![\"Line](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/https:\/\/d6c748xw2pzm8.cloudfront.net\/prod\/a44e57b0-5342-11f0-9b52-952fea04d8c3-standard.png\")
<\/p>\nStay informed with free updates<\/p>\n
Simply sign up to the Pensions myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox.<\/p>\n
Four in 10 young pension savers expect state support in retirement to be at least as generous as current levels, setting up the UK for \u201cgeneration after generation\u201d of disappointment, according to JPMorgan Asset Management.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In a survey of 2,000 Britons carried out for the asset manager by research agency Opinium, 22 per cent of savers between the ages of 18 and 34 believed the UK\u2019s state pension would be more generous when they retired than today, while just under a fifth believed it would be about the same.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
About a third of young respondents either didn\u2019t know or thought it would be \u201cslightly\u201d less than current levels, while the rest thought it would be \u201ca lot\u201d less generous. <\/p>\n
The results of the survey suggested that 40 per cent of young savers, amounting to millions, had a false sense of security about the future state pension, a finding which alarmed some sector experts.<\/p>\n
Karen Ward, chief strategist at JPMorgan Asset Management, said this survey result was \u201cvery concerning\u201d and politically difficult to fix, given the trajectory for government finances as the population ages.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are ageing as a nation and working out the intergenerational decision of how we are going to square that circle is something our politics can\u2019t cope with,\u201d Ward said. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt means generation after generation will be disappointed by what the state can provide for them and won\u2019t be given the time to get their own house in order \u2014 that\u2019s the crux of it.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The full rate of the UK\u2019s state pension is \u00a3230.25 per week, or \u00a311,973 a year, paid to those who have made 35 qualifying years of national insurance contributions.\u00a0<\/p>\n
State pension payments to the current cohort of pensioners are funded by taxes paid by workers.<\/p>\n
The state pension age \u2014 which sets when the benefit can be accessed \u2014 is 66 for both men and women, set to rise to 67 between 2026 and 2028 and to 68 before the middle of the century. <\/p>\n
The state pension increases every year by consumer price rises, average earnings growth or 2.5 per cent, whichever is highest, in a policy known as the \u201ctriple lock\u201d, introduced by the 2010 coalition government to ensure pensions stay in line with living costs.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Labour has vowed to protect the triple lock, despite pensions minister Torsten Bell expressing in his previous role as chief executive of the Resolution Foundation think-tank that it was \u201cnot a sensible mechanism for pensions uprating\u201d, arguing that it should be consistent with working age benefits.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The UK government spends about 5 per cent of GDP on state pension benefits, up from 3.5 per cent at the turn of the century. The state pension cost \u00a3124bn in 2023\/24.<\/p>\n
The Office for Budget Responsibility, the UK\u2019s fiscal watchdog, has forecast that based on current policy total state pension spending could surge to 8 per cent of GDP by 2073, or more if growth continues to stagnate.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe pensions triple lock is not only fiscally unsustainable, but intergenerationally inequitable,\u201d said Ward.<\/p>\n
\u201cPensions should rise in line with the salaries of the taxpayers that are paying the pensions, so average earnings.\u201d<\/p>\n
Helen Morrissey, head of retirement policy at Hargreaves Lansdown, added that it was \u201chugely important that people understand that they do have to make their own provision for retirement\u201d.<\/p>\n
The survey also found that only half of those earning more than \u00a340,000 per year expected state support to be less generous when they retire.<\/p>\n
The findings come as the UK is about to launch a review into pensions adequacy, which will assess the state pension alongside workplace and personal pensions, with the aim of making changes to help boost the retirement prospects of millions of workers. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Stay informed with free updates Simply sign up to the Pensions myFT Digest — delivered directly to your…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":222730,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3093],"tags":[51,474,2499,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-222729","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-personal-finance","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-finance","10":"tag-personal-finance","11":"tag-uk","12":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114764018121544857","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222729","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=222729"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222729\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/222730"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=222729"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=222729"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=222729"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}