Predictions that the age for accessing private pensions will rise, from 55 today to 58 in the late 2030s, is another kick in the teeth for millennial finances. Experts say this would give workers longer to save for retirement, yet squirrelling away money for the future feels impossible when many of us don’t have enough for right now.

In fact, two thirds of millennials worry that they won’t have enough to live on during retirement. Frankly, even that proportion sounds low to me, given what we’ve had to contend with as a generation: from graduating into a financial crash at the older end to tripled university fees at the younger, from Brexit to Covid, from a runaway housing market to the ongoing cost of living crisis.

And if retirement seem ludicrously far away for millennials, it isn’t. The oldest of this cohort are in their mid-forties, even if that grand old age doesn’t necessarily come with the trappings of adulthood (home ownership, children, financial security) that our forebears took for granted.

No doubt, it’s a raw deal to be ageing without any of the compensatory stability – yet here we are, many either renting (40 per cent) or living with family (roughly 20 per cent) and earning a relative pittance, a life-stage that used to be distinctly temporary but for many shows no signs of changing. Coupled with the ever-rising state pension age (young people today will receive their state pension almost a decade later than their older counterparts, caring responsibilities or ailing health be damned) this latest hike on the horizon only adds to the background hum of financial stress.

The introduction of workplace auto-enrolments means that the millennials with staff jobs will have been automatically signed up for pensions by their employers (not so if you happen to be a freelance writer with precisely zero in the way of retirement plans — though with 45 per cent of the freelance workforce made up of millennials, I’m far from alone.)

No doubt, those monthly deposits are better than nothing. Yet today’s schemes tend to be much less generous than those enjoyed by past generations, which were often based on a final salary, achieved after years climbing one career ladder. With contemporary job insecurity and workplace-hopping, the average millennial’s pension is more likely to be scattered across multiple providers, a kind of CV scrapbook, than building cosy interest in one neat heap.

What’s more, despite the fact that our pension pots will be far smaller, our post-work lives will be much more expensive (the average life-long renter will need to find £9,000 per year more for retirement than someone who owns their home, for instance).

You would be forgiven for feeling that things don’t quite add up – that despite running as fast as you possibly can for years, you’ve gotten nowhere. That’s because the conveyor belt that used to end at “comfortable retirement” after coasting past “university”, “family”, “disposable income” is broken, and has been for some time. The promise we grew up believing in will never be delivered: the standard of living our mums and dads expected is now the exception, not the rule.

There is one morbid silver lining. As the adult children of that generation, arguably the country’s most economically fortunate, many millennials will find themselves the recipients of significant wealth when their boomer parents die. But while that inheritance will cushion many retirements, it’s hardly a sign of a healthy economy for one generation to have to exit before another can thrive.

Of course, those windfalls will be far from universal; just as well, then, that we millennials are accustomed to protracted penury – equally likely to characterise our retirements as our early adulthoods. At least there’ll be comfort in continuity, eh?