To detest the term 'squeezed middle'

[unicormb]

And how it's being used on here to forecast that the poor high earners will be worse off than anyone else over the next few years?

It's absolutely not true, for one. The worst off will be the worst off.

I grew up in poverty. My kids are middle class. I know the gulf that exists between the two, firsthand, and secondhand from working with kids in inner London for twelve years.

The squeezed middle will be ok. So can we stop pretending that people who earn over £50k a year are on the brink of destitution? It's really demeaning to those who survive on a lot less.

Yes, but will that still be the case when the base rate has been pushed up to 10%? Could you afford an extra £400 a month on your mortgage and increased bills?

The crunch has only just started. Don’t be too smug about having made such great life decision just yet. The first to fall will be those who have over reached themselves but there will be enough squeeze to put pressure on the fiscally conservative.

We have no mortgage and earn over £100k a year now and I have still had to go through our budget and cut stuff out to make sure that we have enough of a buffer to absorb price rises. I’m not looking for sympathy about that as we are no longer the squeezed middle and have been incredibly lucky (much more luck than judgement). But it just shows how much prices have shifted if people on upward of £50k a year no longer feel well off and are slashing spending down to the bone to make ends meet. Who exactly is doing well in all this?

@Lunar270

Dividends are now taxed at ridiculous levels.

because too many contractors were taking dividends instead of wages and not paying tax

@bellac11 - i didnt assume they had a social worker. PP said if you rang social services it would be sorted by lunch time. If you decided the lack of beds was a safeguarding concern and rang it through to social services, i am suggesting that it wouldnt be sorted by lunchtime as we wait days for them to pick up our messages!

As many posters have pointed out, very few people on long term benefits are only getting £400 a month. In order to qualify for long term benefits you have to either have to have a disability that prevents you from working, or be a carer and the benefits in those two circumstances are much more generous than £400 per month.

I was assuming the previous poster about SSD sorting it by lunchtime was a mickey take I wouldnt have thought anyone would expect thats true

The lack of beds is not a safeguarding concern in and of itself. How do you think millions child children in this country manage in overcrowded accommodation?

Okay but it is hard to think ‘look at all those who have it worse’ if the o l’y way to make sure ends meet is to start selling anything if value to pay the mortgage you were told you could afford when rates were lower.

Things are bad all round. This should be recognised. People who can’t afford food should be supported whether they are a low paid labourer or a midwife. People stuck in private renting who earn too much to qualify for income support are going to see all their bills rise by over £500 a month before the end of the year.

So don’t worry. They’ll soon be joining the very poorest in having to sit in freezing houses with little or nothing to eat and no fall back.

Which is totally legal and feasible if you (as a contractor) are shouldering the risk of insecure working and running a business.

@stillherenow

The net difference between £30/£40/£50 isn't actually that much & depends on whether that's one earner or two.

there are a LOT of people earning/benefits under £35 who would say someone on £35k doesn't or shouldn't need help,

you don't know the commenting costs, childcare/rent/mortgage/energy circa if that person in £50, the same a someone earning less than you doesn't know yours.

we needed to change something and sell the apartment. Like we hadn’t thought of that!! We just looked at her and she apologised

I'm not sure what you mean here?
Why didn't you seek the apartment if you were struggling to pay the mortgage on it?

Yes things are hard but anyone working for £50k bemoaning university costs or whatever needs to give their head a wobble if they think they are worse off than a single adult on UC getting less than £400 a month

Then you'll have to put things into context.

50k salary may have to support 3-4 people including other DC.
This person (s) are probably already in full time employment so has no real moving power to increase income. All they can do is cut their spending....

While my question would be why is the single person on benefits? How or what can they do to increase the income?

This is so incredibly offensive and ignorant.

I worked hard at school. Did the right thing. Delayed having children until I had a good career, marriage, a lovely home and significant savings.

Shit happens. I did not choose to suffer repeated bereavements. I did not choose to have dc with additional needs and I certainly did not choose for my ex (another white collar professional) to become violent.

The reality of being a lone parent of disabled children means poverty. Real poverty. And that's aside from the mental strain of being a carer with no support. How dare you suggest that somehow I'm responsible for the poverty I face.

The lack of awareness in your post is staggering.

Well we used to be the squeezed middle. And i assure you it exists.
When second child was at uni and the fees were assessed for dc 2 the assesments only take your income on paper into account ,not the fact that it is already being used to support the first dc.
We also had a high mortgage.
We had not had a holiday for 4 plus years .
I dyed my own hair.etc.

We ate so so frugally. Still do. No meat .etc.

The dc degree was that in the holidays they did not have a break to work as on placements in departments .
We absolutely did not swap an audi for a ford. How easy it is to make such lazy assumptions . Our car , actually a ford, is 15 years old . We service it ourselves. My dh who is over 60 gets on the floor and does it.

