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

[AndroidUsername]

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.

They aren’t going to raise minimum wage, they’ve already said.

Have they? That’s not what they were saying in August.

www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/aug/19/labour-sets-out-plan-to-link-minimum-wage-to-cost-of-living

That was like two prime ministers ago 😁

Plans may have very much changed in this tbh.

The party has not said how much the minimum wage could be expected to increase by under its plan to take the cost of living into account.
and
At last year’s Labour conference, members voted in favour of a £15-an-hour minimum wage amid a row over the policy – but the party’s official position remained to call for an increase to at least £10 an hour.

Minimum wage for over is currently £9.50 for 23 and above, so labours current policy isn’t good enough for me. It’s not enough to live on. At all. It’s also not a fair chunk of larger companies profits.

Same opposition leader and chancellor. 🤷‍♀️

Yeah but gpals could be postponed/changed because the rest have changed and so woul priorities

And if they do change, there will be an announcement of it and it will be in their manifesto. As it stands that’s the current Labour position so it’s blatantly untrue to say They aren’t going to raise minimum wage, they’ve already said.

I want raised benefits and health spending. I'm also part of the squeezed middle. The two aren't mutually exclusive. I do think it's a bit sickening that they are trying to take from ordinary working people rather than inheritance tax, making corporations pay what they owe, taxing the super rich etc. And if I thought my extra taxes would actually go to increase benefits or health spending I wouldn't mind nearly as much, but it won't - they'll be cut again!

I want increased benefits for people with disabilities, chronic illness and their carers. I want the state pension to be equalised, so older pensioners get the same as those who qualified after 2016. But I also want people who are healthy to work. I want the young to be educated enough to at least try and make sensible life choices, rather than fall into benefit dependency.

i want more social housing, the removal of Right to Buy, and a proper review of the NHS. As an older person, I’m thinking of my grandchildren and their future.

I completely agree with this.
despite being the squeezed middle and cash being tight is also happily accept higher tax for more investment in health and education.

Where does the 75% figure come from?

Your link isn’t giving information

Have you found the magic money tree?

Figure 1 shows 74.2% of people in England 65 and over owned their home outright in 2017.

It was down to 61.7% in 2021. That said, I take your point. Sadly, I’m in the 39% and will be until I’m 78. Even where pensioners own their homes outright though, the UK state pension is a pittance at £7,386 per year. So any rise is still a pittance. Really it is not you vs us, it’s all of us vs the top 1%.

I’m not the poster who posted the link and made the comment, I just answered your question about where 75% came from. Having said that, do you have a link for the 2021 figures as that link only goes up to 2017?

62% of all owner occupiers are over 65, not only 62% of over 65s are owner occupiers. Numbers of over 65s owning outright had actually increased to 75% in 2021. Another 5% own with a mortgage.

’Almost three-quarters of people aged 65 years and over in England own their home outright’

HTH

Watching this Economist explain the situation very well 'The Plan is to Make You Poorer' - an ex city trader is terrified about the future for poor AND middle earners:

www.statista.com/statistics/321097/distribution-of-home-owners-in-england-uk-by-type-of-home-financing-and-age/

www.statista.com/statistics/321097/distribution-of-home-owners-in-england-uk-by-type-of-home-financing-and-age/

Yes. 62% of outright owners are aged over 65. The other 38% are younger than 65. That's not the same as saying 62% of over 65s are outright owners.

You really should follow more closely

There's a lot of things from August right out of the window

This new lot are piping about Austerity II

I follow very closely. Where’s your link?

Try BBC news

I am nobodies Joey

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

But it’s all relative. Even with a combined income of over £100k you still need to live within your means. Inflation means prices go up for this group of people too whilst at the same time they also don’t receive a wage increase. It doesn’t mean that they have loads of disposable income. It just means that they don’t get much help (if any) towards anything.

Everyone deserves some sort of treat and if that gets taken away then of course people are going to be unhappy about it. We weren’t put on this earth to work all our lives and then die.

The infighting is the issue - we have a government who have had years of austerity, fucked up brexit and then siphoned billions of pounds off to their mates over the past few years in dodgy PPE contracts amongst other things. The country is a mess and the government needs to sort their shit out.