National Insurance + income under threshold

[Annonnimoouse42]

I don't earn enough per week to pay national insurance - I'm disabled and do as much as possible.

Whst happens about national insurance credits towards state pension? do these years just get missed until I can hopefully pay NI?
or ??

Does this help:

What happens if I earn less than the weekly/monthly threshold?
If you have earnings above the lower earnings limit (£123 per week or £533 per month for 2022/23) and below the primary threshold (£190 (6 April – 5 July 2022) or £242 (6 July 2022 – 5 April 2023) per week for 2022/23) (£823 (6 April – 5 July 2022) or £1,048 (6 July 2022 – 5 April 2023) per month for 2022/23) you will not have to pay any Class 1 NIC. Your NIC record will be ‘credited’, however, as you have paid Class 1 NIC at a zero rate. These may earn you entitlement to contributory benefits and the state pension.
This type of ‘credits’ are to be distinguished from the type of NIC credits that you can sometimes get in a variety of circumstances, where people are unable to work. These may not always automatically count towards all contributory benefits, as we explain here.
If you earn less than the lower earnings limit (£123 a week for 2022/23), you pay no Class 1 NIC, nor are treated as paying any NIC, and so you do not get any contributions attached to your NIC record.
Paying (or being treated as paying) NIC through at least one job, helps you qualify for the state pension and certain other contribution-based benefits. You can find out more about the state pension on the GOV.UK website. You will need 35 qualifying years' worth of contributions to get the full amount of the state pension (you should be able to get a pro-rata amount provided you have at least ten qualifying years). You have until you reach state pension age to make those contributions.
You can read more about which benefits depend on your NIC record on our page What is National Insurance?.

@EmmaStone thank you so much for this. It looks like I'll get class 1 credits. Thats a relief.

Just to add, the threshold for employer payment towards your National Insurance is lower than the employee threshold - so they might pay into it even if you don't.

@Willowkins thank you

www.gov.uk/check-national-insurance-record

You can check each year on the above

You need 35 years contributions to receive a full state pension. However, some benefits contribute like child benefit, unemployment etc

Secondly, on www.gov.uk
You can also check your state pension forecast

www.gov.uk/check-state-pension