Royal London Pensions  

Increasing pension contributions will cause poorer households to struggle

He said: “For some households money right now in the bank, for the day-to-day households problems that we face is more important but we need to make sure we have that debate properly.”

Jenkins highlighted that now was not the right time to increase pension contributions because of the challenges many businesses and households are currently facing due to the current economic climate. 

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However, he stressed that it was important to start creating a plan of what increasing contributions may look like over time because it would be a challenging process to get people to an adequate level of retirement savings.

He added: “We’re not saying that increasing contributions is the only important thing, households are facing many challenges including having adequate protection and insurance for the things they need to do to cover their wages or income.

“Saving for retirement is perhaps a longer term challenge that we need to start creating a plan for because getting people to have a good amount in their pension is going to take decades not years.”

alina.khan@ft.com