Wealth & assets

Alliance for Health & the Future’s Demographic Study: living in the advice gap

This report, a partnership between the Alliance for Health in the Future and the Future Foundation, details the results of research into the social and economic profile of low earners for the Resolution Foundation. These individuals are largely independent of state support, but are not a profitable group for the financial services industry to want to provide independent financial advice to. They find themselves in an ‘advice-gap’: excluded from advice provided by the financial services industry, but unable to access state support available for those on very low incomes who are dependent on state benefits.

Key findings

  • The report identifies and discusses the main ‘clusters’ of individuals in this group and illustrates these clusters by presenting real life stories of actual individuals who are representative of the clusters. These clusters are then explored more thoroughly: their saving habits; their expectations of the future; their worries about retirement; their housing status and the burden of debt repayment.
  • The research reveals low earners to have highly diverse needs and aspirations, and with complex choices and financial decisions to make. It is, however, a group united by a lack of access to impartial advice to enable households to make sound financial decisions. It is a group at risk of falling back on the state in retirement and at risk of not fulfilling their potential.

Further reading

Ineffective Savings Accounts
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Molly Broome
In too deep?
The impact of the cost of living crisis on household debt
·
Felicia Odamtten, Simon Pittaway
Precautionary tales
Tackling the problem of low saving among UK households
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Molly Broome, Ian Mulheirn, Simon Pittaway