to all you do gooders this is just one of the draw backs at having a open door to imigration,

If the pension providers gave a realistic return on pension savings they would have more customers - simple but it's just a gravy train for the pension providers and savers have had enough.

The Government won't do anything, probably due to the soft jobs provided to ex-MPs and politicians within the same pension provider Companies.

I'll keep mine under the matress, thank you!

Yes it all started in the eighties!!!!

I am one of thousands who made regular monthly payments to the allowable limits) only to be robbed by Equitable Life then screwed by Gordon Brown. What chance does one have at 62 to put more into a pension ? Even if I were able with the annuity rates as poor as they are I'd no doubt get less out than I put in.

Like bookies the only sure fire winners are HMRC and the fat cats in the pension & insurance industry.

Oh not forgetting our M.P's , all of which were able to withdraw their pension pots from Equitable without penalty

The best way to build a retirement savings pot is to pay as much as you can afford into an ISA each year - up to the limit if possible. All interest accrues tax-free in ISAs and the charges are reasonable compared to some pensions where the charges can massively reduce the retirement fund. The money can be drawn down at any time as needed giving great flexibilty. The major problem is that funds could be depleted unlike a pension which is guaranteed for life in return for a fixed monthly pension payment. People who invested in ISAs (originally PEPs) from when they first became available and paid in the maximum allowed each year are now sitting on funds of well over £1,000,000. All that is needed is financial discipline and the spare money to invest each year, easier said than done of course.

I know, only too well, that the National Insurance and general taxation-funded State Pension is hardly super generous, but it is adequate, unless one has aspirations to holiday abroad a dozen times a year and/or change your car every year. Rather than put a substantial portion of ones working life earnings into some so-called Pension Scheme - none of which give the investor top priority and all of which focus more on maximising profit for the fund holders - and just save the money instead while continuing to pay NI contributions to the State Pension. That way you'll have a small but certain, predictable pension income on retirement - and a largish lump sum from which to live a few dreams. At 75, i can assure younger peeps that having to limit ones ambitions a little is not actually hard or painful to do, as I thought it might be years ago. Mother Nature makes sure we pull our horns in whether we want to or not - and that is no bad thing in many ways. Being old doesn't mean the fun is gone unless one has a huge pension - far from it. All we need to do is lower our sights a bit to more realistic ambitions - for me that means a smaller 250cc m/bike rather than the Harley i always fancied. It means a reliable twenty year old Rover instead of a Bugatti Venron - your get the message am sure. As long as you have food in your belly, clothes on your back and roof over your head, everything else becomes an enjoyable bonus in old age.

With annuity rates being as low as they are, I think I'm right in calculating that you'd need a pot of about £160,000 before you'd be better off than someone who never saved, never bought their own home and who retires on the state pension, with pension top-up, council tax relief and their rent paid. You'd need a pot of about £230,000 if you wanted to retire in any kind of comfort. For most people starting work today, building up a fund of that size (whilst saving up to buy a shoe box valued at 6 or 7 times your annual salary) is pretty much a non-starter. Of course, things will change and annuity rates will once more return to about 15% - hopefully, just as we 50 year-olds 'sleepwalk' into retirement.

This is another scare article to try and persuade people to do very stupid things like buy annuities. They are the worst possible return, even worse than just keeping the cash under your bed. When you give it to the insurance companies, it's no longer yours, so if you die shortly after retirement, they grin and pocket the change. Just put it in a savings account, when the money is always yours and even the pathetic interest paid at present is much better than you get from annuities. It's time that someone in the financial press challenged these people to come out with a fair comparison.

I stopped paying into my pension scheme about 10 years ago and used the monthly fee to buy property. Not quite the money making investment it was but still better than being ripped off month after month. Shame mortgages aren't as easy to obtain nowadays.

I think this article is a bit cynical and seems to serve a view that the lack of pension provision in over 50's is primarily due to a lack of foresight on behalf of the actual people affected by this e.g. the over 50's.
Truth is the pension industry, including state pension, has changed the rules that many times over the past 20 years, that it has left people either confused or alienated by the processes involved. Consequently people made the wrong choices (such as shemmans, above) and feel that the system has ripped them off. Sure we get some kind of compensation but we all know that it never covers the stress, loss of confidence/faith in pensions and also the opportunity to repair our finances. People who opt out of the pension system and try and get round it by buying property as a pension had their plans scuppered by the property crash and anyone who kept cash is automatically discriminated against if they get made redundant/unemployed (see prb2803).
The truth is many over 50's have attempted to address pension shortfalls but have been undermined by changes in the pension system and bad advice (which many profited from?)
This situation is not necessarily due to lack of planning but due to continually moving of pension/benefit/tax goalposts which people have struggled to cope with. Add this to the ripping up of the social contract of providing/promising pensions and care from cradle to grave and we have an older population that has tried in vain to provide for itself but has been let down by people who promised but did not deliver.
So no Mr. Press association, we are not sleepwalking into retirement, we are being robbed in our sleep and are being told that it is our own slovenly stupid fault. Great bit of blame shifting that.