Workers who are being ripped off superannuation from their employers are falling even further behind in retirement savings that those who are receiving their contributions, with the savings gap between the two blowing out by 25 per cent in the last three years.
Australian Tax Office data from 2016/17 showed the number of workers missing out on super had climbed by 90,000 to hit 2.85 million since 2013/14, with the amount of unpaid super owed increasing by $340 million, to $5.94 billion.
The cumulative savings gap between those who were underpaid super in a year and those who weren’t was most concerning, with those missing out on payments in 2016/17 ending up with around half the super of the latter.
This figure was worse for workers under 25 with wages below $30,000, with those paid their full superannuation entitlements in 2016/17 having 81 per cent more super accumulated that those who were underpaid.
According to Industry Super Australia (ISA) chief executive, Bernie Dean, major political parties needed to act now to limit the impacts of what he labelled as “systematic exploitation”.
“This should be a wake-up call for the major parties. We are now seeing the cumulative damage the unpaid super epidemic is doing to workers’ super balances and it’s very clear,” Dean said.
“Allowing employers to continue robbing workers of their super entitlement means these workers are going to end up worse off at retirement.
“While most employers do the right thing, unless we see action from the major parties this election, those dodgy employers are going to continue taking advantage of lax laws, a weak regulator and insufficient penalties to rip off these hardworking Australians.”
