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.

@EnglishRose1320 - 100% this!

I don't think it's always the squeeze middle who suffer, of course in addition to the very poorest.

I think sometimes it's the people working full time but hovering just above the level at which you are eligible for low income benefit top ups.

These people face the stress of low income (especially living in more expensive parts of the country), plus the added stress often of juggling long hours & childcare, not having the spare time to do some of the things that save money (like growing food at home, cooking from scratch, walking to save fuel costs etc). They are often struggling with the uncertainty of private rent costs whereas sometimes those on lower incomes have secure social housing.

These people are often eligible for no support. No free prescriptions, no FSM, no school uniform vouchers, no pupil premium paying for school trips.

£50k is a lot better off than £15k.

The "15k" for families with kids is unlikely to actually just be £15k.

The financial value of eligibility for lots of benefits (which are mostly not taxed), in addition to sometimes benefitting from social housing etc) can even out the finances hugely, but the people earning 20 or 25k are often massively time poor on top due to working long hours.

Sorry, but as a single mum who at one point was on benefits This only happens when parents spend it on things they shouldn’t. I was on benefits before universal credit(which pays out more) my child never went without food or clothes. I had NO other source of income.

I am always surprised at the kind of mortgage debt people have taken on. It seems to be a massive problem and leave such tiny margins. It surprises me that banks are lending in this way to people whose lack of financial wriggle-room is leaving them feeling squeezed now. Obviously, major changes in circumstances such as death or illness impacting income is awful and unforeseen. I've several friends and colleagues who have been encouraged to tie themselves to big mortgages, the servicing of which is eating up a huge portion of salaries.
We've a household income of significantly less than 50k pa, but not eligible for any benefits bar CB, live in an expensive city in the south, two cars and DC. We bought the tiniest, tiredest house we could find in a boring, roughish area so we could borrow as little as possible. Best decision ever. Even on modest incomes, there is still lots of cutting back we could do. This is going to be a tough time for so many.

I think you missed my post directly above where I outlined all the things that have affected me or are due to affect me.

The increase in tax I pay is significant. However, it was a tongue in cheek comment as people on low wages or on the breadline aren't exactly going to feel sorry for those in relatively privileged positions paying more tax. Hence we definitely are the squeezed middle but moaning about it isn't going to get you very far.

A few weeks ago on the Today programme they were interviewing the headteacher of a primary school. They asked him about how things were looking for children on free school meals, and he said those weren’t the families he worried about, as there was support and things in place for them. It was the families with two working parents who were starting to fall into poverty regardless but up until now have been coping that he was finding were having the most
problems.

@EveSix

Old advice/thinking was always to borrow as much as you could and to stretch yourself. The rationale, being that most used to take out a mortgage early in their careers. Thus when your career progressed, the margins (or wiggle room) would increase, as would the house price. That's what we did, but was at a time when you could still buy a 3 bed in the south for £80k (circa 2000). How times have changed.

I do wonder if people are still mortgaging based on this philosophy, or just that they want to save the stamp duty in the long term (as most look for a larger home when starting a family). Either way I agree that it's a risky strategy.

Quite. It is still a huge cost saving compared to funding the care they need to enable me to work (£14.95 × 40 x 2 = £5182 a month) but I won't ever claim we are particularly vulnerable financially. I know we have more safety than people in the 26k-50k region.

That 14.95 is what LA pay for PA hours, not the hourly cost of specialist childcare BTW

It isn't a race to the bottom. Of course the poorest in this country are going to be the worst off but that doesn't make it OK to mock those on middle incomes that are starting to really feel the pinch and worry about rising bills.

Yes, some struggle more than others. But what's the point of sneering and negating the worries of others. I wouldn't pretend we're really hard up but we've stopped going to the hairdresser...... I cut DH and the DCs' hair at home. We've stopped having a monthly takeaway. We cancelled our cleaner. We're not eating out in cafés or restaurants at all anymore. And what then happens to the cleaner, the hairdresser, the hospitality staff when they're losing customers one after the other? It all has a knock on effect and people are allowed to be worried.

I think this "you can't complain because others are much worse off" rhetoric is really unhelpful. If you're going to argue that then there are people much worse off living in Bangladesh, or in Afghanistan, or Ukraine. Should the poorest in the UK not be allowed to complain either because there's always someone worse off?

There is no such thing as 'poor' just because you're on benefits or 'confortable' because you earn over £40k.

Each situation is different. You can be on benefit, leaving in a house fully owned without a mortgage, getting over £1000 in child maintenance, claiming DLA and everything that comes with it, and end up with much more disposable income than a single mum, not entitled to any benefits, paying for a mortgage and childcare, and getting no maintenance.

The latter will be much more squeezed than the former.

You either pay a massive mortgage or massive rent- I know which I’d rather

I’m sorry but I would have to question how the hell that situation never manages to come about unless the parents are refugees on 40 quid a week.

if it’s somebody with full recourse to public funds something has gone very wrong between the parents being paid the money and the children getting breakfast. And in those scenarios the most obvious solution is to set up a breakfast club at school did you do that ?

