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.

Couldn’t agree more

Wages will rise - we've had lower wages than comparable economies for a while.

Taxes will rise so people will not feel better off - the combination of the two will help limit inflation a bit.

I suspect the government will not raise benefit thresholds, so as wages rise, people will fall out of eligibility, reducing the benefits bill for the government. I suspect tax thresholds won't rise either,bringing more people into higher rate tax. DH and i are very high earners, we are expecting to face much higher taxes and agree that its needed.

Mervyn king commented that we can't have european levels of public spending
With american levels of taxation - he's not wrong.

We've been kidding ourselves as to how wealthy we are as a country, the middle classes especially, everyone getting new cars on finance, spending on coffees and meals out a lot.

We also have awful levels of inequality and i seriously hope we get a labour government next ready to take some serious measures to address that

The problem we have is flat national productivity for the past 20 years. So whilst costs are pushed by inflation and in the past we borrowed and had a better currency now we are exposed because we can't borrow and our currency is worth less.

People need to be helped to retrain into better paid careers in growing industries. Leaving school with no skills or qualifications should not be an option.

I know this is a parenting site but single, childless people are always left behind. We also were among the worst impacted by lockdown.

I’m in Australia, not the UK. Our national budget is about to be released and the big ticket item is government funded parenting leave for couples on up to $350,000 a year. Meanwhile, the meagre low and middle income tax income is being slashed and my admin civil service job gets me a 1.5% per year rise.

I don’t begrudge families and children getting funding but I do resent my tax being used for benefits for wealthy families.

That's what my siblings have all done. I'm the only one of my siblings who doesn't have dual nationality/citizenship through birth, work or marriage. They've all left me here with this mad government and elderly parents to look after. Despite having an Irish (maiden) surname, I have no recent enough Irish ancestry to get a passport.

All the talk of Brexit is rubbish. The current economic crisis has been caused by two idiots and their handling of covid.
Printing copious amounts of money and handing it out Willy nilly was always a recipe for disaster. Throw in a mad man who knows that due to constant low investment in energy independence dating back to the Blair years has left us at his beck and call, and we are screwed.
Things are going to carry on getting worse until the energy problem is sorted as that's the primary cause of inflation atm

What are the rules for an Irish passport now?

Lots of EU citizens are doing it. If it wasn't the hate campaign, it is CoL and instability of £ lately which is pushing people out. While the issues are everywhere, it is not just UK with rising prices pf everything, it seems better managed in some other places.
Plus, in many places you see results of all the taxation. Like easy and often free access to healthcare including basic dentistry.

From what I see around, UK is set to lose lots of working age, possibly net contributors.

It's a massive betrayal of anyone who has been brave enough to enter into the crazy housing markets, with all the encouraging they were doing.
Tories have dumped young middle income people down the river without a paddle.
YANBU to be furious

@IbizaToTheNorfolkBroads you can still move abroad if you want to! So many countries are also having issues with low staffing etc. Visas are a bit more of a faff but very much doable.
I know a few friends who’ve moved abroad but generally to non EU countries anyway (Canada, Australia). We need to forget the mindset of being stuck here and just make plans to move if you want to! It’s devastating it’s not as easy but it’s definitely doable!

Many economists/business/investment/equity people would disagree with you.

Of course recent events have made matters worse but cutting GDP by 4% or £200 billion is half the amount spent on Covid - that is the amount wasted by leaving the EU - Read Lord David Frost's view of Brexit before he had a Damascus like conversion post June 2016.

We have consistently under performed compared to other G7 economies since 2016.

Then there are the skills shortages in health logistics food processing and farming.

It's not going to be popular but I think older people have to contribute more the healthcare, perhaps a charge on the house.

I don't think it's fair for younger generations to pay more & more tax for a lower standard of living.

Yes it’s true. This was apparent for me during Uni. My parents didn’t earn enough to pay for everything yet too much to get any grant or help. So I was worse off than people who had poor parents.

Not saying poorer families should have been worse off but that this was the reality and the system didn’t work.

