The pension crisis now has a number attached to it: the Fabian Society says nearly a third of people under the age of 60 could retire without enough money to cover the basics. The study points to inadequate pension savings, with Generation Z singled out as particularly exposed.
The warning lands against the minimum retirement living standard set at £13,900 per year for a single person and £22,500 per year for a two-person household, excluding housing costs. The full new state pension for the 2026-27 tax year is £241.30 a week, or £12,547 per year.
Fabian Society research
The Fabian Society, a centre-left think-tank affiliated with the Labour Party, carried out research on the future of the pensions system and what people expect to receive from it in retirement. Age UK, the Trades Union Congress and Dartmouth Street Trust sponsored the research. Its finding is simple: some workers approaching retirement are still on course to fall below the benchmark that sets the floor for an acceptable quality of life.
The study does not describe a single savings threshold for every worker. Instead, it measures likely retirement income against the minimum retirement living standard, then shows how many people under 60 may come out below it. That approach matters because it compares projected income with a published living standard rather than with a generic savings target.
Generation Z risk
People in Generation Z are the group the research singles out most sharply. The report says they are particularly at risk of falling below the minimum retirement living standard when they stop working because of inadequate pension savings.
The gap is concrete. For a single person, the standard stands at £13,900 a year, while the full new state pension for 2026-27 is £12,547 a year. On those figures, the state pension alone does not reach the benchmark, so anyone relying on it without extra savings would fall short.
What workers face
The study leaves one practical question for workers under 60: how much extra saving will close the gap between the state pension and the minimum standard. It does not give a breakdown by age group or contribution level, but it does show that the risk is already large enough to affect nearly a third of that age band.
For people still building retirement savings, the immediate takeaway is to check expected pension income against the £13,900 figure, not against the state pension alone. The research sets the benchmark high enough that relying on the state pension by itself is not enough for a single retiree.
