The retirement plans of millions of workers have been put in doubt by Britain’s growing pensions crisis, according to a series of authoritative reports.
The gulf between private sector pensions and the final salary schemes commonly enjoyed by public sector workers has reached record levels. But the chances of a worker in the private sector ever securing a generous final salary pension were fast diminishing, with nearly all employers now concluding that these schemes, which guaranteed the pension sum, were no longer sustainable.
The falling prices of shares and properties have severely dented the funds of the vast majority of those on the verge of retirement. Families were warned to brace themselves for disappointment when they received their pension payments as the sums they received failed to satisfy their expectations.
Britons cannot rely on the Government to help provide their retirement benefits after the state pension was exposed as the least generous in the Western world.
Furthermore, an authoritative report from the House of Lords gave warning that the imminent increase in the highest rate of tax would also damage the pension savings of many families.
The difficulties facing most pension holders were laid bare by research from the insurer Prudential, which calculated that those with a defined contribution scheme — which paid out depending on the amount paid in — would receive only a quarter of the retirement cash of those with final salary pensions.
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