Well yes it would be surprising some might even say impossible beyond 2008 when they brought in the new affordability criteria so people generally aren't Mortgaged to eyeballs, when they take on the debt.

it’s what comes next in my experience, the credit cards to put the removal costs on, the needing a new bathroom/furniture/renovations the minute they move in. That’s what gets people in a mess. And the fact that once you have a secured loan the banks and credit cards etc know you aren’t going anywhere so suddenly your credit limit increases significantly.
my sister-in-law can’t believe I don’t have a new kitchen already five months after we’ve bought this house, we don’t have it because I don’t physically have the cash to pay for it right now and until a month before I do it won’t be going on the credit card.

This isn’t true, I work in a university. Those from poorer and diverse backgrounds are entitled to an awful lot of help that others aren’t.

Those from ‘middle income’ families will get bog standard loans but nothing else and for many of those people, their parents still can’t afford to give them additional money.

Whether they work or not is very much down to individual students and not always anything to do with their background.

Slightly off topic but not having your own bed to sleep in is not uncommon

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leeds-55719916

"A charity that provides beds and basic essentials to families has had a surge in requests for help in the latest lockdown, many from affluent areas.
Zarach was set up by Leeds teacher Bex Wilson, after she realised some of her pupils did not have beds to sleep in.
Now also providing food, toiletries and books to families, it has had 50 new referrals since the start of the year"

From Zarach

"I’m an Assistant Head Teacher at an inner-city Primary School in Leeds. After a decade in the job, hungry children, poor living conditions and social care referrals has sadly become the norm. Children being hungry or not having a bed is unacceptable. We are better than this!
Whilst teaching an 11-year old boy, I noticed he was scratching his tummy. He told me he and his younger brother shared a cushion to sleep on. A cushion that had bed bugs which made his tummy itchy.
At the time I was in the middle of teaching a lesson on irregular tense verbs. I realised I had a choice; to be satisfied that I’m teaching him grammar because it’s what I’m paid to do, or to continue to be the best teacher I can be whilst also using my time and influence to make sure every child in our city has their basic needs met, gets a good night’s sleep and an equal opportunity to get the best education at school."

Can we just put paid to the idea that someone earning a higher salary has worked harder than someone earning less. I work incredibly hard and have excellent qualifications . Teachers and nurses no doubt work even harder . Different jobs pay different amounts but public sector and not for profit jobs don't pay as much. We need people to do these jobs and they are vital. I don't work less hard than someone earning double my amount. I have chosen a certain career route as I feel it is important and needed and I absolutely don't regret that. I've also not needed much childcare because of the role I have and as a single parent this was a deliberate choice to be around for dd because she had a rocky start to life. But I work very hard and I always have . And now I do a second job as well.

And I've spoke to people on lower incomes doing multiple jobs now, working every single day .

Salary is not always representative of effort.

The mortgage stress tests have been abandoned recently. The aim was to see if someone could afford a mortgage if interest rates rose.

I do wonder what the equiivalent interest rate rise is with these increased energy bills?

If your monthly DD increases by £200 a month, what is the equivalent of that as an interest rate rise for a typical mortgage?

10%, 20%, 40%?

I’m not denying that those scenarios don’t occur generally when people are DV situations or they having to start completely from scratch again for one reason or another, however what I’m suggesting is these things are fixable very quickly for anybody who has recourse to public funds. This isn’t a new phenomena neither.

however a couple who own their own house in a nice leafy street who’s Childs bed breaks, is not going to be provided with a new one by a charity or public funds are they ?

Agree with this.

Even worse are people without children. If they lose their house for eg, they're not entitled to any help if they can't find somewhere new (and most letting agents now ask for guarantors and for the tenants to be earning multiples of the rent). People who lose their homes and don't have children will legally end up on the street .

I think OPs point is that many people do not understand quite how bad things are for millions of people. There are people who are not going to be using heating at all this winter .

They’ve been abandoned, in theory very recently in the last month however anybody with any experience of applying for a mortgage will tell you that each individual bank has its own lending criteria and for some it’s extremely strict if you’ve had any credit problems whatsoever they will go through your bank statements with a fine tooth comb, to see whether you will actually prioritise paying the debt.

There is a family I'm working with who are housed in emergency accommodation by the LA and two of the children are sleeping directly on the floor. They then have a 90 min journey on 2 buses to school. They've been there for weeks.

Don't be under the impression state support is always adequate

And just to add this family were evicted through no fault of their own because the landlord wanted to sell. Then they could t find anywhere else as the mum doesn't earn enough despite working FT. It wasn't dv or any emergency, just bad luck and a low salary (in a caring role)

Totally agree with this. The very very wealthy who paid £30k per year private school fee’s can easily find the £4-5k a year top up. People who fall just over the threshold may find it very difficult to afford an extra £400/£500 a month. The cut off doesn’t feel quite right.

And yes students can and do get jobs but this doesn’t change the fact that the middle income students are more likely to need to as the poorest get the full loan (rightly so) and the very wealthy are well supported.