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 .

Our household income is almost £70k a year (pre tax obviously), mortgage around £1600 per month and I’m not feeling the squeeze too badly… yet. BUT we haven’t put our heating on yet due to very good double glazing and we don’t have any childcare costs thankfully as both sets of parents and another mum help out. We don’t go on holidays however (last one was pre Covid).

Completely agree. We are also part of the squeezed middle.

but if you dare complain you have the usuals throwing out ‘We had 15% rates in my day’ or ‘you should have taken into account rising interest rates’ 🙄

or we should be happy to be living to work either for the big man or come the new budget get taxed to high heavens.

i’m SICK of hearing how people lived in the 80’s, as if the world shouldnt have improved SLIGHTLY since then and some actually seem to enjoy seeing people suffer because they suffered.

in 2022 i shouldnt have to worry about how much it costs me to keep my fucking kids warm without going bankrupt.

I work hard and pay tax, worked all through covid etc - and I get the COL payment because I get WTC - just a small amount - where do I fit in then?

I work PT - was planning to up my hours this year but have been hit by a health issue which means this is on hold. I'd rather be healthy, working FT and not need 'benefits' trust me.

Also a single parent of 3 supporting one through Uni, one at college and one at school - I don't have the heating on all day!

I don't begrudge anyone getting support if they qualify for it.

@Covetthee yup - these “it was 15% in my day” types also seem to conveniently forget that a family home cost about £60k (or less!!) in the 80s. It makes me so cross.

I worked minimum wage jobs until I was 30 in hospitality while studying as a mature student and volunteering to get my career off the ground. I never claimed benefits, just worked more hours. DH worked every evening and weekend for years to get to where he is in his career. It’s been a slog. Now we are told we are privileged to be here and should pay loads of tax on top of the student debts we incurred, and the fact I do a socially useful job makes it a double kicker. There are 5.3 million people on out of work benefits in the UK and 8 billion has been lost to benefit fraud since covid. The welfare state is a joke. The squeezes middle need to wake up and have some agency over where this money they are giving the government each year is being spent. It’s not going on good health care and education provisions.

I dont begrudge people who genuinely need help receiving it in any form, however personal responsibility has to be a factor- ie improving educational outcomes for disadvantaged children is key to reducing poverty, but we shouldn't forget the role of parents play. There will always be reasons some parents can't help, but most should be able to in some degree.
Re lockdown comments, I worked throughout lockdown in an industry that was affected, with only a skeleton staff remaining. Believe it or not, people were fighting to get furlough. We had to rotate on 3 week cycles and people complained because they had to work. When furlough ended quite a few people across the company left to go to jobs paying less or with less hours ie 36 instead of 39. For those people without kids this was really frustrating for them.
The town where I worked had high unemployment yet companies across the board couldn't' recruit. I used to interview for above min wage jobs yet people would turn down jobs because it wasn't worth their while to take the job. This wasn't a one off either.

YANBU.

It’s making me feel ill - I hid the smart meter yesterday. I can’t cope with it anymore.

but the average weekly pay for non-manual workers 30-39 in 1986 was £164 - so £60K was still a lot

I remember my mum buying a house in 1984 for £21k and it being a huge stretch on her salary - as a teacher

Saying people should have personal responsibility seems to be akin to saying you hate children or want to bring back workhouses now though!

No, the average house price is 9 times the average salary now. In 1980 it was 4 times the average salary. There’s just no comparison.

Feels like a hangover from covid. Shared risk and the expectation people keep giving on and on

@Covetthee

i’m SICK of hearing how people lived in the 80’s, as if the world shouldnt have improved SLIGHTLY since then and some actually seem to enjoy seeing people suffer because they suffered

Living standards for the majority have declined compared to the 80s for the majority of people in Britain. Mobile phones and a biannual Ryanair flight doesn’t make up for unaffordable housing, being unable to afford heating and massive students debt. The top 10% are raking it in like never before though …

Yanbu

I pay £22-24k of tax a year.
So I work from January to April every year just to pay tax for absolutely SHITE public services.

I’m literally turning into the middle aged people I used to eyeroll at who go on about a waste of tax payers money.

But everytime I read “£20m investment in <fill in the blank shit thing>“ it makes me get a small flitter of fury as I work my arse off every day

And Jeremy hunt says we will all pay more tax now, at a time the tax burden is the highest in history, supposedly a tory gov under an election promise to cut tax by 1% by the end of the Parliament. Plus cut public spending, probably not benefits though. Be education and the police. Ffs!

It's happening in most countries

You work you're arse off for nothing really.

I think everyone has problems no matter what your "status"

Just got to enjoy life while you can.

I’m the same when I hear ‘the government need to fund ad infinitum’ and they need to ‘do something’

yeah it all costs

…. which is the bit that Sunak and co need to try very hard to disguise. Millions of people in Britain are not struggling in the least. They would be at the top of any league table with their French, German, Australian counterparts. By developed country standards - Britain is a country with a few million exceptionally well off people, a large middle of people who are doing okay but whose living standards pale in comparison to the middles elsewhere in Western Europe, and then a bottom 10% which is constantly blamed for everything and targeted whenever politically expedient.

I'm not saying it's the same at all @Cuppasoupmonster pointing out that even at £60K the average house price was too expensive for many people in the 80's - yes houses where cheaper - but wages were also lower for many people

I find people often quote the house price judging it on today's income - yes it looks like anyone could buy a house - but the reality was different. Many people stretched themselves like they do today, and 15% interest rates caused many people to lose their homes.

Of course, at that point you still had available social housing run by the local authority which made a difference - until Thatch sold them all off and pocketed the money.

Ive been priced out of buying a house in my own town because lots of people in the city realised you can work from home anywhere during Covid. So heaps of people did a sea change pushing the price of houses up and pushing the locals out.
A lot are homeless due to this.
My rent has just been put up to an extra $100 a week!
Nothing I can do because every house is expensive, may as well stay here.
Both me and DH have businesses.
Life is very expensive.

@Boomboom22

And Jeremy hunt says we will all pay more tax now, at a time the tax burden is the highest in history, supposedly a tory gov under an election promise to cut tax by 1% by the end of the Parliament. Plus cut public spending, probably not benefits though. Be education and the police. Ffs

it’s all rearranging deckchairs on the Titanic at this point. I’ll vote to get the Tories out next time as they deserve time in the wilderness for what they’ve done since the 80s (topped off by an idiotic Brexit) - not because Labour will have many better answers. They won’t - it’s too late. Britain is institutionally dysfunctional and in terminal decline. Brexit was just the icing on the cake.

The average price of a house here is $750 000. Converted to pounds is just under £428 000.
Crazy.
Gotta have a big mortgage for that.

If the Tory party membership (150k?) Hasn't voted Truss in, and she hasn't decided to use us in her experiment, we'd be be over 3billion pounds better off as a country. I wonder how many more nurses and care workers that would pay?

Yes. I'd love to be able to have my heating on for more than an hour a day and for my baby to be warm enough to shift the cold he continually has.

My DP works 3 jobs to cover for the fact I'm on maternity leave and we still can't afford anything. When I go back to work the childcare bills will be crippling.

We both worked through the pandemic and it feels shite that we're just being caned constantly for money to pay for other people to have a better life than us.

The “squeezed middle” aren’t taxed very highly at all in the UK relative to neighbouring countries. The UK concentrates the tax take on higher earners more than countries around us.

But you could "buy more house" if the average price was only 4x average wage compared to today's 9x as poster quoted.