What's going to happen when essential workers can't afford to get to work?

[noblegiraffe]

I was just reading another thread about cutbacks people are making to deal with the price increases, and some people mentioned WFH or WFH more often to save petrol money on going into the office. Petrol and diesel seem to be going up in price daily with no end in sight.

Public transport isn't cheap either, and prices go up in line with inflation.

Not that public transport is always an option - my school has very poor public transport links.

Obviously everyone is affected by price increases, but with real terms pay cuts promised by the government for several key public sector areas, how are they going to be able to guarantee a workforce that can actually afford to get to work? A couple of teachers leaving my dept for other schools cited cost of commute as a factor.

Thinking of the keyworkers - those who were so essential to the running of the country that they had to go out to work during a pandemic when everyone else had to stay at home. What is the plan to enable them to keep going out to work during this cost of living crisis?

Then buy a bike, instead, or an electric bike, or a Vespa, or find a job closer to home.

I don’t know what it is that you are looking for here, if you are struggling you can make changes that help, or you can continue struggling.

OK.

What of it though? Burning through that much fuel is environmental vandalism. It can’t continue.

@FemmeNatal Ok, Boris 🤔

Indeed Waynetta.

@CredibilityProblem maybe the environmental issues need to be put aside due to I don't no the massive crisis and war in Ukraine driving up fuel prices. Having worked it out I can actually buy + run a diesel Range Rover for less than buying and running a Tesla. That's without the practicality of a 5 minute fuel stop vs a 8hr home charge or 60 minute rapid charge. Even as someone who could afford to pay it I would quite frankly rather have the extra holiday a year.

I have a 11mile commute plus need to do the school run at either end of that so a bike isn't a practical option. My job isn't available closer to home and neither is the husbands so we live 50:50 distance wise. Public transport wouldn't fit in with after school care times as it's 2hr journey on the bus.

Of course, these stupid poor people! Not thinking to simply get a new job from the new job tree, because it is so very easy to do.

Also aldi and lidl! I can’t believe these poor people aren’t already going to the aldi and lidl that don’t exist in our area.

I guess I could do a 2 hour walk to the nearest Lidl. That would save me a ton of money which I would have otherwise wasted by doing work to earn money!

And budgeting. Of course, these stupid poor people forget always to budget. Cutting out all of the unnecessary expenditure like food and lighting. Don’t you know, if you are not starving to death in the dark you could always budget more!

Oh- and move house to a cheaper area using your nonexistent funds for a deposit & removals van, sell your car and teleport everywhere until you have found a more economical and therefore valuable car for the same price as your old one, and failing all else use your empty bank account to buy a bike which you definitely learned to ride in childhood.

@FemmeNatal

🤣 Your replies are so far from reality across this thread.

So what do you suggest , we hand our notice in at our job …

And very rich to come out with “ environmental vandalism “ , coming from yourself , an owner of 4 homes 🤨

Hypocritical.

Your reply to someone “ get an electric bind or a Vespa “ 🤣 , righto , great budget recommendations there 🥴

*electric bike

Well yes, a used moped is going to cost less than a car, and use far less fuel.

If none of these ideas work for you what are you going to do? Just sit there and hope someone else deals with your problems?

It's all very well saying people need to budget but what if you already are? What if you can't get to aldi/lidl without expensive taxis/busses that wipes out the savings of using asda/morrisons that you can walk to?

Using public transport is fine if it runs early/late enough to get you to your shift and you can afford it. Even if you could use busses, in my area they've been on strike for four weeks with no end in sight. Of we didn't have a car then Dh couldn't have got to work the last month and walking or bike isn't an option.

Thousands of working people have been living on a very tight budget for years with no opportunity to save or get better paid work.

It's sickening how much gas/electricity/fuel has gone up yet companies like shell have had record profits in the tens of billions in the last few months.

Hopefully the latter.

Especially since not all those things apply to me (apart from the aldi and the bike thing). I was a victim of CSE and got pregnant young due to abuse but managed to work hard and move into a better area then was made redundant and have since worked freelance from home, so not sure my choices are really to blame. I just have empathy for people who have poor luck and nothing left to cut.

@FemmeNatal

You seem to thrive on gloating

As I said you are so far removed from reality of what others are facing …

No point engaging further with you.

You personally may need a pay rise in order to cope with the cost of living increase. But it's much better for the government to give you that money in your pay packet than to give it to you via a fuel subsidy. That way, if you can carpool your commute or share the school run occasionally, or downsize your car, or do your commute on subsidised public transport when the DC aren't at school, (and you personally may not be able to, but a lot of people probably can) then you'll be as motivated as possible to do it.

If we're going to spend the money then we should do it in ways that achieve what we need to.

@FemmeNatal you must be living a very different reality to most people. Filling up at the start of the month is fine for this month. What do you do at the start of next month when your wages have stayed the same but fuel has gone up by £20 to fill the tank, shopping in aldi has gone up by another £60 per month, gas and electric have gone up another £30 per month?

I just cannot understand people who say how terrible their situation is but who seem to want to do literally nothing to improve it.

It’s a mindset which is completely alien to me.

I’m also in the same position of being a teacher and the government refusing to pay more. The end result is missing out on other things. No excessively long trips, no holidays, fewer days out with my girls…

I’m working to survive at the moment and it’s a job that makes me miserable.

The post I was referring to said that it made it hard to budget, implying that it was the uncertainty which was the problem, rather than the cost itself.

Maybe I am not clear on what people are asking here; I thought they wanted ideas about how to better manage; is it more that everyone just wants a bit of a loan (which is fine), but not to make any changes?

@CredibilityProblem not really the price of fuel is likely to fall in the near future. If you give people a pay rise now it is likely to be permanent. If you cut fuel duty today you can raise it back up even gradually as prices rise. The price of a barrel of oil $122 on 9th it's $107 currently.

My situation is not terrible

We have a lovely life thank you very much Mrs Ivory Tower

We both work hard and provide for our families.

The current fuel / petrol price is out of our control.

Honestly , you come across as so smug.

Zero empathy

Some of your replies to others are just 😳

The reality is for many people there IS nothing they can do differently, and by giving these suggestions it seems as if you’re blaming them (which in some cases you explicitly are) for things that are frequently circumstance beyond control (such as being poor bc you were made redundant and struggling to immediately find another position, which is going to happen to more and more people as the recession goes on).

If someone approaches with a specific problem and you offer a specific solution obv that makes sense. But simply saying ‘get a better job and spend less money’ is completely pointless.

The pound has lost 7% compared to the dollar in three months. That also impacts since we use petrodollars to get our fuel on the global market.

In that case you give a temporary cash bonus to be withdrawn when and if prices fall. What you don't do, is motivate people to carry on as normal.

Much as I loathe this government, at least when it comes to fuel bills they've intervened in the form of a cash hand out, not as a discount/cap on unit cost.

My role is public sector supporting and improving schools, many rural. The amount we can claim for mileage was set in 2012.

Claims are distance from the office base, not home. This means I already pay for more than half of the distance that I cover between schools without being able to claim anything. Sometimes the distances can be 2 hours between two school visits. Rural public transport is near non existent.

Current fuel price rises mean this is unaffordable, however an increase to public sector mileage per mile would impact on local authorities who are seeing massive cuts in their funding from central government. As a council workforce we have already accepted two days unpaid leave per year saving millions in employment spends.
Increasing employment costs in line with fuel prices will raise taxes just as the population is struggling massively.

The government have no plans beyond what they have offered which is a drop in the ocean of additional costs we're facing.
Certainly no payrise for us public sector workers.
We will just work to live with no extras eventually.