Government pension bill collapses
Despite the fact that the UK pension industry has never been under greater pressure than today, the UK government has announced that its plans to introduce "personal accounts" to allow those on low and middle incomes to save for their retirement will be delayed by at least four years. Initially the government had promised the scheme would be in place by April 2012 and 10 million workers would be enrolled automatically over an 18 month period. However, it has all changed over the last few months!
Despite the fact that the UK government is well aware of the pension crunch which will see more and more people struggling in their retirement, plans for the new accounts which would see workers paying 4%, employers 3% and the UK government top-up by 1% the scheme has been thrown into disarray. The government has now admitted that the scheme will not begin until October 2016 and in fact some members may have to wait up to 4 years before they are able to subscribe to the new arrangement.
Those who criticise the UK government will obviously highlight the fact that headlines were grabbed some time ago regarding this "pension saviour" only to be dashed, again, at the last minute.
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