A team of pension experts recently took to the streets of 15 countries around the world and their findings were not exactly surprising.
Out of the 15 countries across Europe, Asia, the Americas and Australia, it was the UK that was ranked “the worst” for how many self employed people had their pensions sorted out.
Regular readers of this blog will be only too aware about how I’ve reported that many contractors, freelancers, and small business owners are just not educated enough about self employed pensions. Unfortunately, they are going to find out the harsh truth when they get to retirement age.
Looking at the numbers, the team of pension experts were shocked to discover that only 52% of the 4.2 million self employed people in the UK did not have any kind of independent pension. So that is a lot of people that have decided to rely solely on the government State pension, which in my opinion, might not even be around in 20 years time.
Compare this to an average of 36% that did not have a pension across the other 14 countries, and it becomes clear that in the UK we really need to push the message across to every self employed worker out there…
“You need to get your pension sorted…ASAP!”
I’m sure this is what they have been doing in India where only 12% of those surveyed mentioned they had no plan for a retirement pension. So that is 88% who have really got their act together it seems. Well done India. UK take note.
Actually, one of the main reasons why India are so clued up when it comes to the subject of independent pensions for the self employed is because they have no welfare system like here in the UK.
The same can be said for Brazil, China and Turkey as well, where the majority of those surveyed said they were actively saving into a pension.
However, the same can’t be said about countries similar to the UK that also have a welfare system, because France, Spain and Australia only did a bit better than over here, with many clueless about what to do for their retirement.
One thing I do know is that the team of pension experts must have been baffled when roaming the streets of the UK and talking to the self employed people of our nation.
I can imagine the look of bemusement on their face as…
Only 10% of those who have a retirement plan had it written down.
56% said I don’t have any kind of plan.
52% expected to be working past the age of 65.
49% said they plan to rely on the State pension from the government.
My advice on this, if you are self employed and don’t have any kind of plan for retirement and your pension…get it sorted as soon as possible. It really is the only way, because you don’t want to be still working when you are 75, or even 80.
The government are thinking about bringing in some kind of auto enrolment scheme for the self employment, similar to what they have in many companies for employees. Although it might be a while until we see that happen.
For now, you really need to take control of your own situation.
