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.

@GasPanic I agree & I would be impacted potentially by an increase in IHT but tbh I don't care & want better services.

We are squeezed and old. We pri7⁷oritised where we lived over holidays, cars etc. Now of our 2 DC and their partners, who all work, 3 pay higher rate tax, and both families are net contributors. We worked in low paid jobs until DH had a major health issue in his early 50s. Eventually he found part time work, min wage, we sold our home and bought a cheaper one. I had a job so we got no benefits, and in retirement we're a few £ over Pension Credit limits.

There are people of our age who earned more but preferred to rent a council house, and spent their money on other things. They get pension credit, so are entitled to add ons. There are those who claimed benefits when they could have worked, and they also get pension credit. If they need care, it'll be free. Our house is our only asset, it's not worth much, but it would go on care fees.

The benefits system penalises those who don't earn much but believe in personal responsibility. Unless people are going to get a seriously good income in retirement, they might as well just rely on the state.

The rich?

who is the rich?

Prioritised

My childminder quit last month because she would be better off on UC and her 2 year old will get free hours so she can have a couple of days for ‘me time’. Tells you everything. While all my middle earning friends are struggling with burn out working in stressful jobs to pay childcare, mortgages and fund peoples housing benefit, free childcare hours. That housing benefit goes to landlords. Usually people who are older who will benefit from triple lock pensions and already benefitted from low house prices, free uni etc. Millennials are screwed. We graduated into the 2008 crash, crazy house prices, brexit, covid and now we are being taxed but getting shoddy services in return. I don’t believe in emigrating when the country is in the shit, I think it’s my responsibility as a English person to help the country that I was born in and care for my family as they get older. But I starting to wonder what’s the point of being a responsible citizen.

Our audi is actually monthly what a cheaper brand would be. But it's reliable which is what you need if you run business.

People need to stop dissing brands😁 they are often not as expensive as some think.

@Seymour5 I am sorry to hear this. You sound like you’ve been punished for being responsible.

True, but why shouldn't it be the large tax dodging corporations? Why the people who are already struggling.

"The old"

Actually it's the 60 to 65 that is wealthiest

After that they lose wealth as they then use their wealth to support their retirement

"The old" just want to use what they have saved over their working lives to retire

They tend to have accumulated wealth slowly over their lives

Other fun facts
Half the wealth is in in the hands of 10% of the population

True, but why shouldn't it be the large tax dodging corporations? Why the people who are already struggling.

it's far more nuanced than that, why are the tax dodging corporations so prominent? lots of people want cheap products...

If only we could find more money... 🤔

theguardian.com/politics/2021/sep/16/tax-lost-in-uk-amounts-to-35bn-almost-half-say-campaigners-due-to

The ‘middle’ who spend money on childcare, housing, grocery bills…. So their money supports the domestic economy. They Claim no benefits and do not spend their money on expensive holidays and property abroad where instead of ‘trickling down’ the mine of the wealthy rich goes outside the country.

Millennials are not screwed

We thought the same in the early 90s as unemployment soared house prices rose dramatically before a huge crash that penalised those who had managed to buy

Now the youth of that generation is reviled as asset owning rich people deliberately hurting the younger generation by living in their own homes full of accumulated wealth

"The old" just want to use what they have saved over their working lives to retire

They tend to have accumulated wealth slowly over their lives

The problem is there isn't enough saved to pay for it all & the young can generally only accumulate wealth now by inheriting. I only own a home because I had help from parents, same for everyone I know.

Fuck off with all the casual ageism, sick of it. Replace old with Black and have a think......

I consider myself to be in this category and also worried.

DH and I were on tax credits until recently, we ran a business that we loved but made very little profit and in the end had to concede it wasn't enough long term. We made about 15k. DH has now retrained and had a job with a 40k salary. I work school hours and earn about 9k a year as we now have to pay all our childcare. That is nearly £50k! I thought we'd feel so much better off but little seems to have changed in terms of disposable income.

Previously we had around 10k a year in tax credits to top us up, mist of the childcare was covered.

We also had free travel to college for our eldest, this is now £700 a year. She also used to get a free breakfast and lunch, and a bursary for books. Books have cost me over £100 this year.

The loss of free dental treatment, prescriptions, the money off school trips.

But the biggest ones is going to be uni, she don't get the full loan anymore and we need to top her up by thousands. And there's two more who also might want to go.

Obviously we won't get the targeted help with bills either.

I know how sneery people are on here about "high earners" moaning about money and I would have been the same before but all I can say is we don't seem to have any more money in our pockets and taking even more tax is going to make me wish we'd never made that lifestyle change in the first place!

A lot of us didn't.

Thank you, but don't be, poor health can affect anyone's plans and we do OK and enjoy retirement. Our reward has been to see our DC succeed and they're happy to help if we need it.

Fuck off with all the casual ageism, sick of it. Replace old with Black and have a think...

That's the response you have to my post....

What a wally! 😆

Jut want to add that squeezed middle doesn't mean middle class, but people in the middle. Like people with average or below wages and JUST above tresholds for any entitlement for help.

Considering the class hate on here, just wanted to mention it.

Yes class and income are two different things. Class is less definable these days although this country seems obsessed with defining everyone by these outdated divisive terms.

I predict there will be a move for more MC young people to go to local universities so they can continue to live at home while they study. That will be a massive shift.

Many of the squeezed middle (particularly those who will be imminently paying considerably more pcm for their mortgages) won't also be able to afford to top up minimum SFE loans.

With soaring energy bills, mortgage deals and inflation, who is going to have that extra to help their student-age DC?

It's less identifiable because no one knows what the markers are anymore😂 yet insist on using it

We are fortunate and will probably be ok, both of us in secure well-paying jobs. However we have had to cut back in lots of ways eg things like eating out, holidays, steaming services, participatory sports, kids extra curricular stuff, to make sure we can cover bills and likely large mortgage increase next year. But this in turn has an impact on the people running those businesses. I used to regularly visit our excellent independently owned local coffee shop but I haven't been in weeks. The same business has had to reduce opening hours due to declining business which has led to staffing cutbacks. I am really fearful for so many families I know that are going to really struggle, it is a horrendous situation.

Its the people who work eg public sector workers whos wages are very much behind inflation levels.

Everyones probably is below our current Hugh inflation though, also: In April 2021, median weekly earnings for full-time employees in the public sector were 13% higher than those in the private sector. The gap had been narrowing prior to the pandemic, but increased again in 2020, partly because of greater use of furlough in the private sector.

But replacing ‘old’ with ‘black’ doesn’t work because there is no state spending that applies exclusively to black people. There are specific fiscal policies for pensioners, and they will always be older - so you can’t discuss certain aspects of the economy without referring to that age group. Stop playing the victim, it’s really tasteless to try to conflict discussing pensions with racism.