1 in 8 plan to retire in 2018 with no pension

I worry about future pensions for younger people who are on zero hours contracts or working in the gig economy, paying high rents and possibly repaying university loans (if they earn enough).
With low and erratic earnings how on earth can they make private pension contributions that would result in a decent pension income in the future?
Also declining home ownership means they will not have the option of releasing equity from a house when they retire.
The raising of the retirement age will mean many will be expected to work even as their health deteriorates in their sixties and seventies.
I’m lucky to have enough pension income to enjoy my retirement. But I’m worried that future generations of retirees will struggle financially.

I posted too soon and then posted another epistle, it disappeared into the ether. The gist was that I regretted what I did although it seemed right at the time.
Women have far more choices now, they should take advantage of them.
My pension now ,on my H's contribution is £296 a month,.

I married in 1958, although I worked for 7 more years there was no pension scheme for women in place. Also no jobs were kept open , in fact women with children were not expected to work if their hisba were able to keep them.
Some, not many , returned to work when their children started school but my second child was born almost 5 years after my first so I had been out of the job market for some time.
By then my H was earning a good salary so we took the decision that I would stay at home.

Like many others, I didn't stay long enough in a job when young to keep the pension, I was in two that were refunded, another had no pension scheme. When I joined the NHS after having my family, I didn't work enough hours to join the pension scheme, so I was 40 when I started paying a pension which now pays around the same as my state pension - I'm a widow so it's only me. My husband's 45 year NI contributions count for nothing.
I also think it unfair that, those of us born early 50s had to work past 60 but do not benefit from the new higher state pension.

To go back to the OP and the questions. I thought about a pension in my early 20s. I knew, long before marriage hove in view, that I would not transfer to the married woman's stamp. I think it was because I have always been very independent and wanted to have my own income in retirement - and had other women in my family who thought in a similar fashion.

The problem then was that so much of the law around pensions made it difficult for women to accrue pension entitlement, apart from state pension. If you left a job after less than five years, you could not leave your pension payments invested in the fund, but had to have your contributions repaid, the exclusion of part time workers from pension schemes, also disadvantaged women, the freezing in value of deferred pensions also led to poor payouts. A lot of these problems have now been resolved but leaves any women working before that happened at a real disadvantage.

I started to pay into a pension at 40, it was the first opportunity I had, and I tried to make up for lost time by making extra payments.

Are younger people more aware of the need to save for a pension? Yes, I think they are. When I was younger many women, especially young women, were very complacent, divorce did not feature in their game plan and they saw it as either the state or their DH's responsibility to provide a pension for both of them, so they transferred to the married women's stamp when they married and left it at that.

Maggie - the situation of the Waspi women is just dreadful. I feel so fortunate to have been born earlier than my sisters and many of my friends. I've scraped in!

As a WASPI woman, 63 with another 3 years to go till my state pension kicks in, I just count myself very lucky that a) I am not on my own and b) I have a modest local government pension from my last employment that will keep the wolf from the door till then. That's the only pension I had that was worth paying into during a varied working life. I wasn't allowed to join one scheme back in the day when working part-time for family reasons. Another was embezzled by the trustees and I received nothing from it. I didn't pay in long enough on another to accrue benefits, so my contributions were refunded. One company I worked for took higher contributions from its female workers because we were, of course, going to access the pension earlier than the men , and the meagre sum accrued (which may with luck stretch to a modest bottle of wine a month) is subject to special conditions that mean I can't get to it before my higher state pension age. Because I was opted out for some of the years I paid into these corkers, my state pension under the new system will be drastically reduced.

Apart from the local authority pension, I would have been better off just paying into SERPS. I do encourage my children to put what they can into their company schemes, because for them there isn't an option, is there? But the advice is given through gritted teeth,

I had one job I worked in for 2 years. When I left (at the age of 24) I was given a certificate for a £10 a year pension at 60, based on the payments into the fund.

The money in the pension was invested in Legal and General and at 60. I received a letter to say I could have a pension if £10 a year, or a lump sum of £247, (the exact amount I and my employer had paid into the scheme 34 years before) £169 after tax.

