This may be unpopular - but what about the squeezed middle?

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They are talking about raising taxes on the average person now. Which will really effect lower middle class families who are already feeling the pinch due to increases in cost of food, gas and electic, increasing childcare costs and rent or morgage increases. They are going to increase pensions and benefits with inflation but lots of middle class earners are not having their wages increased with inflation but will now have their taxes increased. What about help for the middle class, especially lower middle class and working class who earn slightly to much to qualify for any help but will now stuggle with all these increases.

@WahineToa of course, Im not the one shouting 😛

For a variety of reasons, not least Thatcher’s determination to destroy the unions, successive governments have embraced the ideology of globalization and light touch regulation. Now we have an economy which is about ‘financial services’ and dominated by activity in the City of London. The SE has seen growth, but the rest of the UK (bar some isolated pockets of wealth) has struggled and part of the struggle is the failure to tax fairly and squarely, the very rich including corporations.

This is an excellent point & often overlooked.

This is the bottom line. Plus we have everything from covid to pay for now. All those 'free tests' that people wanted to continue indefinitely. All the 'eat out to help out' costs. All the furlough costs. All the costs of vaccinating everyone quickly. And then all the additional costs for the extra border controls for Brexit.

Its a perfect storm.

What frustrates me, is how people don't understand how nothing is for free and how certain policies cost money.

@bercan oh heaven forbid! Was I shouting at you? No.

I agree OP. I'm sick of being told to suck it up and be grateful I can at least pay the bills. I can afford to pay the bills but that's about it. The professional classes worked hard at school and at their careers with the promise of a reasonable standard of living. If you're going to end up not much worse off than those on benefits what's the bloody point! That's not to say I want to see those on benefits suffer but the current system benefits only the very rich.

That is correct. There are very few countries that have savings, or a Sovereign Wealth Fund. Leaving aside whether SWF's are a good or a bad thing (on balance I think they are good), the UK had a great opportunity after WW2 to develop one with the benefit of North Sea oil, immigration from the commonwealth and a leading position in science and research. We never grasped the concept of 'value adding' though and mainly through Thatcherite policies orientated to a mainly financial services economy. The UK is good at capital allocation, but poor at following through.

What frustrates me, is how people don't understand how nothing is for free and how certain policies cost money.

Nobody cared about costs at all during covid, all normal decision making around costs and targeted policy went out the window. We just freaked out and stayed indoors demanding our government ‘paid for it all’ like it wasn’t our money. They gave furlough money to private schools ffs with millions in reserve!

If you are looking for economic policies that are designed to work for anyone other than the very very rich then you need to wait for a new party to take power.

The tories barely represent the privileged upper middle classes. They certainly don't represent ordinary doctors, lawyers, dentists, let alone worthless scum (sarcasm) who do crappy pointless jobs like teaching, nursing, repairing the roads etc.

At what point in the last 42 years have the Tories said anything that suggests they care about ordinary middle class solicitors and their ilk?

Absolutely this.

It's ok to be dismissive of people at certain thresholds and of course their concerns are not as basic as heat/eat. However, as a household approaching that income (a way off yet but ..) we spend a lot of money on things like music lessons, pet care, sports coaching etc. Clearly no one is going to pity us having to stop these things, as they are absolutely privileged benefits and non-essential but it does really worry me. I feel a responsibility to the families and children of those who provide these services to us. If everyone cuts back, where does that leave all these people who already have more precarious employment and benefits than those us in salaried roles?

This.

Why is there so much loathing for those over 60 on Mumsnet? Not all of those "evil" boomers have vast amounts of savings and huge properties.

I totally understand that people are worried about costs increasing but the solution is not to demonise the old, the disabled and those on benefits.

That is correct. There are very few countries that have savings, or a Sovereign Wealth Fund.

Does Norway have one? I read they are rolling in it

and they had a system that meant once the oil is finished the money will still be there

I don’t hate older people at all. I love a lot of them actually. But they are the generation who have benefited from things like cheap houses which are now worth a fortune, mortgage interest relief, gold plated pensions while many now don’t want or expect to pay for things like care.

Yes, different demographics and attitudes.

Not all of those "evil" boomers have vast amounts of savings and huge properties.

who has said that?

But proportionally that generation has had more then younger generations

Of course they have paid what they were asked to. But it’s clear now that wasn’t enough, and those older people who can now afford it - so yes the rich - now need to pay more.

So noone thinks we should bother looking at the ridiculous figure lost to tax fraud then?

Some useful links, for coffee break.

The overdraft is just getting bigger

Penny for the Guy? Hands up and surrender!

Sovereign Wealth Funds are deliberate. Not Trickledown Trussenomics

But it’s clear now that wasn’t enough, and those older people who can now afford it - so yes the rich - now need to pay more.

why can some acknowledge that some of the "rich" are old?

cant some!

It is a truth that the over 65s are net beneficiaries of the tax system over the course of their lifetime. That causes an issue because it means that the young have to pay for that an will be net contributors to the tax system over the course of their lifetimes.

There isn't any hate in stating this. Its a demographical issue, which is largely down to pensions being over generous in the past and not being sustainable, combined with health care advances and social expectations to have access to those advances which comes at a significant cost which was never really considered when the NHS was started.

Knowing this, makes it easier to understand why there is so much generational anger and resentment. It perhaps is justified in the sense that there was poor planning and forward thinking and numerous governments let the problem fester for far longer than was necessary because it was unpopular at the ballot box.

Genuinely, how did they manage it? I've looked into moving to Canada in the past and it just seemed impossible.

My husband and I even separately tried to get the working holiday type visas but it's the one where it's randomly allocated and neither of us were lucky enough to get them.

(We have a child now so I'm sure it will be even harder to move as a family now!)

This is what pissed me off as well. I worked throughout the pandemic people just kept asking for more handouts. There's no magic money tree the money was printed and now we are facing massive inflation. They already used QE to have very low rates from the last crash. What did people expect to happen? You can't close an economy for 2 years and expect everything to be fine. It would need to be paid back and it's going to be painful.

@Worriedddd who was asking for handouts? of course people who were told not to go to work needed paying