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.

I didn't say money was a fixed quantity though, I said it wasn't an infinite resource. Have you not seen the figures showing the rise in wealth inequality or widening wealth gap over the last 30 years?

People could indeed do as you say and add value and take only a share of that leaving no-one else worse off, but that clearly isn't happening at the moment. Those who already have money are able to increase their wealth not by adding value, not by making life better for everyone, but just because they were wealthy to start with.

The vast majority of the super rich aren't 'wealth creators' any more, if they ever were and trickle down ecomomics has been comprehensively disproved. Capitalism only works when everyone's standard of living is going up. That's not happening any more.

If you are one of the exceptions that proves the rule and managed to become wealthy in such a clearly rigged system without the advantage of rich parents then good for you. Now you get to become even wealthier, if you want to, at the expense of everyone else and you don't even have to work very hard at it, if at all.

I don't know your personal circumstances and, to be honest, I'm not interest in them.
I'm making a general comment following on from your hail comrade comments above after someone tried to point out that the system is very much rigged in the favour of the already wealthy (look at stocks and shares in the US and asset prices here).
Anyway, this isn't directly relevant to the thread. My main point above was that the OP is being extremely divisive which is destructive.

People can clear the equivalent of decent salaries on benefits

Bullshit.

Read the thread.examples. QueenB is quite open about this. I don’t think people realise how generous the package can be in comparison to how much workers lose in tax. Read the thread, you may educate yourself.

@Itisasecret

Another poster from Ireland posted on another thread. She said she was shocked that there is no financial help for single parents in the U.K. She had formed this opinion from reading mumsnet.

People can clear the equivalent of decent salaries on benefits

If they have children, yes. And this is why some girls choose to have children by themselves and claim benefits. If you leave school with no qualifications and your other option is a dead end, min wage job then why wouldn't they choose to do this.

However it will cause issues for them in the future. My cleaner is 45. Her children have grown up and she no longer receives child related benefits or child maintenance. She can't claim the state pension, pension credit and housing benefit for another 22 years. She spent the last 18 years working as little as possible because of the benefits she received. Now she has to work 50 hours a week to afford her rent and will probably have to move to a 1 bed flat. She hasn't built up any equity in housing, no savings, no private pension. She didn't spend any of the time she wasn't at work gaining any qualifications or experience. She's going to be in poverty until she reaches pension age, unless she has another child.

So if someone's bill goes up by £2000, then they have to spend that £2000.

It will go somewhere. It will go from local businesses, shops, restaurants, holidays (UK or abroad) or from savings and will go to the energy companies.

£2000 has not been generated. It has just been moved elsewhere.

Money is a really strange concept. It gets moved around but then we print more or add interest to someone's account or give them a loan so they have more money.

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?
It wasn’t in a great area and was in negative equity. The bank told us they’d take us to court if we didn’t pay back the full mortgage on selling. 10 years later and it still hasn’t sold but luckily we found someone to rent since that hasn’t wrecked the place

To me, the squeezed middle are the ones who work full time but arent earning enough to not have to worry about paying the bills. The ones who earn over the threshold for receiving any kind of benefits. The ones who end up with nothing after working 40 hours a week yet get nothing handed to them in return. Some people earn plenty that will cover their bills and more so they don’t need to worry. SOME people live purely on benefits without legitimate reason not to work. Yes they might be the worst off financially but at least they don’t have to slog their guts out all week for nothing

Yabu.

it is very definitely a thing to be The Squeezed Middle. No they may not be struggling in the same way but it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist or that it isn’t hard.

it doesn’t have to be a competition of who is worse off, it is possible to be compassionate about people in a variety of situations

@ImWell i don't think anyone really earns big salaries. I'm on 6 figures so no state support either but I don't think I 'earn' that much. I work hard but so do many many people on low incomes. I think someone doing 2 minimum wage jobs earn their money more than I do. Or maybe we both earn the first chunk but the extra £100k I get isn't really 'earned'.

I'm always surprised by people who came from little money and got to a good place thinking that means everyone can do it if only they make the same choices. Surely more than most you know it's not easy?

I bet you find making £100k now significantly easier than the first £100k? You probably make it on property in a few years with no effort.

I can understand you feeling angry as life is going to get so utterly shit for some people come winter, even shitter than it is now.

But I your anger would be better directed at the government rather than lower earning MCs. Squeezed middle means what it says - that when the cost of living shoots up, even people on middle incomes feel it bite.

