Why won't any political party focus or help the squeezed middle

[Winterday1991]

Off the back of another thread, has got me thinking about the next general election.

Why is there not a party that will focus on the middle earners in the squeezed south east , where both partners work full time, who are struggling juggling mortgages, cost of childcare and self fund everything and are over threshold for any help or subsidies ie child benefit, cost of living payments, free childcare via universal credit?

We are a middle/highish income family and are just so sick of paying into the system and getting nothing back! The amount of tax we pay is insane, certainly not anywhere near value for money. Labour just seem to want to focus on single parent families and those on universal credit.

Any party who focuses on the middle will surely win the election?

What you earn puts you in the top 10% though.
You over-stretching yourself in terms of commitments doesn't take you out of the top 10%.
Reality check needed here I'd say.

Think that poster is on wind up. Who gives up a 60k job for UC and it's perceived freebies?

AND…what do you WANTto spend your money on @Winterday1991?? I don’t get what you’re bleating on about!? You get to pay all you bills and a mortgage etc!! You think the government owes you a good time or something? You think you need more fun money? Such is life like!

This isn’t really relevant to the original debate which was about a household (rather than individual) income under £100k

I totally agree that removing the personal allowance for high earners is a stupid, short sighted policy that creates maximum resentment in high earners for pretty minimal return to the treasury. I saw a calculation a while back that If you dropped the personal allowance back down to 12k and assigned to everyone then net it would make no difference to the treasury and it would cost anyone with the personal allowance who pays tax at 20% about £15 a month. I’m not totally convinced it’s the best idea vs a low tax rate over a wider income band anyway. It will tend towards disincentivising moving from part to full time work as the extra you earn for additional days will all be deducted 32% for tax/NI and in many cases you’ll also lose student loan, which lots of people won’t ever pay back.

Child benefit I assume the long term plan is to eliminate it since the thresholds haven’t changed since they were introduced. Currently about 20% of workers earn over £50k, where you start losing it. If the thresholds had moved with inflation that would now be £66.5. If inflation continues then on a few years £50k might well be pretty average & then at some point it will probably get rolled into universal credit.

I wish I had the time and patience to dig through public spending information in a bit of depth. I very strongly suspect the reason we have such issues is more to do with an aging population with many people living longer, claiming pensions for longer than was anticipated & needing lots more spending on health/social care than productivity.

By your method most people on UC in minimum wage jobs would deserve more then because they work the hardest. People don't work for various reasons like disabilities, caring or lack of affordable childcare which as you find so unbelievable I am beginning to wonder about your motive.

Surely the question you need to ask is why your wage hasn't increased in line with inflation, and why houses are now so expensive in the first place so as to erode your earnings?

We are seeing the effects of economic mismanagement- lack of investment in austerity limiting growth, the impact of years of uncertainty then a hard Brexit, the massive asset bubble created by quantitative easing.

It's absolutely right those on lower income receive the focus and help.

What sticks in my throat is Sunak considering cutting inheritance tax.

I just don’t get this at all. You are going to give up a job paying £60k and move to a low paid role part time so you have a better work life balance and don’t have to pay out all the nursery fees for your twins. Then 4 years or so post maternity leave they go to school. You no longer make the saving on nursery fees but instead of still having your £60k job (maybe a fair bit more by then) you’ll have a part time low paid job and that will be your last 4 years of experience. How will you be better off then? I genuinely don’t understand and I’m someone with a similar salary. I think you are going to make yourself worse off in the mid-long term and why would you do that for a short term gain?

I agree with this overall but the problem is wages not benefits.

in the example used, teachers and nurses’ wages are not high enough once tax, NI, commuting costs, child care and general higher cost of living are factored in.

A newly qualified nurse only gets around £15.50 an hour but has a very physically and mentally challenging job, and may have to deal with violence and abuse etc. Someone who is on benefits or low paid work topped up with benefits might have in their hand every month the same as the nurse but without the physical and emotional stress. But it’s because the nurse isn’t earning enough for the job, not because benefits are so high.

