2p NI cut

If I thought for one minute that £63 would make an appreciable difference I would happily see it in the NHS. But my recent experiences of it just demonstrate it’s appallingly run and wastes cash in many areas. That money can get put away for a private hip replacement or equivalent in future.

I worry about the impact on public services. Cuts might give me £30 a month extra but I also now have to budget £90 a month just to be registered with a private dentist because no NHS dentist are available in our area.
£30 won't get us seen quicker at A&E. Won't help with all the constant pot-hole related car damage, won't empty our overflowing bins, solve the problem of oversubscribed schools and lack of care and social support in the community. The whole governance of this country needs an overhaul but instead they think can just bribe us with a few coins for our piggy bank.

Exactly. I am £14 better off in a low paid charity job doing essential work that is ever increasing thanks to the last 15 years of austerity and cuts. My workload has increased hugely. I work for a charity helping older people ( well over 50's to be precise ) to access benefits. We have huge numbers needing help to make claims for disability benefits for mental health. Huge numbers of older people who are waiting years to get hip and knee replacements, can't get appointments with their GP's and trying to pay for care when they can no longer manage at home. Many have given up trying to get GP appointments, they have lost faith in the system altogether. We have been doing a lot of applications for people for the household support fund but as pp says this is likely ending now. It has been a lifeline for some like one of my clients who had to give up work due to serious illness and was waiting for disability benefits to be in place and surviving on £200 Universal credit a month after deductions. If our charity had not taken food parcels round and she not been able to access the HSF then goodness knows what would have happened. We have the equivalent of three full time workers/ advisors for the whole county including a drop in service. Lots of older folk need home visits .The local councils pass everything on to us to deal with as they are making cuts and have no staff either. Everyday I just see things getting worse and worse, people in more and more despair . Despite my pay which I feel is desperately low for the level of distress we have to deal with and the huge pressure of workload, I would rather see the NHS, social care etc better funded than have a measly £14 a month more.

Well that's nice for you, but as @Babyroobs said on P1, it really doesn't help those who need it the most.
She said she was £14pm better off after the last 2% rise.

I also wonder, for those saying "I'll be £60 better off" - wouldn't you rather that people didn't have to wait 4 hours for an ambulance, or wait outside A&E once they got there for another 4 hours before they get into the actual hospital building? Or that people who get themselves to A&E don't have to sit there for 17 hours? Or people awaiting operations don't have to wait 2 years and then have their operations cancelled once they are actually admitted ? Or wouldn't you rather every child had a teacher stood in front of the class, as a minimum expectation ? Or that there were specialist provision for those with the most significant needs ? Or that mental health provision were actually a thing in this country for more than about 30% of those who need that support ?

Unless you have children at university, or a parent needing care then you are MUCH better off than us in England.

The NI cut will give us an extra £120 in our take home pay, £60 each

Exactly this. Do they think we’ll stop noticing the literal shit show on our coasts, the collapsing NHS and crumbling schools? 🤦🏼‍♀️

Given my 3.5% payrise this year (yeah! Another years payrise below inflation) pensioners are doing better than me.

Is that before or after tax (the extra £120?)

Remind me again, what good did Hunt's last NIC cut do?

It is a desperate sop to retain their dwindling voters. It won't win anyone over into deciding to vote for them. Might cause a headache for the incoming Labour government, I suppose.

This is my thinking.

If there is 'spare' money in the budget, what about providing (re-introducing?) some of the services that have been absolutely stripped over the last 14 years ?

It was only meant to last while inflation was so high during the COL crisis.

Our public services are in dire straits.
How does cutting income help with this situation?

This. It will be spun beautifully to aid their election chances. But this is the actual reality

Whilst I think they should raise the tax thresholds, the NI cut is decent as it helps the working population. It’ll mean an extra £120ish a month for my household as both me and DH earn around £55k each.

I don’t work but the money DH will get will pay for a tank of petrol, give or take a pound. I think it’s ridiculous. DS2 is a charge nurse. He tells me horrendous stories about what’s happening in the NHS and DS1 is in the army with precious little equipment because most of it has been given away.

The country is on its arse. Giving people a few quid a month in the run up to the election is just going to make it worse. Robbing Peter to pay Paul never works.

Won’t make any difference to me.
The household Support Fund looks like ending, that had helped many people struggling with their Bills

It’s not even going to touch the sides. Taxes have never been higher since WW2. This government has stolen billions from us in the name of Covid and handed it to their cronies.

2p NI cut is insulting. The basic rate threshold should be raised to £15k at least.

If they’re getting the full state pension the rise is worth more than the NI cut for an average earner.

I could happily live on £13 or £14k a year if I didn’t have housing or work costs.

But many pensioners are still very poor- 8.5% of less than £11k isn't much, especially when you take into account fixed costs like council tax and the proposed rises there.

And pensioners with a small private pension ( as everyone is encouraged to contribute to) means that many are paying tax on very small incomes.

Would you like to live on £13k or £14k a year?

State pension is going up by 8.5%, though, so it’s not as though they aren’t getting anything. An income tax cut wouldn’t help the poorest pensioners, either.

It would help me, doesn't mean I agree with it.

Doesn't help pensioners, who are not all rolling in cash, and still have to deal with the full force of rising costs.

But it's cheaper than changes to income tax.

Didn’t they also cut another two billion from the massively underfunded NHS - lowering taxes often means lowering public services.

Having a 2% cut won’t massively improve things for lower income workers or have any effect on pensioners but it does impact underfunded public services.

It is nice to get a little extra in each month but I would prefer to see them fund the NHS properly and raise the minimum wage (and get rid of the awful lower rates for people under 25).

To make up the shortfall they could tax the very wealthy, close loopholes that allow millionaires pay next to nothing and add duty to junk food and luxury items.

It’s become a very inequitable country where healthy food is unaffordable to many and hospital waiting lists are resulting in lots of preventable deaths. I read an article about kids getting things like rickets like we are living in Dickensian times. You login to patient access and it actively markets private health scans and blood tests to you - things that a few years ago you could have gotten relatively quickly through the NHS. So if you have money you can pay a company (that is likely owned by Tory donors) to give you a scan but if you don’t you wait for 6months until your told you have cancer, it’s spread and now can’t be treated.

But you know, vote for us we gave you a few quid (and collapsed the health service).

Yes it’s already happened