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!

My partner paid into a pension for years then his pension company went bust (serious fraud squad got involved with that but 8 years later still no progress.) So, for him, paying into a pension didn't help at all and now he invests in crypto instead.

No, that's why the current government need to start building growth so people can afford to pay in. Your suggestion is Oppressive.

My point is that UC and pension credit are two separate benefits. You don’t automatically transition to pension credit from UC. You have to apply for it, and it’s calculated on household income. There are different rates of PC, and many people’s income changes on retirement with private pensions kicking in etc. It’s not automatic.

Many people just live for now I think, there is no planning for times when benefits stop.

You absolutely are talking about my situation Your sweeping generalisation read ‘nobody can have a happy life on state pension’ and went on to talk about people rotting in their houses because they’re not working.

And if I’m bored shitless what are you ? What brings you to MN at this time of the morning ?

So are you suggesting that state pension should be funded from general taxation, because at the moment it comes from NI ? HS2 funding is coming from general taxation. Not disagreeing with you by the way, just clarifying.

What is this obsession with kids! People who work pay into their pensions along with their employers, I don't understand your argument about children! I actually up my payments to pay more in! Children don't buy the pensions of people who work.

You want society to improve well they need to get all the workshy off benefits and stop offering disability money for every little thing! There's too many kids today being labelled as having this, that and other and conditioned to think they shouldn't work when they grow up. The future is bleak if the system doesn't tighten up.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.