Employee Capital Plans (PPK) are not fulfilling their function
The employee capital plans were launched in July 2019. In the first stage of the program, the largest companies employing over 250 people were required to participate. The last stage, which included the smallest organizations and units in the public finance sector, ended in May 2021. Currently, 2.57 million people are actively saving in PPK, and an average of at least 20,000 new participants join every month. Nevertheless, the level of participation by eligible workers in the PPK program still hovers around 35 percent, which is much lower than the government's assumptions.
"The fundamental problem that employee capital plans were supposed to solve was to build additional retirement savings among those who will have very low benefits in the future. But it did not go in that direction at all. PPK became a benefit for well-paid employees," Dr. Antoni Kolek, President of the Pension Institute, said.
As he emphasized, it is necessary to rethink the structure of this program and make changes that will increase participation. To this end, the government should consider, among other things, the possibility of automatic enrollment in PPK for people over the age of 55, indexation of contributions from the Labor Fund, and complete exemption of the lowest-paid individuals from the obligation to transfer contributions from their own salary to PPK.
(Newseria)
