As Twitterstorms go – it wasn’t in the Dennis or Ciara category, but this video put out by the DWP has got some notable tongues wagging

I wouldn’t expect much nuance in a video for Twitter, but “your funds grow every year…”? https://t.co/rJcMUzuTe5

— David Robbins (@David_J_Robbins) February 17, 2020

If you haven’t spotted the offensive slide, it’s here

Which of course might not be true and sticks two fingers up to the 30 year old dictum “the price of units can fall as well as rise”.

So what do you think?

Is the DWP simply explaining the principle of compound growth to encourage us to save enough to stop work?

Or is the DWP confusing “saving and investing” and kidding vulnerable people into thinking that investing is a one -way ticket to prosperity?

There are people out there explaining that investing is different from saving. Here’s Martin Lewis.

Would the people who are watching stop saving into a workplace pension if they knew they were investing in a fund that might be worth less at the end of the year than at the start?

Or is there a need for responsible people like the DWP to explain that people’s money is invested and that along the way, there may be years when money doesn’t compound up, that there may even be years where money compounds down?

This is what I think..

There are more important things in the world than to get hung up on a dodgy slide!

I think the video would have worked just as well without the “every year” message which is just a hostage to social media.

It would be sensible for DWP to edit the video and repost – the self-correcting power of twitter will then have found, forgiven and forgotten.

The DWP is not selling junk