If Labour raises taxes what will you think?

A
but they need to use it to break the assetocracy that we have had since Thatcher. Privatise the water companies as they go bust as a starting point.

Thing is I didn’t say I’d have done my job without being paid. That’s been confected somewhere down the line.

Agree you won’t be alone in that and the original comment was about benefits v pay anyway, and the relative difference between those two does impact behaviour.

Most people don’t have the luxury of choosing jobs that they’d do without being paid, either.

I’m not especially money-focused (could get paid much more in a different role but prefer the values of this one) and don’t mind my job, but it’s not what I’d be doing if I didn’t have a mortgage and bills to pay.

I think you’ll find that most people are money-focused in a capitalist society…

I find it’s always people who are money focused who are unable to understand those who aren’t. I’m not deluded, I just have different values to you.

Just because others may be less transactional than you are, doesn’t mean they are deluded. Don’t judge everyone by your own standards. We probably wouldn’t have any paramedics etc. if everything was simply quantified in hard £ notes.

ffs. Of course they have. Why am I subsidising businesses to pay below cost of living when I can't get a gp appt and DD's school runs out of pens before Christmas

Ikr! If you add the 2% tax which Labour are looking like adding, a tax payer needs an 8% pay rise to get an equivalent increase. I wish!

That’s you. I loved working and enjoyed my career, it would have been unthinkable to stop before the point whereby I lacked the energy to do it justice. My occupational pension was available for several years before I eventually stopped work and claimed it. I know people still working in their 70s because they love what they do.

6.2% wowzer.

Well i hate working but have done so for 25 years full time, but as there are hardly any jobs in my line of work and they ones that are available are part time for just over minimum wage i would be better off on benefits with no stress

The government are not going to cut (untaxed) benefits to match the extra tax burden on tax payers. Don't be silly. They have already created a policy to increase Universal Credit by 6 2%

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/universal-credit-benefits-increase-uprate-dwp-rates-2026-b2849860.html

That is delusional.

People may well get satisfaction and pleasure from their work, but they work because they are paid. That's why it's work, not volunteering.

To be fair they did try to cut benefits, but due to their massive majority couldn’t get it passed.

What will send me over the edge is lifting the two-child benefit cap. There are a zillion ways to improve children’s chances other than ladling money into the laps of those choosing to have 12 kids.

There’s a very widespread assumption that money is the only reason people work. In reality many people’s motivation to work is not that they’re better off than they would be on benefits.

A but they should cut benefits by the same amount as its not fair on people who are on already low wages, those people will stop working and start claiming benefits as it us not worth working for a few extra pounds

Good idea.

Sorry that last line should have said: THEN IT'S FREE, BECAUSE I'M PAYING FOR IT!

This thread has rattled me a bit. I'm going to put my focus elsewhere.

The welfare state is massive and we're the only country to have the Motability scheme and a healthcare system like the NHS. Heavens above, what other country in the world doles out free cars to people claiming PIP knowing fully well it's going to piss off the hardworking taxpayer who can barely afford to put fuel in their 5+ year old cars now? A damn near communist one.

Money earned has value. Money given does not.

I work for everything I buy. I have worked for everything I currently have. I've worked my backside off and overpaid my mortgage for a decade to finally get rid of it back in February of this year. PIP isn't means tested, so perhaps I should put in a claim to bolster my wages. I'm expecting to give birth to my first baby in March, too, so that money that would have gone on the mortgage will go on my child instead.

"Oh but it's not free because I paid for my Motability car out of my benefits."

THEN IT'S NOT FREE.

Would you like to quote who made no contributions please.

I am 65 and in the LGPS. My pension will be extremely good but I contribute about £700pcm. All members contribute a percentage of earnings. I have always lived in or close to London and my switch to the quasi public sector for work/life/children balance issues (being very local if the children needed me), came with a significant salary compromise.

None of that fits the ethos of being a decent human being. It smacks of knowing the price of everything and the value of nothing.

Welfare, the public sector is massive, yet turns no profits. Go after boomer's pensions and social care and you'll get the wrath of the state crashing down on you. But none of that fits the ethos of being a socialist, so it'll never happen.

Where? Public services are cut to the bone already as Reform councils are now discovering. It’s very easy to say, much harder to do.

"Vast numbers have final salary pensions for which they made very low or even zero contributions"
I don't think this can be held against people that received them.

It used to be common to offer
Final salary pensions, even non comtributary ones. It was a benefit to employees and something you took into account when deciding to go public Vs private sector.

These benefits have been cut to try both in the public and private sector and largely switched to DC pensions. It has been another form of pay cut for workers who now let's not forget need to work and benefits to survive.