Hunt out of touch?

[BluebellsBluebell]

£100k is 'not a huge salary'. Fair comment. Yanbu

Does this show Hunt and the tories are out of touch. Yabu

Even without the childcare issue, someone earning more than 100k will still suffer the 60% effective tax rate, and be disqualified from child benefit. They are still being taxed disproportionately to their living standards. The child care issue just further illustrates how the 100k mark doesn't make you as wealthy as people think.

He sounds a tit saying 100k isn't that much. It's much more than most people have. Should've kept to the point he was actually making, which is that some of them face marginal tax rates in the five figures and that's not a good thing for anyone.

Though the obvious response to that is, you're the fucking Chancellor, do something about it.

3.6 million women are 'WASPI women'.

78,000 parents of preschoolers are currently impacted by this threshold - likely to increase to 127,000 by 2027 (Institute for economic affairs stat) due to frozen thresholds.

So it's an issue that is impacting more and more parents:

• Because of the freezing of tax thresholds
• Because of the freezing of benefit removal thresholds
• Because the cost of childcare is increasing above inflation making it a bigger household expenditure for families

It impacting a comparatively small number of people isn't a reason to ignore it. If anything, it's a reason to allow them to have the benefit, as the cost of providing it might be less than the loss of tax as a result of them trying to avoid earning more than the threshold.

One of many examples of fiscal drag, which have largely managed to go under the radar while the Tories claim to be reducing taxes.

One of many examples of fiscal drag, which have largely managed to go under the radar while the Tories claim to be reducing taxes.

Yep! And as we have a shortage of skills and workers generally, anything in the tax system that potentially disincentivises work is a problem for all of us. It's all very well saying this particular bottleneck or cliff edge only affects a small number of people, but there are a loooooot of them.

I would be a huge salary for me but then I can buy a three bed house for £160k.

The same house in Surrey would be about £700k and I'd need to be earning that kind of wage to buy there.

Relatively, my disposable income is probably better on a third of that salary, and certainly if it's the only salary in the household.

As MN tells us all the time, two medium earners are often better off than one higher earner..

Yes Hunt and the Tories are out of touch as it has taken things to get so bad that £100k a year is not that great for them to pick up that we are a low pay economy taxed to high hell for nothing when median earnings are about 1/3 of that and plenty of people earn even less than that.

The Tories are staring down the barrel of a very big gun created by over a decade of their own economic incompetence and wishful thinking and they know the trigger is going to have to be pulled before the year is out.

Of course Hunt is sympathetic to the childcare woes of those earning £100k. Meanwhile, Nurses and Junior Doctors who are struggling with the cost of living should just suck it up and be grateful.

I'm quite surprised to see so many defending Hunt on the basis that "100k doesn't go far if you're in the SE and have two children in Nursery". I always thought Tories were big on telling people not to have more children than they can comfortably afford? Or is it only working class people who should stop at one child, or wait until their first child goes to school before they have a second child? I've also seen plenty of right-leaning posters on MN over the years claiming that it's entitled to expect to live in the SE and if you can't afford your accommodation costs you should just up sticks and "move to a cheaper area"? Again, I'm guessing that advice is just for the plebs.

I think they're staring down the barrel due to partygate with BJ and the centre of it, then he was removed and its been nothing but factional infighting since.

I think Rishi is an extremely competent man, but he is Prime Minister at a time of turmoil and infighting, to the point where his party are just unelectable.

Hunt might well be mismanaging the technical situation regarding child care for those earning over £100k, but he's wrong to say that it is "not a huge salary."

Given his record as a Minister he seems perfectly capable of being incompetent and wrong about more than one thing at a time.

A politician who doesnt live in the real or understand the struggles of real people?! What a shock

@Havanananana to be fair to him, he would be slaughtered if he was seen to be giving "hand outs to the rich". I think you definition of huge is different to mine. A huge salary is Christiano Ronaldo, £500k a week or whatever. £5k a month with house prices, interest rates, inflation and childcare where they are doesn't meet my definition of huge.

of course it’s high. The fact that Surrey and childcare are expensive doesn’t negate the fact it is high! We need subsidised/free childcare and a house price cap, but somehow I can’t see 6-figure earners voting for such policies because they’d mean higher tax and property ceasing to be a profit-making asset. Because they don’t really care about the cost of living or the people on minimum wage getting the really shitty end of the stick, they only care about what affects them. Look at Scandinavia - affordable childcare for all, higher salaries, and a generally better standard of living, and high taxes to support all that - and consistently rated one of the happiest regions in the world.

Very true!

@Everanewbie

£100k might not be "huge" but as I've already pointed out, only 4%-5% of the population earn this. For 95% of earners, it is far more than they currently earn, and is many times the earnings of the millions of people who make up 25% of the working population.

The discussion is not about what you or I regard as "huge" but what Hunt regards as "not huge." He's the Chancellor, and the decisions that he makes impact on the lives of millions. If he's making these decisions based on a view of the world that is completely out of touch with the lives of millions of people, or if like the PM, he knows no "poor" people and cannot envisage how the vast majority of the population lives, how can he make decisions that benefit the population at large, and not just those who pay to have their voices heard.

His mis-management of healthcare and social care has proven to have been an unmitigated disaster. He shows no signs of being any better at being Chancellor - something that for different reasons we both seem to agree on.

Maybe the focus shouldn't be on giving childcare subsidies to high earners... but examining why nursery costs have got so high.

Is it staffing? Utilities? Food? Rent/mortgages? Extra activities?

Or profits?

As someone who has until very recently lived off less than 2k per month, 5k is huge.

£5k is very nearly half my annual income. I'm one of those wealthy boomer pensioners (give me my bloody money back you thieving buggers. I don't want compensation, I want the money I paid into my state pension that you stole from us) you hear so much about. People like me find Mr Hunt and his ilk more than tiresome.

Scandinavia has far higher tax rates on the lower bands than we do. Lower waged earners pay a far higher rate than they do here. That’s while they have better public services. Because EVERYBODY pays higher tax, not just those you might seem ‘wealthy’. That’s how you properly fund public services. Still up for it?

Yes , I’m aware of that, and yes I am absolutely up for it. I’m very pro properly funded public services through taxation.

Scandinavian countries also have better wages on the low end of the scale because their industry unions are respected and set the rates.

You dislike Hunt because he won't snap his fingers and give you what you want. If he said, "fine, @newnamethanks , you're right, £50k was "stolen" from you, here's £50k plus 15 years worth of interest, he wouldn't be tiresome, I'll bet. Unfortunately, if he dishes out £50k to the WASPI women, he'll have to borrow, at the detriment of the rest of the country.

@newnamethanks I guess Ken Clarke, Gordon Brown, Alistair Darling, George Osborne, Sajid Javid, Rishi Sunak and Kwasi Kwarteng are also tiresome?

Philip Hammond! I knew i'd forgotten one. There's been a few to be fair.

That is not the reason that I find Hunt tiresome, there's much to choose from which would not be ameliorated by a payoff. Although he seems to think that will work for his mates in his constituency. Thank you for your useful input.

I'm not a massive fan of his Junior Dr contract reforms from 2015ish but as a chancellor I think he's doing a good job within the confines of the circumstances we find ourselves in. The ambition to do away with NI and not double tax wages is the right path. Its a pity he wont have the opportunity to follow this through to completion.