It makes me laugh that it is assumed that the middle cannot struggle.

In fact the pressure of my work made me ill after a number of years. The sheer releif at doing a job that did not mean I had to.work on sundays on my own time to keep.up, to be able to go home and not take work with me either literally or.mentally.I now clean for a living. I was in public services with a post grad and professional qualification.
Its a huge huge relief not to be in the squeezed middle anymore and to be honest its easier.
Why so bitter , some of you,about lives that you have no apparent concept of .If others do that to you you may be quite rightly up in arms , so.perhaps dont do it about others and make assumptions about things you may not know about. I am sure you would want that for yourself from others.

Regional inequalities are huge in Britain. It made me laugh, when it didn’t make me sob, that national inequalities were held up as a good reason for Brexit, while the internal regional inequalities are barely mentioned.

London is basically a different country now from the north of England.

And ’actual poverty’ in the UK is rich compared to ‘actual poverty’ elsewhere in the world.

Mocking the squeezed middle and telling them to shut up because they don’t know what struggling is, is not going to make them sympathetic to those poorer than them. Quite the opposite in fact. If you want people to listen, you also need to be willing to hear them, and not shut them down.

The voices of the squeezed middle, with their legitimate complaints, should be joining the voices of those ‘below’ them (economically speaking). That would, I imagine, be a far more effective use of said voices. Instead you’ve got this fucking sideshow where the struggling are turning on each other and deciding to give less of a shit about one another than they otherwise would have done.

I think OP is bit of a eind up merchant. Throw in some proper twatty, obviously stupid statements and oet them fight, eh

As I said upthread, I think looking at the money people have left to spend after accounting for housing costs is interesting - as housing makes up the biggest proportion of household spending.

This is from the Joseph Rowntree Trust - the minimum income standard people in the UK believe you need so you can

"The Minimum Income Standard for the UK shows how much money people need, so that they can buy things that members of the public think that everyone in the UK should be able to afford"

www.minimumincome.org.uk/

A lot of households fall below that.

Whether people believe it and the figures is a different matter - it's due to be updated soon

Yes the measurement of poverty in this county is not one that I agree with and it makes me feel uncomfortable anyway discussing it when I believe the markers are incorrect/inaccurate

Its based on what 'members of the public' think you need to survive

The figures are laughable and horribly inaccurate

It doesn't have to be even 10%.
I have under £300 mortgage payments, big equity, if my fix ended now I would have to pay £50 more. Just on the tiny mortgage payment. The £400 will be case for many with just jump from 1.5-2 to 4-4.5.

That weren't even people overstretching themselves because back did stress test for this, however, 300-400 a month is a LOT of money for most population. Contrary to what some seem to think

Much more detail here and the full report including budget breakdowns

www.jrf.org.uk/report/minimum-income-standard-uk-2021

I assume they remain in unsuitable accommodation as that is what i witness. I dont witness it being sorted by monday lunchtime.

I'm so confused about the myth that prepayment meters are terrifyingly expensive.

I have one for electricity. Xbox, TV, wfh, tumble when it rains, fans, cooking = £1.70ish a day.

Which is about 4.6kwh ish a day.

Last Winters usage was 5kwh a day. £2ish.

Well of course they do. And I didnt really make my comment clear, unless there are parenting concerns, there wouldnt be a threshold for social services to become involved, so a referral could be made but its not likely that the family would have involvement, there wouldnt be the need if the only issue was homelessness. SSD dont have any power over housing. SWs can sometimes write letters in support of housing in particular circumstances and work with housing departments in that way but they're not going to be able to speed up the process of obtaining housing for someone on a list if its just a question of waiting for suitable accommodation to be identified.

Theres lots of times when Ive advocated for housing to stop/postpone evictions on the basis that with support we will try to support parents budgeting skills or written letters in support of health needs etc but I think the idea that a referral in to social services is going to get someone instantly housed is rather misguided.

I went to bed, then I woke up, made the kids' breakfast, walked the dog and had a shower. Are you annoyed that I didn't stay up all night arguing with people who have no idea about poverty in the UK? That would be a bit deranged, wouldn't it?

Not enjoying the replies implying that the most impoverished in our society would be ok if they just tried a little bit harder. Though, that's the Tory mindset isn't it?

V weird that someone accused me of being right wing when every job I had from leaving uni to leaving work was in public service with children from low income backgrounds. I'm a ft carer now but I volunteer for a food bank, and do most of their social media. That kind of work would hardly turn you into an Enoch Powell.

It's not a race to the bottom. I know teachers that have had to use food banks. Don't qualify for benefits but can't afford to eat