I don’t think anyone in this category would expect to be tugging at anyone’s heartstrings, but they as entitled to have a moan as much as the next person. Also things like golf and foreign holidays are out the reach of lots of the squeezed middle anyways.

I haven't read the rest of the thread yet but this is spot on. My husband is a teacher and I work full time, we have a child in nursery but not yet eligible for free hours. We have a modest house in a not very good area, but an expensive part of the country. Our mortgage just went up to even more than when we bought the house with a 95% mortgage despite getting the loan to value ratio down to 60%. We have even thought about moving to a cheaper area, but that means leaving pretty reliable jobs, which isn't smart right now. It also means losing family support which isn't great when you have a toddler constantly getting nursery bugs and you need to work because you can't afford days off to look after them. We already batch cook and eat basic meals, haven't had a meal out for 8+ months, we both have cars we bought in our early 20s and they're both well over 10 years old, we haven't been abroad since 2017 and that was 2 nights. The only room in the house we heat is our toddlers room, and the lounge when they're in there too. We don't qualify for any support or help or anything like that, which is fine, but we aren't flush, we don't have fancy things on finance, we don't have holidays or trips or anything lavish. We are living one car breakdown/house emergency/medical episode meaning we can't work away from losing everything.
Everyone's got it absolutely shit, but let's remember the fight isn't with eachother. Our MPs get to claim thousands a year for their energy bills, that we pay for. They get subsided lunches of steak and wine while our children might only get one hot meal at school if they're lucky. If we all directed our anger at the correct people we could make some serious changes.

YANBU OP

Good post @CoffeeMama1

I'm sorry, I know it's old post, but couldn't resist checking it.

This is income for 20k earner (assuming repayment plan 2 for student finance- no deductions though):

£ 1,468.54 from November 2022

So times 2 it's £2937.08

For 50k (Also plan 2 repayments £170 a month):

£ 2,998.54

How is single earner worse off? I think this phrase is repeated very often on MN, and I don't get why.

@xogossipgirlxo I think it's quite a close one. 2 x £20k earner's after tax without any other deductions at all take home around £35k (that's with no pension contributions, no student loan, just removing tax and NI) and one earner on £50k takes home about £37,500 without any other deductions too. But by earning over £50k they're then not eligible for tax free child care and funded hours, so when you then take into account those increased costs you're worse off than 2 x £20k earner's, and the severity of that will depend on where you live and how much the childcare costs I guess! Based on my childcare costs for 30 hours a week that's £13,750 a year, that then means the £50k earner is on £23,750, but the £20k earner's will only have to pay to top up their childcare over. Of course that's assuming the £50k earner's also need childcare, if that's not a factor then yeah it's a bit of a break even!

My family can’t afford our bills now because we are taxed so highly and the cost of essentials has gone up so much. Why don’t we have a right to complain about paying for everyone else?

Thank you. Yes, I thought about childcare too... Hard to say who's worse off without taking these factors in consideration.

Tax free childcare and funded hours are available until you earn £100k, not £50k.

This. A person on £50k is still entitled to 30 hours funded childcare. And even when a person earns over £100k, they still get the universal 15 hours funded.

What?!?!??! I did not know that. One of my friends said they can't get the tax free childcare because they earn over £50k so I'll let them know! Bloody hell, my sympathy is waining 😂

The couple on 20k each will also get child benefit.

Isn't the point that everyone believed that if you worked hard at school, got a proper job- teacher, police officer, nurse etc.

And if there were two of you both working full time that it would be enough to have a nice life. Holidays, meals out etc. Not super luxury but nice.

However once you add in childcare costs, rising housing costs, energy prices, travel costs and fuel costs then actually there isn't much left for the nice life.

It's absolutely not the breadline but it's not what people thought working full.time in a modern world would mean for their day to day lives

When DD was young I (single parent) worked full time on a salary of 34k, at the time I earned too much to get much help from the government and I couldnt afford to keep on top of all of my outgoings (rent, childcare, parking/running a car to get to work etc) I was getting into further debt every month just trying to survive. As DD was under 3 she was entitled to extra free hours so the only way I could afford to live was to drop my working hours completely in half to enable me to claim the free nursery hours. I was better off on 16 hours a week than working full time, its absolute madness. I finally found a better paid job where I could go back to full time hours but what annoyed me was that the free hours would have been available for those not working at all, it seemed backwards to me that a family not working could stick kids in childcare while i couldnt afford to.