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.

I have no idea what your Joey reference means but if you can’t or won’t back up an erroneous assertion I’ll choose to assume you’re wrong.

But that doesn’t say 61.7% of over 65s own outright. It says of those who own outright 61.7% are over 65. Not the same thing.

This says:

Almost 90 per cent of UK pensioners with the lowest income levels own their own homes, according to new government statistics.
The latest Office for National Statistics Household Disposable Income and Equality figures, show that in 2016/17, 89 per cent of retired households on the lowest band, an income of £7,619 a year, owned their own property, equating to 660,000 households.

www.pensionsage.com/pa/Almost-90-of-lowest-earning-pensioners-own-property-ONS.php

The ONS says:
Almost three-quarters of people aged 65 years and over in England own their home outright.
Younger people are less likely to own their own home than in the past and more likely to be renting. Half of people in their mid-30s to mid-40s had a mortgage in 2017, compared with two-thirds 20 years earlier.
People in their mid-30s to mid-40s are three times more likely to rent than 20 years ago. A third of this age group were renting from a private landlord in 2017, compared with fewer than 1 in 10 in 1997.

www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/ageing/articles/livinglonger/changesinhousingtenureovertime

Only a small percentage of pensioners are well off with paid off mortgages.

Other sites suggest about 4.5 % more are still paying mortgage off in retirement.

Ownership numbers and numbers still paying mortgagees off will go down with the next generation of pensioners -so mid 40 and under get to retirement age but currently most pensioner do own their own homes - though that comes with upkeep issues and insulation and poor housing stock problems - that's down to increased house prices and will cause issues down the line for state spending.

If you don't follow mainstream news it's not my job to spoon feed you

It’s up to you to back up what you say. Obviously you can’t because I’ve been trying to find some basis in the news for your assertion and guess what? Nada.

There is, however, this. 🤷‍♀️

labourlist.org/2022/09/conference-backs-15-minimum-wage-public-ownership-and-mps-on-picket-lines/

@Blossomtoes what is it you think that link proves? Labour haven’t adopted that though, as a policy. The last time they spoke about minimum wage it was to say they’d raise it closer to £10, up from £9.18 I think. So not raising it much at all and not as much as £15. Do you think the vote by delegates means they have to or something?

So far, they have not said they’d raise it to a reasonable minimum, they’re not even eausing it by a full pound.

Those that get the higher rate of pension got it later than promised. I had to wait an extra 6 years (a WASPI) than those that got it higher didn't get it at the original age promised.

It was your statement that started the whole discussion about minimum wage @WahineToa. It was clearly untrue as per the link. This is getting very tedious now, why not just put your hands up to being mistaken so we can move on?

This is getting very tedious now, why not just put your hands up to being mistaken so we can move on?

I didn’t realise you were still continuing this discussion and had got so upset and needed me to ‘hold my hands up’ before you could ‘move on’ ( do you realise how silly that sounds? ). I rather think it’s you that’s tedious, especially as you don’t seem to understand anything about the issue.

Like I already said dear, they’re not committing to raise it to a decent level at all, it’s a small amount and it’s inline with the advised increases by the low pay commission, it always goes up! Small amounts, 30p or thereabouts usually, every year. Labour aren’t committing to the £15.

The current min wage is £9.50 over 23yr. Labour want it to be linked to cost of living, which the Living wage foundation does and thinks it should currently be £9.90. An increase of just 40p an hour, and close to what it would likely increase to soon going by the annual changes since 1999.

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.

Do you get it yet? Can you move on or do you need something more?

Cost of living = inflation, dear.

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

I just copied what they said in August. Using a foundation that does link to cost of living, it would be raised by 40p. Using the current system they don’t think is good enough, it would be raised to close to that anyway. They’re not making any drastic changes to the minimum wage and they are not raising it to the £15 the Labour delegates voted on and most people think is fair. 40p an hour won’t help anyone into a house or to pay their energy bills.

Did you just get yourself in a state over the difference of mere pennies? They’re barely different to conservatives on this.

In a general discussion about billionaires and how to redistribute wealth, you think Labour’s few pennies is going to make any measurable difference to anything? Or you think wasting time arguing the point about a technical raise that happens anyway is proving the one line from pages ago by myself is ‘wrong’? Jfc

No idea what jfc means. I assume it’s rude if the tone of the rest of your post is anything to go by. Inaccuracy is inaccuracy, no matter how much you rant in an attempt to deny it.

Inaccuracy is inaccuracy, no matter how much you rant in an attempt to deny it.

You are ridiculous. Labour aren’t going to raise it, they’re just using a slightly different way to get an almost identical number.

This is a nuanced and extended conversation I was having on billionaires and redistribution of wealth. This is the full exchange-

No i think we all need (as a nation) to vote differently, if we don't buy from A, we'll buy from B and make them the new Amazons etc.

My reply: Are they the only options? Just a few big global companies and nowhere else to shop? What would Labour do differently that would prevent billionaires? They aren’t going to raise minimum wage, they’ve already said. For me that, and us shopping and living differently, are better solutions that penalty taxes.

Labour are not going to raise minimum wage. They’re using a slightly different way of measuring it that comes to a similar figure we have now. If you think that makes my comment, in context, inaccurate, you’re not intelligent enough for me to engage with any longer.

Thank Christ for that.