your responsibility. The state and, by default, tax payers are doing you a favour

I could have accepted the placement she was offered at age 16. I didn't.
I don't deny that I would have been grateful had I not been able to cope at that time, but my decision to keep her at home did save them the money they would have spent had I accepted the place.