One in four workers do not know how much is being added to their pension fund from their wages, a financial service company finds.
Worryingly, this number jumped to more than a third (38%) for those aged over 55 years old.
A total of 16% of the 1,000 workers surveyed by Hargreaves Lansdown thought £500 was being added to their state fund. The same percentage also thought less than £100 was going into the pot from their pay packet and employers.
The more money people earned the more likely workers were to know how much is being added. Just 7% of respondents of higher rate taxpayers were unaware what was being contributed, compared to 24% of basic rate taxpayers.
There appears to be a worrying trend with workers’ pension knowledge too. Last month, a separate study from My Pension Expert found almost half of over 55s were heading into retirement not knowing what’s in their pension pot.
Women less likelier than men to know pension pot amount
Helen Morrissey, head of retirement analysis at Hargreaves Lansdown: “Many of us are clueless about contributions, with almost one quarter of us having no idea how much we and our employers are contributing into our pensions. It gets worse the older we get with 38% of the over 55s saying they don’t know how much is going into their pension. Women were also more likely to say they were unaware (29%) compared to men (20%).
“To an extent this is understandable in that auto-enrolment sees us put into a pension automatically, but it risks leaving many with a nasty shock when they come to realise, they are nowhere near funding the retirement they hoped for.
“Pensions are an important employee benefit, and the employer contribution can make a huge difference to how much you end up with and yet people are unaware of it. Many employers stick to auto-enrolment minimum contributions, but others are willing to do more and if you are able to put more into your pension then so will they. This is known as an employer match.”
