Employees earning less than £22,400 a year could receive free financial advice under proposals to set up a new monetary support network.
Resolution Foundation, a financial think-tank, is working with the government and voluntary agencies, such as Citizens Advice Bureau, to launch a free advice service for the 12 million people earning less than the national average wage (£22,400).
The foundation’s proposals include inviting independent money advisers to hold ‘drop-in’ clinics in the workplace and providing an internet service and a telephone helpline for workers to put questions to financial experts.
The think-tank presented its proposals to pensions minister Stephen Timms at a conference in London yesterday.
Clive Cowdery, chairman of Resolution Foundation, said: “Twenty years ago there were a huge number of mutual building societies on the high street who would have given advice or people would have been visited by the Man from the Pru. Now that type of contact has fallen away.”
Research by the Resolution Foundation also shows young people on low incomes are half as likely as high earners to be members of a company pension scheme.