At the time the pension was accrued deferred pensions were frozen at the value they were when you left the company. Shortly after this the law changed so that the money had to be treated like any other investment and increase in value in line with the fund it was invested in.

In the 34 years L&G had had my money in real terms its' values was now £2470 and if invested in the stockmarket it would have risen to nearly £6000 - and I got back exactly what I had paid in, less tax, £169.

I would like to know what actually counts as a pension?

As I said above £25 per year? month?

I won't answer janeainsworth but it a very good point.

Because maybe that would give only a present day figure (based on some fortunate 60 somethings of today) and not the 60 somethings of "tomorrow" (the future) many of whom will be working until 70 plus.

Also does £25 per year pension count?

Prudential’s research, which appears annually, found that the numbers retiring without a pension is lower this year than the 14 per cent in 2017 and nearly half the 23 per cent recorded in 2008, but Stan Russell, retirement income expert at the financial services company, said that the figure is still “worrying”.

So, why wasn’t the headline ‘more people than ever before retiring with a private pension to boost their state pension’??

On second thoughts, don’t answer that!

I always paid the full stamp too and have worked since 16 with only a couple of months off to have my children. Women of my age (56) have been cheated big style and will have paid over 50 years of full stamp before getting the state pension (that's unless the goal posts get moved again). DH has always said we will leave work in our coffins and I think he's probably right.

When I started work, it wasn't a question of choice. I was paying into a pension from 21 because I worked for big companies and you had no choice. I also had no choice when all my contributions were repaid to me when I left these companies because to become a deferred pensioner I had to work for them for 5 years and I hadn't.

Even when I returned to work after my home-based years I couldn't join the pension scheme, because I worked part time and part timers were excluded from the pension scheme

So it wasn't until I was 40 and returned to work full time that I could actually join a pension scheme and I immediately started paying Additional Voluntary Contributions as well as the standard amount. Every time I got a pay rise, I increased the amount I paid in AVCs, until I reached the maximum amount allowed by the government, which was 17.5%.

I had intended to work until 65, even though I could get the state pension at 60, but when I was in my mid 50s, my employer had to make major changes to the way it was run and cut its labour force by 35,000. They set up a very generous redundancy scheme and if you were over 50 it was exceptionally generous so unless you were very sure of your future, you grabbed the chance and left. I decided that although I did not want to go, it was in my best interest to do so. As part of the redundancy package, I could invest most of my redundancy money into the pension fund to buy extra pensionable years, so I did.

When I stopped work, I found it impossible to get another job, but I had a small pension from the day of my redundancy and I continued to make voluntary contributions to my state pension.

When I was 60 I got my state pension, not a full one, but with Graduated Pension and some of my SERPS, it is above the basic level and my occupational pension went up as well as I started to receive the extra pension my AVCs earned so I receive about half the pension I would have got if I had worked for my employer for 40 years. I actually worked 11.

I have been fortunate to have a career with a high enough salary to be able to afford to contribute voluntary as well as compulsory payments to an occupational pension.

But before the late 1980s, many women and some men were unable to save into works based pensions because of all the rules about minimum contribution records and the exclusion of part timers from pension schemes.

First time posting

I would have loved to put money into a private pension. In fact I did. But my husband suggested I take it out as he was much more capable of looking after it than a pension company.

That proved to be true. I divorced and he kept it all. He hardly supported our sons after stopping seeing them and I had to use all my earnings and go into debt to pay the mortgage and bills.

Now I've retired and look at the state pension that I have to live on I have to laugh otherwise I'd cry.

I always paid so called "full stamp" as advised by older women at work, when I married far too young and could have paid "married woman's stamp"
I divorced having done all manner of part time jobs to fund my then husband's training qualification. My solicitor thought it entertaining that I wanted the financial settlement to reflect the fact he now had 5 years in a pension scheme, supported by myself and I had nothing. When I began my own training qualification in my late 20's I started to pay into a pension scheme. I was very aware that I was at a disadvantage in the longer term, having qualified later in life. I retired with a decent pension as a result. I worked to pay child care in effect for about 5 years but always with the view I'd have a pension when I needed it. Luckily, I did enjoy work though those early years were tough. Good job we had more energy in our 30's than we do now.

