A few weeks ago, the U.K. government produced an analysis of U.K. pension savings. A slew of miserable headlines about our horrible levels of undersaving followed. But look closely at the numbers and it seems a fuss about not very much at all: Only 12% of workers are currently forecast to not meet the minimum sum required for retirement.
Things will also be improving all the time thanks to the U.K. pension auto-enrolment, which is now being extended to 18-year-olds. You’d think the government would be pretty pleased with this. So, why isn’t it? After all, the economy needs us to spend as much (possibly more) now than it needs us to have the ability to spend later.
However, think on this a little and you will see an excellent reason why the government might want everyone to carry on saving. It’s not so you have more, but so it has more. By demanding that people save more, the state may be losing out on some tax revenue up front, but at least in the U.K. that comes with several mitigating factors.