Gutted about NI rise

[CarryOnNurse20]

I know we need it and we have so much money to pay off. But we have been scrimping and saving after a hard couple of years. Every penny is accounted for from pay day to pay day. I’m a nurse and my pay has been capped/below inflation my whole career. And now the NI rise means any savings etc we have made will now be gone. I’m gutted.

It’s a Tory tax so obviously going to hurt those who can least afford it. Many will not earn enough to own their own house, have savings or a pension. Half of the social care budget goes on those under pension age, many who are working.

The U.K. taxation system is a progressive system - the more you earn, the more you contribute.

StoneofDestiny, what if you can’t afford to do either?

I couldn't for most of my working life.
But now I can as my kids have left home. I can downsize or buy in a cheaper area if I need to help my children get on the ladder. I'll always be better off than my parents who owned no house, no car and never holidayed abroad.
You don't have to look far to see how some older people have suffered - they have the signs of previous poverty in their very bones! Look at the state of some of their teeth - or lack of.

@Halfaham
Because many of them are graduates with decades of work experience earning under 20k. Accountants earn 23k. Solicitors under 30k. But people do it because they want to do good.

They don't work for my council then. Pretty sure they work for mine because its a secure job, a safe pension and they can't get sacked for incompetency.

Quite a large proportion are on temporary or short term contracts these days @ Millicent.

@Halfaham

Quite a large proportion are on temporary or short term contracts these days @ Millicent.

That probably why they do the job only half properly!!

Sorry if you're a council worker and you think I'm being harsh, but I don't ask much from the council and they're blinking useless. Nothing big. Nothing life altering, but just that irritating promising and not delivering, then arguing and denying. It just makes your heart sink when you have to contact them. Oh and FIX THE BLOODY ROADS!

Accountants earn 23k. Solicitors under 30k. But people do it because they want to do good.

I am very sorry to challenge your complacent narrative, but a lot of our friends' children have qualified in law and accountancy, and those are starting salaries for new graduates fresh from university. Move the snapshot on two or three years and the really good ones have moved their salaries up a lot, maybe doubled it. Between graduation, getting a job and learning to graft, your value explodes professionally.

The winter fuel allowance and free bus passes should be cut for pensioners above a certain income bracket

Once again, means testing the winter fuel allowance would cost more than it saved. Bus passes cost bugger all because outside cities there’s no bus service.

Oh and FIX THE BLOODY ROADS!

Budgets to councils have been slashed. I can recall the last time I could read a road sign without a tree smothering it!

@FunTimes2020

Sick of working hard, being skint and paying for other people

That's just how I've felt over the last 39 years of working and paying tax and ni. It doesn't get any easier and I've got another 11 years of it left if I don't drop dead first. My husband is 70 years old and still working because his pension pot was stolen by a crooked company. I've got an incurable cancer which means I probably won't even live to draw my pension. All you who spout off about rich pensioners make me fucking laugh. In a typical northern town like mine, there are very few of them. They've scrimped and struggled all their lives and continue in the same way as pensioners

@XingMing

Accountants earn 23k. Solicitors under 30k. But people do it because they want to do good.

I am very sorry to challenge your complacent narrative, but a lot of our friends' children have qualified in law and accountancy, and those are starting salaries for new graduates fresh from university. Move the snapshot on two or three years and the really good ones have moved their salaries up a lot, maybe doubled it. Between graduation, getting a job and learning to graft, your value explodes professionally.

Those are public sector salaries. That is the point. They could earn much more elsewhere. And they will.

Gutted and disgusted. The 3M mainly self employed/freelancers/new starters etc, etc, who received NO financial help during Covid, are now expected to pay the increase in NI. Just as we thought, didn’t recognise us for support but quick to recognise us when there’s an increase in taxes.

Yes. A bad hit for new start ups and the self employed.

Care homes should have a cap on how much they charge. £900 per week to look after a 90 year old person, is obscene. Care home owners pay their staff minimum wage, and must be making a killing with the money they’re getting from multiple residents. Maybe if that was addressed, people would happily pay for their care in old age.

I live from month to month and I work in social care on. Nmw. I do 13 hour shifts and can barely survive. The government need to concentrate on this company's who charge the earth for services. Services are lacking as not enough staff due to bad pay and long hours. Company's don't care at all.

I was reading on my company's staff info page and not one of the directors or ceo has experience in care. They all have business experience. I've just given my notice in as found a better paid job. My company think it's fine to pay nmw for a night shift. I'm disgusted

@StoneofDestiny

Oh and FIX THE BLOODY ROADS!

Budgets to councils have been slashed. I can recall the last time I could read a road sign without a tree smothering it!

I'll lend them a wheelbarrow and a shovel. It took them A YEAR to mend a road over 4ft wide dyke. I had to take 15 min detour 4 times a week to go to take care of my mum. For a year. They could have put four railway sleepers across it. Then they closed it to put up a wall on one side - don't know why it's there. Three weeks later, they closed the road again to take the wall down and rebuild it. A year later they closed the road again. To take the wall down again and rebuild it. Again.

None of that was anything to do with slashed budgets and all to do with incompetency and poor management.

A local housing estate builder had a contract to hand over £2m for a new bypass road. The money had to be taken by a certain date. Council didn't get their side organised in time and lost the 2m. And we lost the bypass road. Dont talk to me about slashed budgets.

Raising NI rather than tax is wrong. I receive an occupational pension and a state pension. I pay tax but I do not pay NI. The older generation like me who could easily afford to pay more tax should do so. Instead the younger working generation are being expected to pay more NI because the Tories are terrified of upsetting pensioners. It is so wrong, on so many levels.

All you who spout off about rich pensioners make me fucking laugh. In a typical northern town like mine, there are very few of them.

I think people are talking statistically though

@Redburnett - you might be able to pay more but many pensioners are struggling on the minimum state pension, not own their own home and have no savings.

@GinPin2 Oh Boohoo I see you conveniently forgot to leave out how much your house(s) are worth and what your final salary pensions are - I'm sure many of todays younger couples wouldn't mind a honeymoon in UK and cheap furniture if they could ever afford to buy.

And many more of today's younger generations will be in that same position

@lllllllllll

People paying in now will reap the benefits in the future.

I agree. Paying in now should mean a better old age for any of us who might need care in the future.

This is quite naive

And just because you are lucky enough to own your own home, doesn’t mean you’re financially comfortable. These retired people might be asset rich, but cash poor. They’ve scrimped the pennies together all their lives to pay a mortgage, as opposed to someone in council accommodation who pay low rents and get free everything. It seems it pays to not work and have everything handed to you on a plate, whilst others who work hard and own their home are punished. Madness.

[quote Realyorkshiretea]@CayrolBaaaskin quite right. Although anyone above 68 doesn’t need to have paid any NI to claim a SP, and that’s obviously the vast majority of today’s pensioners. So this particular perk won’t apply to anyone of working age at the moment - ha! Quelle surprise![/quote]
My MIL is 83, and doesn't get a state retirement pension, because she only worked for 15 years. She gets pension credit, which is means tested.

It's interesting, many of us will grow old and will need care. When do we take this serious and start making a solid infrastructure for the future.

@the80sweregreat

I guess a way around all this is to give the money to your children for their home deposits long before you end up in a care home yourself , or a trust fund? I'm sure a few will find ways around all this no doubt if they want their children to have their inheritance early. I know a few people who have said their parents have done this already.

Under Crag rules councils can go back 20 years to look for assets which could be used for care. It's not as simple as you think