People with disabilities ‘have pension savings worth third of average pot’

Pension savers with disabilities typically have savings worth only around a third of the average pot as they approach retirement, a study has found.

People aged 60 to 64 with a disability have £47,980 saved on average, according to research by the Pensions Policy Institute.

This is only around 36% of the average UK pension pot size of £130,928 – a difference of nearly £83,000.

The research was commissioned by pension provider NOW: Pensions, which said there are just over four million disabled workers in the UK and many are in low-paying or part-time jobs.

The high prevalence of part-time work among disabled workers means many are excluded from workplace pensions as they do not earn a minimum of £10,000 in a single job – the earnings “trigger” for automatic enrolment.

Joanne Segars, chair of trustees at NOW: Pensions, said: “We want to make pension saving fairer for everybody in the UK and our policy proposal to remove the £10,000 earnings threshold would help get a further 500,000 disabled people saving for their retirement.”

A Government spokesperson said: “The number of disabled people in employment has increased by 1.3 million since 2017 and over the next three years we will invest £1.3 billion in employment support for disabled people and people with health conditions.

“Alongside this, automatic enrolment has helped millions more people save into a pension, with participation among eligible people with a disability rising from 53% in 2012/13 to 88% in 2019/20.

“Our plans to remove the lower earnings limit for contributions and to reduce the eligible age of being automatically enrolled to 18 in the mid-2020s will enable even more people to save more and start saving earlier.”