More than 11 million Britons have less than £1,000 in savings
More than 11 million working-age people in Britain don’t have basic “rainy day” savings of at least £1,000, according to a report that warns that the poorest households are struggling to build up financial resilience amid the cost of living crisis.
The Resolution Foundation said people across Britain faced a “triple savings challenge” of insufficient savings, an inability to cope financially with major life events such as family breakdown, and inadequate retirement incomes.
It said 11.2 million people lived in households that had savings of less than £1,000, accounting for about one in three working-age households. As many as half lived in the poorest third of households in Britain.
In a report with the abrdn Financial Fairness Trust, the foundation estimated that the UK had a £74bn shortfall of funds saved for emergencies and for retirement compared with a country in which every family had at least three months of income kept in precautionary savings.