Todays Budget has resulted in the average workers getting a load of money

[DistinguishedSocialCommentator]

A load of money back in their pocket. I believe the average is 1300 a year for a person on an average wage is a few quid short of 35,000.

That is a real saving

However, those paying tax but no NI as pensioners don't have to pay it or if you don't work won't get a penny of that. My OH and I left work years ago not reached state retirement age and won't gain a penny but we are really happy for the majority that work as work must be rewarded.

A lot of winners here. We are not for reasons as stated above but still happy with the budget, inc the extra money for the NHS and completing 200,00 extra operations a year and money for improved IT system.

I feel this budget is good for those in work and rightly so and those in work with children of up to school leaving age?

Even people who are better off are only better off by a few quid a month, no where near the level of price increases on things we need just to live.

For what it’ll cost to implement, I’d rather they kept that 2% NI on the books and used the collective buying power to actually improve things, y’know like healthcare, social care, education…

Its an utter farce to try and sell this as a ‘good’ thing whilst telling us all, with a straight face, that they want to make public services more efficient. They could do that without flinging a few pence at the electorate.

All they should have done with this budget is proved they are actually a realistic and fiscally sensible party rather than sewing a pigs ear into a purse and telling us it’s silk.

As for ‘stick with the plan’, what plan’s that then? As far as I can tell interest rates settled down when they stopped fucking around with things. Is that the plan? They just sit there and don’t touch anything?

This

A touch off topic but what is the guy outside Westminster shouting in bbc news?

I get where you're coming from, but it's the impact on disposable income/purchasing power that people will feel in their pockets as a result of the frozen thresholds.

If my salary rises in line with inflation (which it probably won't!!), but the thresholds do not, I will end up paying a higher proportion of my income in tax. And I will have less purchasing power overall.

As I said, I don't actually object to this. I am happy to pay more tax. I just want it to be spent on better public services and on helping the most vulnerable. Not on tax giveaways for middle earners in the hope of buying their votes at the next election.

But that is different to being £188 worse off. I won’t have £188 less. I will have £125 more that makes it to my bank account.

Same as, if I get a pay increase, that increase will all be taxed at 40% - my purchasing power or whatever is a different issue.

It is confusing to present things this way. I think, deliberately so.

They probably won't be in long enough now even if they wanted to. Would be a struggle to not only have a consultation but implement such significant change within a few months. Even if they go as late as possible and have a January election, Parliament would have to be dissolved in December. Labour won't be daft enough to mess with the new thresholds, but that's not to say they'll reform further.

I hardly think we should be ignoring purchasing power. Frozen thresholds is just increasing taxation by stealth. The government is being deliberately deceptive by dishing out "tax cuts" but not addressing this.

Labour aren’t going to fix it either. Let’s be realistic. They don’t care that it’s clearly unfair on the basis that it’s a small number of higher earners who are either single mothers or single earner families with a SAHP.

It’s a terrible policy and I don’t know how the politicians who voted for it convinced themselves it was ok.

They could have done away entirely with child benefit and bundled it into UC, with the threshold and taper applying at household level so that households on £48k just got the CB equivalent in UC. But I suspect the Tories didn’t like the optics of it being part of UC for a demographic they want to be their voters.

If I ignore fiscal drag, I'm a smidge better off every month - but that will be wiped out by the rise in my pension contributions.

That's actually fair enough and it's a good pension (NHS) but it definitely doesn't put money in my pocket. More importantly, it doesn't get us the staff we need so that we can stop paying for expensive agency staff, it doesn't sort out our roads, it doesn't sort out crumbling council services (and how dare you accuse councils of throwing away money when you know full well - unless you're a complete halfwit - that there's nothing left to cut!).

The only positive I see is that you've finally managed to type your username correctly.

You may well be right, but I'd just point out that Labour had no hand in this shitshow and the last time they were in power we had universal CB. Fully agree it's an appalling policy.

I know they had no hand in this shitshow of a policy. But that doesn’t mean they’re going to fix it.

