News

One is growing much faster than the other…

The new State Pension has failed to keep up with the National Living Wage in the years since they were both set up in April 2016.

The National Living Wage (NLW) and the new State Pension (NSP) both began in April 2016. Each aims to set an income floor – the NLW during working life and the NSP from State pension age. You might therefore expect their values to be closely related, but that has not turned out to be the case.

Women are saving more than ever into pensions, but still lag behind men.

The good news is that more women are saving for retirement, and the size of the pension contributions they are making has increased, according to Scottish Widows. However, men are still saving more, benefiting generally from an additional £78,000 in their pension pot at retirement.

Generous grandparents are increasingly supporting younger family members, so intergenerational gifting should take potential benefits, and pitfalls, into account.

A third of millennial homeowners received financial help from their grandparents, with an average gifted sum of £7,400, according to a survey from mortgage brokers Trussle.

Meanwhile, research by equity release provider Key found that 15% of grandparents had contributed towards their grandchildren’s higher education, with another 20% planning to over the next decade.

The first Budget of 2020 may be the most unusual for years.

The UK survived 2019 without a Budget. Finally, on 11 March the new Chancellor, Rishi Sunak, presented a postponed Budget, the first of two due this year. This proved to be primarily an emergency Budget, focused on a “temporary, timely and targeted” response to the global economic shock from the Covid-19 pandemic.

Government incentives to save – like ISAs – are valuable, but recent changes present new opportunities while removing some old ones.

If you are aiming to buy your first home, investing in a Lifetime ISA (or LISA) could help. The recent withdrawal of the Help to Buy ISA means that the LISA is now the only tax-incentivised savings plan for first-time buyers. Existing Help to buy ISA holders can still contribute until November 2029.

It’s been five years since people in retirement were given the freedom to draw directly from pension savings.

The reforms, introduced back in April 2015, gave certain defined contribution pension holders “complete freedom to draw down as much or as little of their pension pot as they want, anytime they want,” according to the Chancellor of the time.

We can now draw some conclusions from experiences in both the UK and countries like the US and Australia who have had similar rules for longer, and derive some lessons for the future.

The spread of the Covid-19 coronavirus has changed the outlook for everyone and stymied the world economy.

The Budget on 11 March was overshadowed by the mounting impact of the virus. The Chancellor has already announced two rounds of measures to support the UK economy in addition to the Budget. Together they dwarf the £12 billion expenditure promised in the Budget. The running figure (as at 20 March) now totals over £60 billion, with a further £330 billion of loan guarantees for businesses, large and small. Mr Sunak’s actions include:

The 11th March Budget from the new Chancellor, Rishi Sunak, included £7 billion of expenditure targeting the impact of Covid-19 on employees, the self-employed and businesses. On 17th March a further raft of measures was announced, amounting to an additional £20 billion of support expenditure plus £330 billion of loan guarantees. By 20th March another round of support was announced of such size that no price tag was attached.

The newly appointed Chancellor, Rishi Sunak, announced a spirited Budget with a repeated emphasis on ‘getting things done’, echoing the recent election campaign.

His initial focus was on the short-term measures needed to deal with the challenges the UK faces as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. These amounted to a £12bn fiscal stimulus, with more available if required. There was help for both businesses and individuals.