I’m all for supporting those living in poverty but there surely has to also be some bonus to working in jobs like nursing/social care. Maybe if there was, the NHS and care home sector wouldn’t be so dependent on migrant agency staff who do the bare minimum on shift but walk away with more money than the employed staff.

But that is bollocks. How on earth can you equate a 50-100 k wage to someone on benefits. Don't believe everything the DM tells you

Hmmm so I should bust a gut working all hours to have something to leave to my kids, then the government takes a SHITLOAD of it, to give to people who have never been bothered to work, much.
My earnings have already been taxed!!

The problem is the government can't afford to pay more due to lack of economic growth. They can tax people like OP but there are not near enough of us. £95k combined should be the average household income in the south but it isn't. If that was the case our taxes could be lower but due to Tory economic mismanagement for the past 13 years it isn't.

And OP wants more of the same so her wages can stay stagnant and she gets even worse NHS and services. Boggles the mind.

Agree with this.

Completely!!!

If they don't tax you, that means the richer people wouldn't be taxed either. What are you leaving to your kids? £300k, £1 million? That's chicken feet compared to the savings rishi sunak would make abolishing inheritance tax -£300 million for himself.

If the rich inherit more than you do, you effectively get poorer. I can see it very clearly in London as there is a lot of generational wealth here and what we can afford to buy house wise is largely determined by that rather than income.

I earn just under £30k. H is retired on a state pension plus about £200 a month work pension. We have a mortgage (interest only, but this works for us. Another story) 1 child still at home. Living in a hugely expensive city. We manage absolutely fine.

I appreciate that we no longer have childcare - that was a crippling time for sure, but seriously, I wouldn't know what to do with £95k a year!

And the vile slagging off and sheer ignorance about 'free' council houses and massive benefits - if people earn all this money surely they're intelligent enough to understand the reality of how other people live? Imagine being angry and jealous of someone who has no assets and probably no way of getting out of where they are- no, it's not the 1960s where you could start at a factory on 2 and 6 a week and end up running it.
Bit of compassion wouldn't go amiss

Claims to have worked in the benefits office but doesn't seem to understand how it works. And joined mumsnet just to answer this specific thread. Makes you wonder.

Just want to add to the poster expecting twins. My sister in law has twins (both she and her partner are teachers). They didn’t give up work (just had mat leave). Yes, it seemed like rhey were working for nothing at the time, but in that time they earned TLRs and now that their DCs are in school, pay no childcare (they go to a free school where clubs run every day after school for no cost). Leaving work means leaving pension, impact future earnings.

That’s a bit unfair. I see my children. I may not see them in school events but it’s never been an issue. We just make other things special like when the play DVD comes out, we watch that together with popcorn. Working parents don’t mean ignored children. I grew up in poverty, my parent didn’t work and I still didn’t see them as they were always in the pub!

In that case surely you’d say I’ll apply to work part time in my current job & have a couple of days with the kids and still have my well paid career to return full time to at a later date if I want. Also surely you’d just say that vs ranting about the cost of childcare and how it’s not worth working?

In one respect, I agree, we are in the same boat as you. Both working, paying lots and lots of tax, getting very little back for the amount we pay, and it is a struggle once everything has been paid to make ends meet...far more this year than before.

Infact, instead of the usual foreign holidays, next year we're going to Butlins.

The thing is, if they don't focus on the already struggling, that's going to be a rise in homelessness, and the NHS will be under more strain, related to stress related issues and people's poor living conditions worsening would literally mean malnutrition linked illnesses and a rise in chest issues when damp sets in because people are not heating the homes they're struggling to keep hold of. It creates more work for them if the already uncomfortable are then in unlovable situations... if you see what UC rates are, I'm unsure how people are living on that. Even if we're getting closer to the same living conditions most of us would still need to be a fair bit worse off to be in competition with the poorest in society.