New figures show that 30,000 more people in Welwyn Hatfield are now saving more for their retirement.
Local MP Grant Shapps has welcomed the figures showing that, due to changes to workplace pensions, over 9 million more people across the UK are now saving for retirement.
Auto-enrolment was introduced so that more workers can save for retirement, while the Government’s plan means that workers can afford these changes.
The latest research shows that workplace pensions have become the ‘new normal’, while small businesses found a pension scheme for their workers to be ‘necessary’ and ‘sensible’.
Grant said: “By introducing automatic enrolment, we’re transforming the way people save for retirement. That means more families can plan for the long-term with the security of a pension.
“For a whole generation, workplace pension saving is now the new normal, but there’s still more to do to help people build an enjoyable and secure retirement.”
- The Pensions Regulator has shown how automatic enrolment has meant one million UK employers have enrolled staff into a workplace pension, helping more than 9 million employees save for their family’s future (The Pensions Regulator press release, 13 February 2018, link).
- The Government is transforming the way people save for retirement by introducing automatic enrolment. Since its launch in 2012, 9.3 million people now enrolled into a workplace pension and a large number of new savers under the age of 30. 4 in 5 of today’s eligible workers (83 per cent) now see saving through a workplace pension as the normal thing to do if you are in paid employment (DWP press release, 13 February 2018, link; The Pensions Regulator press release, 13 February 2018, link).
- The people benefitting the most from automatic enrolment are young people, women and those people who earn the least in the workplace. Workplace pension participation in the public and private sectors has increased from a low of 55 per cent in 2012 to 78 per cent in 2016. The most significant increases have been among the lowest earners, younger people (those aged 20 to 29) and women (DWP press release, 13 February 2018, link; DWP, Automatic enrolment review 2017: Maintaining the momentum, 18 December 2017, link).
- DWP research recently found that workplace pensions have become ‘the new normal’, revealing that small and micro employers – which represent 98 per cent of all UK businesses – are finding automatic enrolment ‘necessary’, ‘sensible’ and ‘easier to implement than first expected’ (DWP press release, 13 February 2018, link).
- The National Living Wage has boosted incomes by £1,400 and helped to cut the number of workers on low pay by 300,000 in the last year. Increasing the personal allowance has given 31 million working people a tax cut so they can keep more of the money they earn (HMT, Autumn Budget 2017, 22 November 2017, link).