To think that very few people can manage £4200 energy bills

[Butterflyfluff]

news.sky.com/story/energy-bills-forecast-to-rise-even-higher-than-previously-thought-12668906

This simply isn’t manageable for the majority of people.

Where’s this going to end?

I don’t disagree but if you’re going to pay minimum 30k per year, for entry jobs which require no formal qualifications. You can’t expect graduate nurses, teachers, barristers, paramedics, dental nurses, social workers, etc, etc who are professionals and studied for years to come in on the same wage. It would mean many essential public sector jobs would need significant pay rises to be worth while. The public sector massively underpays for the skill set it employs, always has done.

In october my bill gonna go up around £500. Funny enough its more expensive than my mortgage! Crazy!

That ^^
I'm single with no DC so not entitled to anything except a 25% discount on council tax
Paying the bills alone is bloody hard and I'm on min wage plus commission (which obviously varies month to month)
There is no more money, I can't find it

The UC rate for single people with no DC is nothing short of barbaric.

@Itisasecret yes of course all of those wages need to rise too. No argument there.

Bloody hell, criminal law barristers now are being paid the same as I was as a secretary typing out letters from a dictation tape, twenty two years ago.

We've had a generation long wage freeze in this country and it is ridiculous.

That sums it up doesn’t it? A generational long wage freeze. That is now biting as “things” we kept artificially low via QE etc.

Yes, I really do think so.

Across the lower four/five deciles, certainly. People with kids can get their take home bumped up by UC but that's not a wage. And it is fuck all use to people without kids, like peloaddict.

I mean really what the fuck is happening here? People are working full-time but it is not paying. And what little they get is worth less every year because the national bank keeps printing money.

It's like we're living in an economic hellscape but nobody's noticed because some random people are getting handouts.

I was saying this the other day to my dad
I don't smoke, drink, go out, or go on holiday as I can't afford it. Work 40hrs a week FT
It would be nice to be able to afford a few days away. Earning pretty much the same as I was a decade ago but everything else has gone up except wages

Yes, same.

Back in 2008 when the BoE started printing money, the company I worked for asked us to take a 10% pay cut to avoid redundancies. We did, and around half of us got made redundant anyway within a year.

Bastards cut me off.

I then got a job paying a bit less than the 10% pay cut and that wage has crept up gradually but even now is less, fourteen years later, than I was earning to start with. And when I look at other comparable wages it's the same story. All of our wages are frozen.

The problem with all parties answers to this crisis is that it (tries) to deal with the now... BUT energy may well be very high for many more years, why would it fall back significantly?
The war in Ukraine isn't going to end in the next 12 months & when it does, demand will increase, driving energy prices & Russia isn't suddenly going to be welcomed back into the international fold.

We need a much longer term solution.

We've had a generation long wage freeze in this country and it is ridiculous.

This sums it right up. Like others, I am earning the same now as I did ten years ago. The BoE can get fu**ed - salaries need to increase.

I think this is part of the reason for the labour squeeze now. Obviously not the only one, there are also things like Brexit and the reduction in participation of mothers and older people during the pandemic. But also, there are people who have some financial choice about how much they work or who don't necessarily make a great deal from their 4th or 5th day once costs are taken into account, and who are making the call that actually the effort isn't worth the reward. It's telling.

The trouble is, whilst low income households will undoubtedly be struggling 90% of the financial help being touted by government is going to them.

Then you have the squeeze middle, the households earning anywhere from £25k to £80k who are not entitled to anything (except the laughable £400) whose bills are also climbing and if they have mortgages, child care fees etc then chances are they're also struggling. But it's considered tone dead to admit you might be struggling on a £50k income on MN.

@ApplesandBunions

I think you're right. People who are financially relatively sufficient (maybe have a pension or investments) are opting out. I hike and sometimes go out with a slightly older group. A lot of them (late 50s / early 60s) have decided to give up work - mortgage paid, can access private pensions etc. They say that if they're relatively frugal they can live quite well and they don't need the hassle anymore. All were basically only working to increase / preserve their pension. Employers need to think about how to attract these people back.