From the Sky calculator... the NI cut and but tax freeze means "In total that means you take home £62.74 less every month"

Thanks Jeremy 😡

I agree with you we can't assume they'll fix it either.

Yup. I'll be £64 a month worse off on my already whopping public sector salary of £16700.

Even if you're not thinking about fiscal drag, this NI cut still means that the lower your wage, the less you'll benefit.

Which is the opposite of the direction of travel this country needs.

No we can’t and frankly I wouldn’t trust anyone claiming that there any easy fixes here. However, I’m still open to a promise to work towards making things better and offering hope which I’m still backing Labour as the most likely to be able to do right now. The fact they don’t require me to ‘hate’ anyone is also very appealing.

Reading this thread has given me the most awful ear worm.

"Jem'll fix it for you, and you, and you, and ba, ba, baaaa"

I'll get my coat...

😂😂😂. No it hasn’t.

It’s minimal especially when you factor in that high inflation in recent years has put up prices far higher than salaries have risen.

Don’t fall for the Tory lies. 🤦🏻‍♀️🙄

Thankfully some sensible comments in the thread but reactions demonstrate the importance of teaching basic economics in schools.

Fiscal drag is not a complicated concept.

Sounds like the kind of rhetoric the Tories offered when they told people struggling with CoL to "just work harder". How do you expect people doing 38+ hours a week to do more work? How do you expect parents to work more when the cost of childcare is so expensive and the govts new policy is labelled unworkable/unaffordable by many nurseries? How do you deal with one of the major factors of people not working in this country - long term illness/social care needs - with an N.I. cut?

The problems this country faces are complex and many and the idea that a small cut to taxes will spur growth is as simplistic as it is incorrect. Where's the investment in manufacturing? In infrastructure and services - you know, the hospitals and GP surgeries that treat sick workers, the roads that take those workers to their jobs, the trains that do the same...

Fixing growth needs more than an a cheap pre-election giveaway.

And with regards to councils, perhaps the government could explain how it expects councils to spend hundreds of millions housing everywhere growing numbers of homeless families whilst it cuts their budgets.

In real terms I'm £15 better off... per year. That's a whopping £1.25 a month.

"pre-election" No its not as I know there will be a so-called mini-budget just before the election that will see the basic rate drop to 19%. The tax free allwace to increase. and one or two other items

They are all the same, lab inc, trsut me

Re "growing number of homeless families" - A solution is education about managing money and not trying to run before you can walk,

You will agree with me the vast majority (not all) become homeless due to mismanagement of money. That is not the govs fault.

We all want a better and easier life. I've never wanted to work but work from the age of 18 when I left the education system. Worked until I retired early at just over the age of 50. I wanted a big det house, but started off with a rundown terraced that needed doing up. My OH and I wanted 2 cars, but we could old afford an old Ford Cortian. We worked, we saved, we invested, we worked 6 days a week, long hours to reduce our mortgage and increase our savings, We only had three kids as we could not afford more. We did not have a hoilday abroad for 15 years until after marriage. We we wanted and what we knew we could prudently afford were two different stories. The last 20 years or so have been a lot better as money made money with the help of our hard work, prudent spending/investing and never buying anything on credit as it does not make sense to buy a car for 15k and then pay 22k for via HP

You sound terribly smug and utterly ignorant of the circumstances that often push people into financial difficulty.

Your username is ironic.

Stop reading the Mail. Your attitude is horrible.

So you measure whether you're better off on the basis of the actual numbers and not on the basis of purchasing power? In that case, the government might as well let inflation run rampant and we'll all be millionnaires in no time - you might not be able to afford the basics, but your bank balance would look good so you wouldn't mind?

I think you might be missing the point a bit about the tax. Yes, any increases will be taxed at 40%, but the point is that a higher proportion of your overall income will be above that 40% threshold. And those who were just below the threshold prior to any inflation-linked pay increases will be pushed into the 40% bracket even though they aren't actually any better off after adjusting for inflation.

But if it makes you feel happier to look at a slightly bigger number in your bank balance, then by all means, pretend that it's just the numbers that matter. You won't actually be better off though.