Topping Up National Insurance Contributions

DianaJ2021

My daughter is 20 and has worked 2 part-time jobs over the past year so has not earned sufficient under either of them to count towards her National Insurance record. Is it worth her paying to top up her NI contributions for the year, or should she just leave her record showing insufficient earnings for the year as by the time she is old enough to collect her pension there probably won’t be a state pension anyway!?

Dazed_and_C0nfused

If she expects to have at least 35 years qualifying years by the time she reaches State Pension age then there is no benefit in paying the voluntary NI as far as her pension is concerned.

Why wouldn't there be a State Pension, do you see that being a popular government policy guaranteed to be a vote winner?

Neil_Jones

When your daughter gets full time work its plausible there will almost certainly be auto enrolment into a workplace pension.  Its safe to assume there will be a state pension but in 48 years time (assuming your daughter can retire at 68 as it's more likely to increase closer to 70 by that point), remember inflation erodes the value of it.

A workplace pension will probably be more "lucrative" for want of a better word, since you pay in and the company pays in too.  It'll probably supplement the state pension more than replace it for most people.