To , just once ,ask is anyone else fed up of being the squeezed middle?

[Wildandallthatjazz]

Thats it really. !

Yes , on mn , its seen as a privilege to have a mortgage, a job etc .

But sometimes it feels hard and you just wish that you got a break . Recognition of the hard slog maybe .

I am not begrudging those on benefits who got the extra payment support, its more about just wanting to have a treat / a bonus/ etc .. a spare bit of money.. a boost .. the heating on … or maybe recognition that the middle can struggle too ?

I totally accept that people can struggle and need help , sort of also feel the struggling middle are invisible ? ( and not seen to have the’ right ‘to have a little moan as it does you good sometimes )

I do think we are incredibly lucky to live in a county with a welfare state, nhs, free gp care I really do .
But sometimes, it just would be nice not to feel you are paying taxes , working as much as possible, and to be able not to feel squeezed all the time and the need to just have a grump about it .

sometimes it is good to let of steam .. when you cant IRL

and then you move on in a more positive fashion .

True @Cuppasoupmonster

We’re in the current mess due to a decade of artificially low interest rates and government borrowing its way out of trouble.

because we never boomed after 08 which was my point.

My parents aged 85 and 87 are pensioners and are paying tax....

We must have boomed a bit or people wouldn’t be so shocked at what’s happening to their living standards now.

Now the bill’s come in and we’re all paying it if we’re taxpayers.

some far more than others as unsurprisingly it's far more weighted on income.

No it was just masked by cheap credit. Look at peoples salaries over the last 10 years or productivity

I think people are shocked because things haven't improved much for anyone except the ultra-rich since 2008 and now were apparently fucked again.

It's what the third round of austerity?

Second. And all the cuts are being kicked down the road until after the next election because these bloody Tories know they won’t have to carry them out.

I was including the cuts after the end of the pandemic.

According to the Resolution Foundation Hunt’s austerity budget will extend the real wage recovery lag to 19 years.

As I said the economy is fucked.

We all know the economy’s fucked. It’s been fucked before and it will recover. The Resolution Foundation’s crystal ball is no more accurate than anyone else’s.

Wages are still lower in 2022 than before the financial crash. That's not a recovery imo & with the biggest tax burden in decades you don't need a crystal ball to work out that we are in terminal decline.

We will have to agree to disagree.

many people at struggling

the difference is those of us not on low wages and benefits can just get by with cutting back

those on benefits are getting a bit more support to just get buy

our holidays and better times will return for many that’s there life

If you're the squeezed middle, then by definition there must be a subset of people on either side of you. You're focusing on a comparison with the side that are worse off and more financially vulnerable than you.

What about the other side? The multinational companies who are getting an extra financial boost from the war in Ukraine, the equity fund managers who pay no tax on their huge bonuses, the non-doms who freely use this country's services without paying the taxes that fund them, etc., etc.

Shift the focus to them it it'll leave more wriggle room in the middle so you won't be so squeezed...

No one in any generation could have done that.

Er, this is exactly what happened in my family. Admittedly in Not London (Bradford) but the idea of a postie retiring with a house worth more than my wages after raising a family on his wages alone is accurate.

AND that's not even the most extreme example in my family - DH has an aunt who's still going strong (and hopefully will continue for a long time yet) who worked in a food factory on production lines, the equivalent of a zero hours job now, from 16 to 55. She's been retired for decades, now 93. Own house which isn't in any way amazing, just a normal family 3 bed with garden - worth about 600k now, and is going to be a nightmare to maintain if she starts to decline as there's steps everywhere. That kind 9f retirement and home ownership is not possible in her equivalent job now.

It has nothing to do with how hard or or someone worked!!

with a house worth more than my wages

I meant, with a house I couldn't remotely afford on my wages as a professional working in a highly responsibility role/ antisocial hours and degree requirements

I don’t think the economy follows inspirational quotes, much as I want to believe it.

@PlutoCritter not many of us live to be your aunt’s age, in most families the value of the house would probably have gone to her heirs by now, helping younger generations with their student loans, house deposits etc. Unless every home owner has to pay for care in later life, most families will benefit from their relative’s luck, prudence, hard work, or a combination of all three.

Our DC are relatively well set up, but will benefit from the value of our home, which will help the DGC. Sadly its nowhere near as valuable as your aunt’s.

Exactly this, I think the standard of living in this country and many others are in decline.

We are now in a very global trading world now that wasn't the same in the seventies.

Tax the rich and the corporations everybody says but as the French are finding out if you try to introduce a tax on Google etc the Americans start to treat it as a trade war and will introduce tarrifs on the French goods.

All the sound bites are easy to say but harder to implement. Portugal are a country that are desperate for inward investment and are giving great tax breaks to move there, never underestimate the ease of rich people and companies move.

This is why it's a very fine balance act if you are in the government but I feel it's the younger ones that are getting the raw deal from globalisation.

👏👏👏

I've no idea whether this aunt is an invention or not, but what search would show a property that's currently worth 600k, isn't on sale at the moment and that might not even be registered land given the timeframe we're evidently talking about?

Obviously a Rightmove search will show what a bog standard three bed in Bradford costs and the kind of house that fetches £600k. There’s a vast difference between the two.

Why have you limited yourself to Bradford? The poster said her own family were from there, nothing else. No reason at all to suppose that's where her husband's aunt is living. Indeed, it's probably not given where the biggest inflation in house prices over the last few decades has been.