People earning average wages or wages just above tresholds for any entitlement for help

Not households on here with combined incomes of 100K complaining they have less disposable income for treats etc

What are you classing as help as some people on combined family incomes of 100k do get some help?

Lots of people think it's just millionaires who can be net contributors. With the demographic changes, as you mention, it will be getting harder and harder to fund everything, yes

It's completely unsustainable, there are more over 65s than under 15s.

Theresa May was wrong. There is a magic money tree. The government can create money just by adding a few zeros on a computer.

What there is not is a magic wealth tree. Money is just a convenient representation of wealth that allows us to account for wealth and move it around easily.

We can't make ourselves wealthy by printing money. Every time we print we are effectively taxing the currency. All holders of the currency pay this ultimate stealth tax every time we print.

Unfortunately the markets have decided we can no longer print money without consequence. If we do the exchange rate will go (further) down and cost of government borrowing up. The amount that the markets will allow the government to borrow has also reached its limit. Debt is no longer cheap or without consequence, as most mortgage holders will tell you.

Some things government(s) could do :

i) Spend less.

ii) Keep spending the same and keep taxes the same.

iii) Fund any spending increases we want to do through taxes.

iv) Get better value for money from the money we do spend.

v) Keep spending the same but shuffle it around between different areas.

vi) Grow the economy so we have more money to spend.

What the government(s) can't do :

Keeping spending more and taxing people less.

When the money markets called time on our spending, it basically scared the crap out of the government. So there will probably be some overcompensation over the next couple of years in what the government(s) will choose to do.

TLDR, we've reached our credit limit.

It's very difficult to say

Realistically if it's a case if giving up some days out or using less gas electricity or not shopping in Waitrose Gaby and have to suck it up like all of us.

But if it's a case of eat or heat then you deserve the help.

The govt cant subsidise us all and we want schools hospitals etc so we have to accept the good days are over for a time. They will come back. These things always go in cycles and we have got used to low interest rates for too long.

Perhaps lots will use their Irish ancestry passport to escape UK and start again in mainland Europe?

I'd encourage any young people who are able to look elsewhere for opportunity incl my dc.

But is this going to happen?

Are we paying to help the NHS? Or to plug the black hole created by this government?

I agree. But as you say, not a popular opinion.

The squeezed middle is a massive portion of the population to offer extra assistance to. Who do you think should fund this assistance? There isn't a magic money tree and yes, cracking down on tax evasion etc could raise some additional money but it is nowhere enough to magically fund all of the things that people want.

On this forum in the last week I have seen people complain massively about an overstretched NHS offering a poor level of care, someone wanting their disabled child to go to a college that costs £750k a year and posters complaining that schools were badly resourced and underfunded. I have also seen posts about various jobs funded by the taxpayer being underpaid and how benefits and pensions should be raised to support people through the cost of living crisis.

We are a country with just over £30k GDP per capita, a shed load of debt and aging and unfit population. It is easy to be 'kind' and suggest money should be spent all over the place funding services and helping families but most of the posters suggesting this almost always think someone else should be paying.

Not households on here with combined incomes of 100K complaining they have less disposable income for treats etc

The problem with those having less disposable income for ‘treats’, is that affects everyone else too. Think about the things they class as treats… meals out, beauty treatments etc. What happens when they stop doing those things? The people who provide them (usually on low incomes themselves) lose business and lose jobs.

Wages will rise - we've had lower wages than comparable economies for a while.

enough to make up for years of stagnation? how will the public sector fund that?

Unfortunately old people want :

Free social care.
Zero inheritance tax.
Triple locked pensions.

Old people often claim "they paid in all their lives". Well the short answer to that is, they didn't pay enough in.

I do think it is bad to tax people harder while they are still alive, because it is hard for people to plan for their future if the rules suddenly changed. But to me inheritance tax should be large and made more unavoidable, and social care fees should also be charged and be unavoidable on death.

All the talk of Brexit is rubbish.

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