To wonder how the UK will look in 3 years time?

Given the increasing demand no it will definitely not be enough. Imagine how desperate Labour must have been to advance their disability cuts bill. The internal projections on claiming these benefits must be dire.

This is not just a case of a few billion extracted from the economy to fund matters. Labour MPs have their head in the sand if they believe that.

Holding down the various tax thresholds is making more people pay higher rates of tax by stealth from a lower base. Just not quickly enough to balance the deficit and repair the welfare state.

Btw I am a leftie. But the mote in the eye that never gets dealt with is the UK tax system. We have not socialised the costs of the welfare state. In effect large numbers of people are barely contributing to the state. Now I don’t think that burden should be solely on individuals, and you can certain look at asset tax but let’s stop pretending that income tax is a functioning system in the UK. It is not. It’s like a charity tin until you start paying higher rates.

@bombastix

*I am also fed up of the contention that somewhere there are a mass of rich people who can pay for it. The reality is that countries with social provision like ours everyone pays and contributes tax. If we don’t either adjust the tax everyone pays from top to bottom or adjust our social expectations as to welfare the UK is screwed.

I agree with that. EVERYONE needs to pay if we want to keep our existing welfare/health/social security systems, and that includes lower earnings, non workers, etc. The ONLY way we, as a country, can recover, is by spreading the burden of the deficit/debt as wide as possible.

No. It was a dire decision. Financially what we did has totally screwed our young people as they work to pay it off. The number of people going onto sickness benefits and an effective early retirement are over 50.

If we want an effective welfare state it has got to be funded. We cannot have a system that is allowing working age people to claim benefits as being an easier solution. If people want state pensions, schools, NHS then we need to look at these benefits again.

The figures are horrific. Not enough tax payers contributing and more and more working age people claiming.

I wish Labour had got on with reforming it rather than the inevitable right wing government that will now come. I am also fed up of the contention that somewhere there are a mass of rich people who can pay for it. The reality is that countries with social provision like ours everyone pays and contributes tax. If we don’t either adjust the tax everyone pays from top to bottom or adjust our social expectations as to welfare the UK is screwed.

Depends on how a Budget changes someone's current and future financial plans. Since last Autumn's Budget, I've had several clients who've made very major changes to their working future (such as emigration, retirement, business sale) and longer term financial plans, including setting up trusts, emigration, etc.

Really? People make irreversible financial decisions that affect the rest of their lives and change their entire philosophy on the basis of one budget? I find this implausible.

I didn't have this view and my life motto was completely different until the last budget.

I worked in my twenties and thirties about 60-70 hours a week and then never less than 50 hours in my lifetime.

Then I realised that whatever I worked for and earned will be taken from me and my DC. All whilst other people salivate over UBI and four days a week. I'm sorry I don't want to pay for this anymore.

ETA: you must be challenged if you don't see a difference with UC - I never ever had state funding me, even my kids were privately educated until this year. I paid for myself and many other people, unlike those working part time and sponging from state to the detriment of all public service.

@BurntBroccoli

Work as much or as little as you want, just don't expect any support from taxpayer.

There are thousands of people who charge e.g. £2k/day, by all means they can work two days a month if it's enough for them. If you get £100 a day you need to work as many days as you need to self fund yourself.

Fine @nearlylovemyusername, you do you. @Badbadbunny was talking about the financial behaviour of the majority of pensioners.

Just maybe keep that reasoning in mind when you’re considering why someone might choose to stay working part time on UC rather than take up a job where they’ll not be significantly better off working full-time.

Sauce for the goose and all that.

And how would you get around there being a severe lack of employment which could be a very real issue in future?

You forget about equity release.

It did make sense to have funds assuming you can pass it on to your kids. If not, everything over threshold needs to be reliably spend. You'd still end up in care home on the bed next to someone funded by LA and you'll be paying many times more for the same quality of service. So I'd rather go on multiple holidays abroad whilst I still can and if I don't have enough, well, there are benefits for this.

@nearlylovemyusername

"salaries. They retire from these salaries."

Luckily for them they won’t have to pay IHT. Because it’s not paid until you no longer exist.

I said it worked as a concept. If it was funded by wealth (AI companies) and not borrowing, it could work.
We just have to get past this arbitrary must work all the hours rhetoric. Why do we have to work 40 hours a week for example? There gave been several trials on reducing the working week to 4 days:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/nov/21/iceland-36-hour-working-week-stress-job

We actually see 5 working days as normal but in the past, a normal working week would be 6 days.

No, they wouldn’t because people with pensions large enough to worry about IHT usually own mortgage free houses that can be sold to fund care home fees. Obviously private medical treatment comes under the category of spending and the vast majority of people who use their money for it are doing it to queue jump.

Millions of people being paid to sit on their arses

Yes and many never got off them.

@BurntBroccoli

We actually used a form of UBI during Covid which worked extremely well. That alone should have been seen as proof of concept.

It was "proof" that it was completely unaffordable, unworkable and completely stupid. Millions of people being paid to sit on their arses whilst the economy ground to a halt because few people were actually working and being productive, total collapse of the supply chain, the NHS, construction, and massive damage to hospitality and tourism industries. Yeah, like we need more of that. We were billions in debt (more debt) because of it which is completely unaffordable.

exactly. Hence I stopper working many years earlier and you don't get my many k of taxes which I'd pay. Who's funding your UBI now?

Most people I know are saving some of their pension in case they need care in old age, whether care home, home carers, or private medical treatment, as they'd rather have choices rather than be reliant on what the state will provide, especially when it comes to care homes!

If everyone spent their pensions, then the cost to local authorities, NHS, etc would be enormous if everyone went cap in hand for state funding old age care!

We actually used a form of UBI during Covid which worked extremely well. That alone should have been seen as proof of concept.

Do you understand what you are saying? we're still paying huge debt for Covid "UBI". That "UBI" (I didn't receive anything, it wasn't UBI after all?) was "funded" by more borrowing

salaries. They retire from these salaries.

Of course you could easily take your pension out of IHT by - radical idea here - spending it. After all that’s what it’s intended for.

But you don’t pay inheritance tax.

Because it’s not paid until after you die.

And it’s not paid by you.

"Some of the people I’m talking about are on packages of about 50 - 60K."

50 - 60K salaries? Or 50 - 60K retirement income?

It’s a difficult one when it’s ingrained into society that you must work for your bread and if you don’t, you’re a scrounger. Socialism is seen as a bad thing due to elites and plutocrats making the rules.

Those tech companies (and others in manufacturing and business) will be creating more and more wealth due to not having to employ humans. However who is going to be able to afford the products they are making if there are no jobs? It’s in their interest to dish out some of that wealth to keep the cogs moving.

We actually used a form of UBI during Covid which worked extremely well. That alone should have been seen as proof of concept. People of course blamed it for inflation, but that inflation was really more the result of the supply chain crisis from the pandemic and the lockdowns creating shortages, not from money printing per se.