To be absolutely sick of hearing about the cost of living crisis

No need to be rude and personal. Surely you can debate with reaching for insults.

I don’t work in public sector.

But I ask again, who does those jobs: in social care, childcare, healthcare, education in expensive areas, if everyone moves to cheaper areas? Not to mention shop workers, delivery drivers, hairdressers, cleaners, street sweepers?

Calm down, as others have said this is about the cost of living, which is no longer covered by average incomes to the degree that the government has to subsidise wages, or social problems will spiral, costing more money to mop up aka the poverty industry, because that's outsourced to private profit making sectors too.

You do realise that if people stop "frittering" when they do feel flush and able to have a short term fix of "luxury", like a nice coffee or a fake Barbie from Poundland, half the economy will eventually collapse?

As usual people keep saying the gap between rich and poor is widening. It isn't.

Yes it is - I posted this earlier but it bears repeating:

Post war wealth inequality reduced before starting to increase in the 1980s. In the 1970s CEOs earned around 20 times the amount of a median earner. Today CEOs earn almost 80 times the amount of a median earner.

Between the end of WW2 and the 1980s the top 10% share of income fell from 35% to 21%, it's 30% again now. The bottom 20% had and 8% share of income in 1979 - it is the same today.

Since 1981, the economy has grown 87% in productivity terms, yet median wages has only increased by 62%

The top 10% own over 50% of the countries wealth, the top 20% own 63% and the bottom 20% own just 0.5%!

All of these things are clear evidence that the gap between rich and poor is widening.

I honestly think we need to start issuing some benefits via food and electricity vouchers with a portion for spending on other things.

what do you mean?

The poster you quoted is correct. People in poorer countries don't have the same levels of obesity as here. In fact, I don't know any other country in Europe with the same levels of obesity. And food in the UK is much cheaper than in many European countries.

It was never "sold" as anything. It was never "sold" at all. It was never voluntary so why would they try to "sell" it - it was just another tax. I've been in the workplace for 45 years and never heard it being "sold" as any kind of savings scheme - it was just tax. The only minority it may have been "sold" to is where you can buy a few extra years you've missed to increase your state pension, but that's a completely different form of NIC and not linked to wages like the main NIC rates are. I'd love to know where you saw it as being "sold" as anything - I suspect you've just misunderstood and misremembered. They're not "changing the message" - the message was never that it was any kind of savings scheme.

Nope I like eating out and but rarely do and don’t go on holiday unless I can really afford it. Hence not having been on holiday the last few years. I’d love a better car but I have an older car I saved up for…. We’d all like to be able to waste money on luxuries and pay the bills but life means you have to wait for things and can’t have it all.

With great fucking difficulty.

The "shit they don't need", lots of people don't do. My sister and her husband don't do any of them unless they've been gifted a meal out, which is often what they'll request as presents for occasions.

They're still struggling. They work in just over minimum wage jobs, and there is no prospect for progression unless they move away. But if they move away (as I did), the cost of living increases because housing costs are higher.

100%

Not to mention needing to be near elderly parents (and other relatives without children), so we can care for them, as we should and want to.

Then who does the low-paid or public sector jobs in the expensive areas?
So you stayed because of your social conscience? Very noble of you, but you still had options, you just chose not to go with them.

And yet the content of the thread is about the cost of living! Seems like it's moved on without you.

Because they’re frittering money on other shit they don’t need!!!

Like a list of all the things that you think the plebs enjoy! Your snobbery is showing and it's not pretty.

And many adults have to resort to credit cards and loans to cover basics, and are encouraged to, because it's a lucrative industry.

Many industries are tied to London, even for a first job. Mine was. It's also not reasonable to expect people to move away from their friends, families and support networks.

It isn’t inadequate.

Same. I wasn't broke but as I said, the priorities of the Labour government in the 2000s weren't the same as the subsequent coalition and Tory regimes. Labour at the time were committed to ending child poverty. A lot of the current crisis is caused by ideology - it's exactly what was intended.

Also the cost of commuting from outside London into it for your job is ££££ now.

Or people who bought a house 50 years ago who reckon that we just need to look at "cheaper" areas.

If we moved to a cheaper area we couldn't do these jobs. In those areas, our jobs don't exist so we take lower paying jobs. Probably with less benefits and flexibility, but more stress. But now the proportion of our income being spent on housing is exactly the same as it was when we lived in the more expensive area but had the better jobs. So we're in the same position financially but higher stress.

Whats the point?

Oh for goodness sake we’re adults. Many people manage to not be parted from cash they don’t have.

I don't accept it balances out as being able to afford home and food trumps so much. I fully believe the change in the last 40 years between wages and house prices are the cause of so many of the problems the UK faces on a societal level. Sadly, nothing can be done about it - no one, myself included, would accept some kind of reset on house prices (although we could do better by building cheaper houses). No one likes admitting good fortune, I get it, but the generation who could buy houses 1950-2000 were much more fortunate than they realise (or admit).

Certainly, lots of aspects of life are easier these days, but not all related to CoL.

https://www.economicshelp.org/blog/5568/housing/uk-house-price-affordability/

One could argue in that case that big corporations aren't entitled to apply every strategy in the book to part us from our money and avoid tax and offshore obscene profits while paying low wages for insecure job roles and expecting the government to make up any shortfall. But there we are.

I really hope you don't expect people to be grateful for what they get. That's a horrible attitude to bring to work. I don't think anyone needs to be grateful for the protection of the welfare state, especially now it's so piecemeal and inadequate. It's a social contract, not charity.

I’m always shocked by how much people who own their homes have no idea how savage the rental market is.

And I mean savage. £600-£1k per room per month savage. Try that with a couple of kids.