When does the "Cost of living crisis end"

[topcat2014]

There will always be inflation. The media created this thing called a cost of living crisis.

Recessions have a technical definition, so therefore a technical end.

What is going to be the trigger for society agreeing the cost of living crisis is over?

@RosaNovella Are you on a different thread? I don’t know what you are reading because your posts do not make it clear that you know?! You are the one who claimed the young on benefits are sitting around smoking weed. Many young people get benefits in the form of housing benefit, childcare costs and child benefit.

Where have I said a 68 yr old shouldn’t receive any benefits? I just corrected you that they have all paid in, it’s about acknowledging demographics not a personal attack.

Healthy life expectancy has fallen but the state pension age is now 68 which again inflates the numbers of working age who are receiving benefits (which I have said numerous times).

“Boomers” are more unhealthy than their parents generations

“Even with advances in medicine and greater public awareness about healthy living, people born since 1945 are at greater risk of chronic illness and disability than their predecessors”

A older population is sicker and more expensive.

Those things would all help. But without enough jobs to go around everyone of working age and ability (which there aren't), people are always going to struggle to find work. It's not always a matter of location or skillset - sometimes the jobs simply aren't there.

I have multiple degrees, experience and post grad qualifications and I cannot find a job. It’s ok to say everyone who can should be working but where are the jobs?

I graduated from a Scottish university and my first job was in London. Most of my peers at work in London were from elsewhere. When I was back in Scotland with two small children and made redundant I was less keen on moving to find work. London rents must now be a big disincentive to young people even without dependants to look there, they were bad enough in 1998 but I could at least cover a room in a shared flat and have enough to live on. It would be far harder to make the sums at up today.

London rents must now be a big disincentive to young people even without dependants to look there

It's an aging city - only one in UK at minute.

London is now home to over 2.5 million residents aged 50 and older, including more than 1 million aged 65 and above, making older adults the city's fastest-growing demographic group.

How long has the ‘cost of living crisis’ been a slogan for though? Since 2022? I know it’s a real thing for all of us, but a crises makes it sound like it’s a passing thing.

Its not. It’s been on ongoing for years now and I can’t see things changing.

What we’re paying now is the new normal. Interest rates will unlikely drop to below 4%, fuel prices will probably remain high indefinitely and the food at the supermarket, well the prices will just creep up.

This isn’t a crisis. It’s a new reality.

And all the while the Ukraine and Iran war continues, it’ll only get worse.

Ukraine needs a deal with Russian and the US needs to stop the war in Iran.

The decline of British started around 4 decades ago.

Industry has all but gone other than a few remaining car plants and steelworks.

The country has been run into the ground , sold out, stripped of its assets and privatised..

Energy, trains , water, all owned mainly by foreign shareholders.

Lack of housing, partly due to Thatchers right to buy, the idea was good in theory, but ultimately all it did was ended council housing. This in turn reduced housing stock across the board.It also paved the way for private landlord to capitalise on this , councils now pay a fortune to landlord rather than have council tenants in council homes , owned by the state.

It also pushed up house prices. A property was once 3 x an annual salary, it’s now probably 10 times that.

A decent house in a decent part of the south east will be north of 300k. Quite frankly our property prices are too high. Yet we seem to celebrate having massive mortgages..

The high energy and public transport costs are largely going to shareholders, a lot of which aren’t even in this country.

It’s not fucking fair. The British public didn’t caused the issues yet were paying the bill for it all. People are laughing at us , we must be seen as mugs.

I think the seeds were down a couple of decades earlier than that. Manufacturing, mining, shipbuilding etc were all in decline from the 60s and led to the economic madness of the 70s. The 80s were a time of trying to manage the transition. The railways were in massive decline in the 60s and 70s due in part to the closure of mines and other industries meaning a collapse in the need for heavy freight transport which led to Beeching and huge closure program. More mines closed before Thatcher than during her reign.

@Paul2023

The British public didn’t caused the issues yet were paying the bill for it all.

In a way they did. They voted for political parties who offered privatisation windfalls, council house buying at whopping discounts etc. They were very popular policies at the time!

I suppose that’s right, people often vote in the short term. If it benefits them. And I don’t blame them.

Obviously not a popular view but I do wonder if having two people in a home working full time hasn't helped matters. Perhaps it's a chicken and egg situation but if so many women hadn't moved into full time employment house prices wouldn't have been able to rise as they have.

I agree, nor would people need to pay ruinously amounts of money for childcare. Potentially also for elderly care too as a non working parent may have also had time to do a small amount of "caring" for their elderly relatives.

Demand for housing, childcare, and other forms of care, has dragged up costs, as per basic economics of supply and demand.

I think so

Plus in the 1970s and 1980s there were more houses being built per capita than there is today:
1970 6.5 new houses per year per 1000 people
1980s: 4.2
1990s: 3.0
2000s: 2.9
2010s: 2.4

So with two income families you have more income chasing fewer houses = higher prices.

More households as well. Scotland’s population hasn’t grown the way it has in England - between 1980 and 1990 it declined and while it’s higher today than it was in the 1990, the increase is lower than in England. The number of individual households has grown at a faster pace than the number of people.

I have only lived by myself for 6 months when I rented a studio flat in London when I was gearing up to move back up north. Prior to that I always had flatmates then DH and I bought together. If DH and I were to split up, I think I’d live on my own although I have had the odd conversation with my old flatmates about whether we’d move back in together.

This is s really good point.
Used to be families lived in multi generational households, then in family units. And young single people lived in houseshares.
Noww with availability of ‘benefits’ there are many more households as parents split because they can.

I am an middle aged single person. I am not going to live in an HMO.

The end game is we'll all be poor and hungry.

This. When the benefits bill is significantly reduced.

What has the increased price in food and fuel got to do with benefits?
Will cutting your PIP count?

Many people feel the cost of living crisis because this government increases taxes on businesses, which means they in turn put up prices. If the government did not pay so much money out in all benefits including PIP they wouldn't have to tax businesses so prices wouldn't go up so much.