I can see that this may have happened with SAHP too. Maybe decided that child care is too expensive and it makes sense for 1 parent to do away with the rat race, at least until the children start school.

It would be interesting to see some stats on the 500,000 extra who have left the work force since Covid.

People who are financially relatively sufficient (maybe have a pension or investments) are opting out. I hike and sometimes go out with a slightly older group. A lot of them (late 50s / early 60s) have decided to give up work - mortgage paid, can access private pensions etc. They say that if they're relatively frugal they can live quite well and they don't need the hassle anymore. All were basically only working to increase / preserve their pension. Employers need to think about how to attract these people back.

Maybe we don’t want to be attracted back….

@PuzzledObserver

True. But if employers are struggling to attract enough workers then they need to think about how they can make themselves attractive to employees. And I mean all potential employees. So flexi working around other commitments/ hobbies (not just childcare). Interesting projects. How do you attract people who don't need to work?

@TwinklingFairyLightz How do you attract people who don't need to work?

That is the crucial question.

Lots of people work part time by choice because they value the flexibility and can make the finances work. (Others work part time because it’s all they can find and they would rather work full time regular hours - that’s a different story.)

Work potentially provides many other things besides money, including social contact, a sense of purpose and achievement and so on. But if you have settled into a life where you find those things through other activities - hobbies, volunteering, friends, family, whatever - you don’t need work for that.

I’m not saying I will categorically never work again (I’m 58 and been retired a year.) But at the moment you would have a very hard job persuading me. Maybe a short-term project that I found stimulating, but I think that would be it. I won’t be working in the shortage areas of hospitality or social care, that’s for sure. Although I do (voluntarily) drive older and disabled people to appointments, so I suppose that’s an aspect of social care.

It's true, lots of employers don't help themselves. Too many either haven't seen the way the wind is blowing or think they can opt out of it. So many accounts on here of companies who want 10 hours a week in a supermarket on NMW with no indication of what those hours might be, who think they can specify no wfh in office roles, who are paying barely above NMW but think they'll get a great graduate etc.

My guess is that the government are hoping inflation will force some people back to work, although it's likely to make childcare more expensive so it wouldn't surprise me if participation from parents (mothers, mainly) of preschool aged DC continues to fall. I genuinely don't see how people nearing retirement who don't need the income are going to be enticed back though.

"likely to make childcare more expensive so it wouldn't surprise me if participation from parents (mothers, mainly) of preschool aged DC continues to fall."

I saw in Sky News last night that the Ofsted figures of late show that 4000 child care places have closed in the year march 2021 to march 2022.
Even more will close as gas and electric go up and up and they can't afford to stay open.

news.sky.com/story/were-losing-40k-a-year-childcare-sector-hit-by-chronic-underfunding-12673998

(I haven't actually seen the official figures, I'm just repeating the sky story)

Housing, housing, housing. This is the root problem in this country. Not enough houses are being built, no one can rent anywhere or buy anywhere without facing eye watering prices. In a world where house prices are lower, people can better afford bills, people don’t begrudge paying higher taxes so we get better public services (free childcare!), housing benefit costs are lower freeing money for other things.

the country needs to get building. I don’t care where.

I will just be turning everything off before we get to this point . Leaving the fridge and phone chargers on !

Wouldn't surprise me. There was a general trend towards providers struggling even before the pandemic, and then of course that's been an absolute nightmare for them. I expect to see more close this financial year.

"I expect to see more close this financial year."

Me too. That'll put people in all kinds of trouble.
People that already have a job will struggle to keep it up as they have no childcare and unemployed won't be able to start a new job as all child care places have waiting lists. (The town I used to love in had this issue. There was 2 child care places that collected from my.kids school, both full, both had wait lists with 20+ names on)