{"id":1817,"date":"2021-09-13T10:51:13","date_gmt":"2021-09-13T09:51:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.contentdeployment.co.uk\/tomd\/?p=1817"},"modified":"2021-09-15T11:02:00","modified_gmt":"2021-09-15T10:02:00","slug":"long-covid-a-problem-for-your-pension-pot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.contentdeployment.co.uk\/tomd\/2021\/09\/13\/long-covid-a-problem-for-your-pension-pot\/","title":{"rendered":"Long COVID \u2013 a problem for your pension pot?"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"hd-block hd-block-paragraph\">\n<p><strong>The pandemic has affected almost everyone in numerous different\nways, whether that is financially, medically, or socially; its death toll has\nbeen appalling and overshadows everything. Fortunately, the vast majority have\ncome through the pandemic, but the speed of recovery has been variable.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n<div class=\"hd-block hd-block-paragraph\">\n<p>Medically,\nmany patients have recovered well, but some have prolonged symptoms which have\nbeen diagnosed as \u2018long COVID\u2019. A corresponding picture emerges with people\u2019s\nfinances, as many people have lost earnings or even their jobs, but economic\nrecovery could help restore their financial health. A minority, however, may\nsuffer the financial equivalent of long COVID.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n<div class=\"hd-block hd-block-paragraph\">\n<p>Insurer and\npension provider Legal &amp; General (L&amp;G) has monitored the financial\neffects of COVID-19 throughout the pandemic, particularly the long-term impact\non the prospective pension income of workers over 50 who are closest to\nretirement. In the early months of the crisis, the picture wasn\u2019t too\ndisturbing; last August, only 2% of this group envisaged cutting their pension\ncontributions.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n<div class=\"hd-block hd-block-paragraph\">\n<p><strong>What are the numbers?<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n<div class=\"hd-block hd-block-paragraph\">\n<p>Fast-forward\neight months to April this year and the L&amp;G research revealed that some 12%\nof workers over 50 were paying less into their pension pots because COVID-19\nhad disrupted their finances. This led L&amp;G\u2019s number-crunchers to work out\njust how severe the impact could be on the retirements of those one-in-eight\n(about 1.7 million) 50-plus workforce members.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n<div class=\"hd-block hd-block-paragraph\">\n<p>The message\nfrom L&amp;G\u2019s figures is simple, <em>\u2018A 50-year-old opting out of a workplace\npension could be \u00a350,000 worse off by the State Pension age of 67 if they never\nopted back in and continued working full time throughout.\u2019<\/em> So, if you have\ncut back on your pension contributions during the pandemic, you should consider\nrestarting them as soon as you can.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n<div class=\"hd-block hd-block-paragraph\">\n<p><strong><em>The value\nof investments and income from them may go down. You may not get back the\noriginal amount invested. A pension is a long-term investment. The fund value\nmay fluctuate and can go down. Your eventual income may depend on the size of\nthe fund at retirement, future interest rates and tax legislation.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The pandemic has affected almost everyone in numerous different ways, whether that is financially, medically, or socially; its death toll has been appalling and overshadows everything. Fortunately, the vast majority have come through the pandemic, but the speed of recovery has been variable. Medically, many patients have recovered well, but some have prolonged symptoms which [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":1818,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[32,89,88,90],"tags":[],"hd_content_source":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.contentdeployment.co.uk\/tomd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1817"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.contentdeployment.co.uk\/tomd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.contentdeployment.co.uk\/tomd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.contentdeployment.co.uk\/tomd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.contentdeployment.co.uk\/tomd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1817"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/new.contentdeployment.co.uk\/tomd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1817\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1820,"href":"https:\/\/new.contentdeployment.co.uk\/tomd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1817\/revisions\/1820"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.contentdeployment.co.uk\/tomd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1818"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.contentdeployment.co.uk\/tomd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1817"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.contentdeployment.co.uk\/tomd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1817"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.contentdeployment.co.uk\/tomd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1817"},{"taxonomy":"hd_content_source","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.contentdeployment.co.uk\/tomd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hd_content_source?post=1817"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}