To reduce hours when labour win election

[Parttimeplay]

I fall into the “60%” tax bracket. With the upcoming elections and knowing the government always hammer the middle ground….woudlnt it make more sense for me to cut my hours for a more relaxed life, eligibility for childcare, reduced tax?

Depending upon the benefits claimants, yes they can be - especially when pension contributions and student loan repayments are factored into the calculations.

Those things shouldn’t be factored in. Pension contributions are a tax free investment and student loans are repaying the cost of an education that the minimum wage worker hasn’t received or benefited from.

Labour raiding pensioners? Nice.

I see where you’re coming from. But you say high nursery fees deter women returning to workplace and presumably therefore you want childcare subsidised more as in other European countries. But that has to be paid for - through taxation!
It’s all a question of balance. Most people are poorer now due to combined effect seismic economic events in past decade including subprime scandal, Brexit, Covid etc. Very hard decisions to be taken by governments about what to tax and where to spend it as a priority.
You see in Scotland the government itches to increase personal taxation more and more - despite the huge amount more of governmental spend on each Scottish resident over the rest of the U.K. already - but they’re aware there’s a balance because they fear driving higher rate taxpayers to England to lower tax regime or - as is in my experience the plan of several older high rate tax payers - into taking retirement earlier than planned.
My view is that we can’t spend or tax our way out of economic pain - we need tightly ordered spending and economic growth. I’d support a party 1) with an excellent economic plan 2) that promises now and has already started looking at NHS reform. I want a European social insurance type system. And I’m not interested in politicians views on this stuff unless they are informed by the best economists and business leaders and NHS frontline staff and patient experiences respectively.

The repetition of this idea of 'net contributors' is alarming. A lot of people have misunderstood money it seems. The only reason you are able to be a net contributor is if you are part of a wider society in the first place. You know, one that depends on millions of people doing low paid labour like the people who still went out to work during the global pandemic. These are the people who are contributing the most to society. Money is not the absolute of everything of value you utter fucking tools.

Imagine waking up from emergency surgery and scanning the room, a nurse is adjusting your drip, she's on £29k, a porter is just passing through with top ups of the supplies your room will need to accommodate you for the next few days, he's on £26k. A doctor is looking over your notes again because there's been an anomaly in one of your test results, she's on £75k but has 3 children and no one else contributing in her household. Do you really think to yourself 'oh dear I'm the only net contributor here'? The mind fucking boggles.

@pinkzebra02 it's definitely important to define the different types of contributor. I think however most people understand that 'net contributor' is where people are giving more money than they are 'using' in gov services. Whatever anyone says we need the tax these people pay.

One key area that is always missed however are the unpaid contributors - carers, volunteers etc. This is worth billions to the economy. We are seeing the problems that failing to appreciate and factor in these people (mainly women) in the issues with social care.

It's always about money - unfortunately I can't see this changing any time soon. I wonder what it would look like if we paid all the unpaid people who actually 'work'. The fact is there are too many not doing any work - paid or unpaid. The gap between those working whether they are net contributors or not and the benefits people receive is too small. Why should people bust a gut when they are well qualified and hard working to just 'get by'?

If the doctor's waiting room is full of the long term unemployed, what does that mean for NHS funding?

Yes. Whilst taking their benefits from the state to the max.

I can't speak on behalf of the unemployed but it's worth noting that giving people a basic quality of life helps not only them but you. The majority of benefits claimants are elderly pensioners, and another large number are able to claim more because they have children. If you withdrew funding for these groups, many of the elderly would be left destitute, some would be able to move in with younger generations like they do in ither countries and some would simply be left to die on the streets. If you withdrew funding from people raising the country's children, a few might be able to get by but for many their futures would be bleak, and chance of them staying in education would be gone and they'd have to either take up low paid labour from a young age or turn to crime. The streets would be much, much more dangerous and there would be places you wouldn't be able to go without being mugged. If you withdrew funding from the sick, they'd have to depend directly on others around them and if no one would help them I'm not sure where they'd end up.

There are problems on both sides but withdrawing funding so that people can stay alive tends to not be a good thing for everyone including those who work (which is why even the conservatives haven't done it completely). It's also worth nting that many people are not working because their health, social and educational needs are not being met. Something many highly paid workers take for granted, usually having lived in at least relative comfort from day 1.

You can see them on here every day of the week. It’s infuriating.

It means that it is clearly massively underfunded given that it hasn't been able to cater to the population's basic needs to be healthy enough to work.

One reason is that the public purse is seen as easy money for the government to dish out to privately owned agencies that provide heakthcare workers for it. Another is that medical professionals including nurses have to fund their own training, which is frankly laughable, meaning no one wants to do it.

Yep. Take take take.

It suggests that they are not working because they are sick. Perhaps if people weren't waiting years for a hospital nhs appointment they wouldn't be sick.

Or need a sick note maybe

Agree teachers will still almost always be better off (maybe not in a high enough cost area for housing where someone on minimum wage can find the unicorn of decent social housing) but student loans are more akin to a type of tax than they are to a traditional loan. It’s pretty unreasonable that someone using their education in a role that benefits society like a teacher or a nurse or a social worker will have loan repayments on a chunk of their salary for some/most of their life and repay their educational costs while others who had the same investment in them might end up not working or doing jobs they never required that education for and barely paying anything back. Not to mention those that do jobs that earn the most and often benefit society a lot less (finance, corporate law, lots of IT etc) are able to pay back quickly with less interest or those older people in the workforce with top earnings who got the same education for free or a lot cheaper (my fees for a 4 year course would have just about covered 1 year of fees now)

They're not doing anything yet and you're clearly convinced that your party can turn it around before the election.

Arr you suggesting doctors can't tell the sick from the healthy?

If they need a sick note for their employer they are not " long term unemployed" are they?

Do you want me to spell out how easy it is to be signed off for ‘stress’ or do you think stressed people walk around with flashing lights on their head and other telltale symptoms.

Some are: yes

Do you think stress is a condition that allows a worker to claim long term sickness? Where do you work 😂

If they have a job by definition they are not "long term unemployed"

What is your definition of long term?

I haven't tried it. Clearly you have if you know that it is easy.