Employers must pay super with wages under the new system
From tomorrow, employers must pay super at the same time as wages instead of only once every three months, but 47% of Australians surveyed were still unaware of payday super.
An Ideally survey for the Super Members Council found 12% of people surveyed had personally experienced unpaid super during their working lives.
According to the Super Members Council, unpaid super affects about 25% of working Australians and totals $6 billion each year.
Its analysis found a typical worker missed out on $1,730 in super in 2022-23. That shortfall could leave someone more than $30,000 worse off at retirement because of lost compounding returns.
Super Members Council chief executive Misha Schubert said: “Unpaid super is like a silent pay cut costing Australian workers billions each year and leaving some working Australians thousands of dollars worse off in retirement.”
More than 70% of people surveyed agreed payday super would help them track whether employers were paying correctly. More than half also said they would check their super more regularly.
Women are among the hardest hit groups. They already retire with about a quarter less super than men.
Younger workers and low-income earners also face risk. One in two workers earning less than $25,000 a year have unpaid super entitlements.
Meanwhile, the Super Members Council has long backed payday super and more proactive recovery of unpaid super by the Australian Taxation Office.
ATO enforcement and employer uptake
The ATO said it will use a graduated approach to enforcement during the first 12 months. It will focus resources on the highest-risk areas as businesses shift to the new system.
With digital payroll and single touch payroll reporting now available to all employers, about 40% of businesses already pay super more often than quarterly.
ATO data shows about 19,000 more employers have started paying super more frequently than quarterly since payday super was announced. That is a 2.4 percentage point increase.
Schubert said: “Payday super is a gamechanger that will help stamp out the scourge of unpaid super, but right now too many Australians don’t know it’s about to start.”
