Pensions & savings Perfectly adequate? Revisiting pensions adequacy 20 years after the Pensions Commission 10 October 2024 by Molly Broome and Ian Mulheirn In 2002, the Labour Government established the Pensions Commission to review the UK’s private pensions system and make recommendations for reform. Twenty years on from the Commission’s landmark first report, the auto-enrolment pension regime it proposed has finally come to fruition, revolutionising pension coverage in the UK. But alongside the rollout of this pioneering policy, … Continued READ MORE
Pensions & savings Calculating a Living Pension: the 2024 update 4 September 2024 by Molly Broome This report sets out the method through which the Living Pension standard – a voluntary savings target that aims to help workers build up a pension pot that will provide enough income to meet basic everyday needs in retirement – is calculated by the Resolution Foundation, and overseen by the Living Wage Commission on behalf … Continued READ MORE
General Election 2024· Pensions & savings· Tax Under triple lock and key What would a ‘triple-lock-plus’ policy look like? 29 May 2024 by Mike Brewer and Alex Clegg The Conservative Party has announced that, if re-elected, it intends to increase the personal allowance for pensioners in line with the triple lock – a policy which has been referred to as ‘triple lock plus’, or the ‘quadruple lock’. We’ve had a look at the costs and impacts of such a policy, and how it … Continued READ MORE
Pensions & savings· Wealth & assets Ineffective Savings Accounts 6 April 2024 by Molly Broome Today marks the beginning of a new ISA (Individual Savings Account) year with savers able to squirrel away up to £20,000 over the next year, with the returns being completely tax free. This is the Government’s flagship policy to promote saving – with around 12 million adults benefiting in 2021-22. But while the policy is … Continued READ MORE
Pensions & savings· Wealth & assets Precautionary tales Tackling the problem of low saving among UK households 12 February 2024 by Molly Broome and Ian Mulheirn and Simon Pittaway Families in Britain are confronted with what can be termed a ‘triple savings challenge’. This encompasses a lack of accessible ‘rainy day’ savings to cushion small cashflow shocks, inadequate precautionary saving to see people through large and unexpected income shocks, and insufficient saving to provide an adequate income in retirement. These three savings challenges are … Continued READ MORE
Pensions & savings· Wealth & assets ISA ISA Baby Assessing the Government’s policies to encourage household saving 16 January 2023 by Molly Broome and Adam Corlett and Jack Leslie The cost of living crisis highlights the long-standing issue of there being too many UK families with too little in savings. This is not a reflection of policy neglect: there have been many schemes over recent decades to encourage families to save more, covering both measures which cut taxes on savings returns and those which … Continued READ MORE
Pensions & savings Living pensions An assessment of whether workers’ pension saving meets a ‘living pension’ benchmark 28 July 2022 by Nye Cominetti and Felicia Odamtten Auto-enrolment has been successful in increasing pension saving participation among workers, especially those on lower incomes. However, given the improvements in take-up, the next pressing concern is whether workers are saving enough to deliver an adequate standard of living in retirement. A ‘Living pension’, parallel to the ‘Living wage’ could help us find the answer. … Continued READ MORE
Pensions & savings· Wealth & assets Wealth on the eve of a crisis Exploring the UK’s pre-pandemic wealth distribution 7 January 2022 by Krishan Shah Today’s release of data from the Wealth and Assets Survey (WAS) gives us a key insight into the financial position of families on the eve of the pandemic. It shows a picture of steady increases in aggregate wealth with households’ net worth standing at £15.2 trillion before the onset of Covid-19. Much is written about … Continued READ MORE
Covid-19· Incomes· Labour market· Pensions & savings After shocks Financial resilience before and during the Covid-19 crisis 21 April 2021 by Maja Gustafsson and Kathleen Henehan and Fahmida Rahman and Daniel Tomlinson This report provides some of the first evidence on how the impact of the Covid-19 crisis on households has differed across countries. It studies the living standards-related factors that contribute to financial resilience (or the lack of it) both before and during Covid-19 in the UK, France and Germany. Overall, we find that pre-crisis vulnerabilities … Continued READ MORE
Pensions & savings Building a living pension Closing the pension savings gap for low to-middle income families 23 January 2021 by David Finch and Cara Pacitti The Living Wage has been successful in providing a focus on the living standards of low-paid workers and increasing pay for many lower-paid employees. However, there has been much less of a focus on the future living standards of the same group. A ‘Living Pension’ could help us understand the savings required today to provide … Continued READ MORE
Pensions & savings· Wealth & assets The Missing Billions 3 January 2021 by Jack Leslie In this spotlight we discuss new research on the size and distribution of UK household wealth. Such wealth matters for living standards, economic opportunity and the ability of families to weather the coronavirus crisis. But it also matters because there is increasing interest in reforming wealth taxes in the UK, not least in the context … Continued READ MORE
Labour market enforcement· Pensions & savings Enrol up! The case for strengthening auto-enrolment enforcement 27 August 2020 by Hannah Slaughter This briefing note is part of a three-year programme of research exploring labour market enforcement generously funded by Unbound Philanthropy. It considers the extent of non-compliance with auto-enrolment, and whether there are ‘under-enrolment’ hotspots that require closer scrutiny. We estimate that around 3 per cent of eligible employees are not enrolled in a pension scheme … Continued READ MORE
