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!

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

100% this.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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?

Your rent is much too expensive for your wage! Do you live alone?

What jumped out at me was when it said "nearly half" of working age people are actually working. How is it so few? OK, there's stay at home parents and long term sick / disabled and people who are prosperous enough to retire young. And there's unemployment. But over half aren't working...?

But it is better than nothing if you start young enough. I just used the Aviva retirement planner and put a mythical 23 year old male contributing £80 a month with employer matching £80 a month - and at retirement that’s £191,000 in today’s money. Would be even more with tax relief. And returns may be higher.

You can’t live off that on its own (it says that’s just below £10k pa annuity) but you’ll almost certainly be better off than someone who never contributed anything.

I have a private DB pension which I levelled from age 60 when I took it so when I got the state pension at 66 my private pension amount went down, do you mean this.

Not if your generation rent you wouldn’t be that 10,000 a year I’ll just get sucked away into your rental whereas the government will pay your rent for you if you didn’t have it

If DH was forced to pay into one we'd be unable to pay our bills.

@Backedoffhackedoff actually someone contributing £80 a month with employer match so total £160 increasing by 2% a year ( inflation wage increase) for 30 years would have a pot of £239,000 of which £75,000 is their contributuion and 161000 is interest
contributing same amount for 40 years 514,000 of which 116k is contributions and 426K is compound interest

Have you any idea how expensive rents are?

I swear some people on MN live in some sort of bubble with no idea how much of a struggle it is for some people to get through the month.

So you are happy for an 85 year old, shakey phlebotomist taking your blood? Or a 90 yo lorry driver coming up your arse on the motorway. And while all these people are working full time jobs, what happens to these children of these single mums you mention? What jobs are they stepping in to?

It’s not a COL crisis - it’s a wage stagnation crisis, which is caused by unequal wealth distribution. Make no mistake- some people’s pay has risen by huge huge huge amounts. But not the working people. If they had pay rises inline with what is actually really owed to them for their labour, maybe people would have the money to save!!

Everyone reading this if you ever have 100 spare or birthday or Christmas money for your children use it to open them up sipp!!
Self invested personal pension...get one open then it's there and obviously the more that can go in it now the more time it will have to grow

£191k pension pot isn’t great.

you might better off than someone who contributed nothing. On the other hand they could’ve used the £80 a month for a mortgage or other investment which made their working life richer

Pension age will be raised again as life expectancy increases. The knock on effect for the younger population will cause lots of issues. I think a lot of people live much too closely to their means. You should always always live below your means imo.

Yes sort of
We have senior doctor friends and H and other H (we are early 50s) talk pensions sometimes (oh lord how to make everyone feel young)
And even though the doc’s pensions will be lively once they get there there are quite a few regulations which make it less favourable than H’s private pension

But yes sort of say they are predicted to get £75k a year that will include the state pension not in addition to it whereas H gets his pension, plus state.

Auto enrolment is 8%, but on qualifying earnings. Government are looking at making it 8% on all salary.

There needs to be better education on privilege. We live in a society of “haves” and “have nots”. A surprising number of the “haves” have no understanding of what real life is like for poor people - yes, even those poor people who did all the “right” things and work full time!

Sweeping statement here but I reckon most people would prefer to have the means to support themselves both now and in old age. Most people have a level of pride in providing for themselves and their families (where they have the luxury of health to do so).

The problem is the cost of housing is extortionate - both rent and buying a property. If you’re spending most of your money on housing, how can you save?

When you’re skint and can barely afford the very basics, you don’t have the luxury of planning your retirement. The priority is robbing Peter to pay Paul. Miss Council Tax payment this month to pay electric and then miss the electric payment next month to pay council tax, etc. There’s simply no money or headspace to plan for how you’re going to pay for rent and everything in 30 years when your peers who are the “haves” will be retiring.

A lot of us are aware we won’t be retiring anyway. We’ll work til we die. State pension might mean we can work 4 days a week instead of 5.

Even if I was able to carry on paying into my NHS pension, that plus state pension wouldn’t be enough to pay for rent, bills, and food.

I agree this is a massive issue - we all need to be able to work and support ourselves now and in retirement but this is an issue for the government to sort out.

Regarding my situation, I’m so angry about it and think it’s crazy that someone can study for a profession desperately needed in the country, work hard full time, yet still can’t afford to save to buy a house, save for retirement, or have any kind of financial stability.