Heaven only knows what it will be like for the existing 25-45 age group when they retire, at whatever increased age it will be for State Pension. Many will have been renting, possibly relying on HB to pay towards that rent if they live in areas of high housing cost, add this on to child care costs, university expenses for themselves and their children......absolute disaster being ignored by current government of all parties. How do you save for a pension when you work on short term contracts? The workplace has changed and it is not only less skilled employees who are on short term contracts. This generation will not even have the option of downsizing as many of us have, they will likely not own property at all.

This has got me really riled and reads as though these people have deliberately chosen not to contribute to a private pension when the reality is probably very different.

The simple answer Parsleywin is that they can’t .

I started saving as soon as I left school at just 15. And Always saved regularly until retirement. It was believed at that time that everyone should save about 20/25% of income and as I earned £4.10s I saved a pound. it kept me very short after paying housekeeping and my travel, i got the 50p per week as spending money. Not a lot as tights cost almost that. But, It was a good habit and though as time went on. we couldnt always save 25% but did what we coukd. Pennies and pounds etc.
Apart from a mortgage later We had no debt and never bought anything unless we could pay for it. Otherwise we saved for it or went without, it was a tough life, but we were no different to a lot of people at that time.

How, how can those on the Minimum Wage save - for a pension or anything else?

Absolutely Gracesgran, especially the piece about the old State Pension being less than the new. That is wrong, all State Pensions should be enough to live on.

DH and I have been effectively self employed ( not in a legal sense as we are on PAYE) since 1992 and whilst we did have a small pension pot this has long gone ( along with our house and other assets ) and “ invested “ in our business to keep it afloat .
Neither of us even get regular wages ( as in a set amount every month) and often live on credit cards so no way we could affordto pay into a pension ( DH is 66 now anyway ) DH’s SERP’s from a previous employment have disappeared without trace .

Neither of us have ever / will ever inherit anything and we gave an almost 11 year age gap meaning we can’t even retire on a state pension . All in all we’re in a bit of a mess .

As for this enforced workplace pension it’s a joke that will come back to haunt people in years to come . Companies and employees ( my own included) paying into rapidly formed and inexperienced companies set up to take advantage . Will anyone ever get anything back worth having or will the pension companies use the spoils to fund their own lifestyles and fancy buildings? The jury is out .

I am so grateful that I had to join the pension scheme when I started work after uni. Sometimes we don’t know what’s best for us and I certainly didn’t at 22.

The title is totally incorrect, and I would say it is both belittling and scaremongering for the Independent to say that nearly one in eight people retiring this year have made NO provision for their retirement.

They do then go on to write a more truthful report when they say that 12% have no private or company pension. I would really like to know why anyone assumed that everyone would be able to have these.

This sounds like an advert for the pension companies as it is so biased. It does go on to say that of that 12%, 2% have some form of private savings upon which they will rely. It could be millions and although probably not, all they are actually saying is that they have not saved into an additional private or company pension and helped make the pension companies rich.

Why would anyone, anyone, be surprised that 10% over the last, say 40, years could not afford a private or company pension. Not everyone was offered a company pension. On the wage rates we know have existed and the conditions for all but particularly women, added to by the culture when these women started work, not everyone could afford a private pension.

It looks like the new state pension will be £164.35 pw. If, as the article says, it is £1,450 a year lower than the minimum income standard for a single pensioner established by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation then perhaps the answer is to raise it to around £192.23 so that those who only have the new pension will have enough. For those on the old pension and those who do not get all the basic of the new one the Pension Credit should be raised to the same amount. We have one of the lowest pensions in Europe and this would also help get some people off other benefits. That is surely better than attempting to shame people who can now make no difference to their position.