Covid-19· Household debt· Pensions & savings· Wealth & assets Rainy days An audit of household wealth and the initial effects of the coronavirus crisis on saving and spending in Great Britain 22 June 2020 by George Bangham and Jack Leslie Families in Great Britain are faced with the most severe economic contraction in more than 100 years. Much of the immediate focus among policy makers has been on the size and distribution of falls in families’ incomes but household wealth, both savings and debt, will play a hugely important role in shaping how far families’ … Continued READ MORE
Incomes· Pensions & savings· Inequality & poverty· Wealth & assets· Political parties and elections Who owns all the pie? The size and distribution of Britain’s £14.6 trillion of wealth 5 December 2019 by George Bangham and Jack Leslie While incomes have stagnated over the past decade, our national wealth has continued to boom. Data released today put UK households collective wealth at £14.6 trillion. But that total is far from equally distributed: the richest 10 per cent of households own almost half of the nation’s wealth having benefitted most from the recent wealth … Continued READ MORE
Living standards· Pensions & savings· Wealth & assets· Intergenerational Centre A welfare generation: lifetime welfare transfers between generations 5 February 2018 by George Bangham and David Finch and Toby Phillips This paper updates John Hills’ seminal research on life-cycle welfare transfers between generations. It estimates the extent to which past and future cohorts contribute to the welfare state via taxation and withdraw from its core pillars – education, health and social security – over the course of their lifetimes. READ MORE
Pensions & savings· Wealth & assets· Housing· Intergenerational Centre The generation of wealth: asset accumulation across and within cohorts 20 June 2017 by Conor D’Arcy and Laura Gardiner Family wealth in 21st Century Britain is huge and growing, rising from £9.9 trillion before the financial crisis to over £11 trillion in the most recent data – more than six times our national income. Significant increases have come from house price rises in the 1990s and 2000s, followed by major growth in private pension wealth more … Continued READ MORE
Pensions & savings· Labour market· Pay· Intergenerational Centre The pay deficit: measuring the effect of pension deficit payments on workers’ wages 22 May 2017 by Matthew Whittaker and Brian Bell Across the UK economy, the share of overall employee compensation accounted for by non-wage elements such as employer pension contributions has increased substantially since 2000. This increase was driven in no small part by increased payments by employers to plug defined benefit deficits and coincided with a marked pre-crisis slowdown in pay growth, causing speculation … Continued READ MORE
Pensions & savings· Tax Save it for another day: pension tax relief and options for reform 10 March 2016 by Adam Corlett and Matthew Whittaker The Treasury has reportedly backed away from pension tax reforms, at least temporarily. Given the scale of existing tax relief, its particular benefits for higher income savers, and the potential wider impact of any change, this is perhaps understandable. But there remains a strong case for making the current system cheaper, fairer and better targeted. … Continued READ MORE
Labour market· Pensions & savings The self-employed and pensions 26 May 2015 by Conor D’Arcy The UK’s self-employed populace is now 4.5 million strong. Although there has been a modest fall in their numbers of late after years of rising, the self-employed look set to continue being a larger part of the workforce than in recent decades. While much has been made of their poor earnings performance relative to employees, … Continued READ MORE
Pensions & savings· Wealth & assets Parliamentary Briefing: Second Reading of the Pensions Bill 2008, House of Commons 1 January 2008 by Patrick Stevens This briefing sets out the evidence presented by the Resolution Foundation to the House of Commons in the Second Reading of the Pensions Bill. READ MORE
Pensions & savings· Wealth & assets Submission: evidence to the Work and Pensions Select Committee 2 October 2007 by Sue Regan This memorandum to the Work and Pensions Select Committee for a one-off evidence session on Personal Accounts focuses principally on developments since the Committee’s last report on Personal Accounts and reiterates the importance of generic financial advice in supporting the new scheme. READ MORE
Pensions & savings· Wealth & assets Submission: Personal Accounts White Paper response 2 May 2007 by Patrick Stevens This briefing presents the Foundation’s response to the Government’s Personal Accounts White Paper. It explains that we welcome the chance to respond to the Government’s proposals for a new system of Personal Accounts. Personal accounts are a crucial tool in ensuring people on lower incomes save enough for retirement and we support the overall direction … Continued READ MORE
Pensions & savings· Wealth & assets Submission: Pensions White Paper response 1 March 2007 by Patrick Stevens This briefing presents the Foundation’s response to the Government’s Pensions White Paper. It explains that we welcome the chance to respond to the Government’s proposals to reform pension provision in the UK, considering this is a vital area of policy and we applaud the thrust of the proposals to make access to retirement saving easier … Continued READ MORE
Pensions & savings· Wealth & assets Submission: Work and Pensions’ Select Committee evidence 1 January 2007 by Patrick Stevens This memorandum to the Work and Pensions Select Committee inquiry into the Government’s proposals for personal accounts focuses on the advice needs of people on low to moderate incomes in light of the Government’s proposals to introduce a new system of personal accounts. READ MORE
Pensions & savings· Wealth & assets Parliamentary Briefing: Second Reading of the Pensions Bill 2007, the House of Commons 1 January 2007 by Patrick Stevens This briefing presents the Foundation’s evidence to the House of Commons for the Second Reading of the Pensions Bill. We argue that the Government’s reforms to the pensions system provide an opportunity to significantly improve retirement income and security for pensioners. READ MORE
