LONDON (Reuters) – Most people in Britain who were able to save money during the past year’s coronavirus lockdowns plan to hold on to at least some of their windfall, according to an opinion poll published on Thursday.
Twenty percent of respondents in the poll by Kantar Public said they had increased their savings because of restrictions on travel, shopping and socialising, while 21% said their savings had fallen and 41% said they had not changed.
Older people were more likely than younger ones to have saved money.
Of those people who did save money as a result of the lockdowns, only 3% intended to spend it all by the end of the year. Some 9% said they would spend most of it and 7% said they would spend half of it.
The biggest share, 38%, said they would spend some of their new savings while 18% said they would spend none at all.
The Bank of England has said the speed with which people spend lockdown savings will be a key variable for determining how fast the economy recovers after it slumped by nearly 10% last year.
The poll also found that 62% of respondents said their personal income had not been impacted by coronavirus, up from 56% in March and 49% in January.
Kantar said it interviewed 1,115 people between April 22 and April 26.
(Writing by William Schomberg, editing by David Milliken)
