The autumn budget should cut benefits before increasing tax

[Leett]

There is talk of Labour breaking their election pledge and increasing income tax by 2p. I doubt they'd do that because voters will revolt. However they need to do something with the state pension due to increase by 4.7% next year.
I really hope they cut benefits / pensions before the deciding to increase taxes.

This is where it’s wrong . Any employer who pays such low wages their staff need state top up have their business model wrong .

Haha you don't rely on benefits obviously. So you want the poorest people in society to suffer more? Fair enough. 😱

Wrong. So very wrong it’s laughable. Welfare spending is 23.8% of yearly government budget. That’s £303 billion per year.

@ainsleysanob but current pensioners received the equivalent to child benefit and it didn't used to be means tested. More social housing then too,

Maybe people should be talking about the millions spent each day on illegal immigrants rather then arguing about small amounts of benefits people recieve to survive but the government don't want that.

So you want the poorest people in society to suffer more?

But pensioners as a group are not the poorest in society

What about increasing VAT on gambling, alcohol, tobacco, sports cars etc.

They need to axe the triple lock.

Adding fuel to the mix but if our government had a better plan than spending 5.2 million a day on hotels for asylum seekers, we may not be in such a mess.

not everyone has. many people care for disabled relatives and cannot work or have very limited capacity to work. It's not as easy as going out and increasing your hours if there is nobody to look after the disabled person at home.

Because you're clearly not relying on benefits, you will have a good wage and by saying you were on benefits youre at it 🤣🤣

The change that needs to be made to benefits is making it fairer. The working hours requirement, it’s 30hrs or if you earn above nmw then it’s the equivalent amount of pay, meaning that people on higher pay have the option to work less. It should just be 30hrs for everyone.

You think just pensioners should be affected by benefit cuts.
Many of these pensioners raised their kids without tax credits and childcare help unlike todays generation.
Personally I think the triple lock should be replaced with a double lock and we should abolish pension credit. Don't pay in then stay on UC until you die.
We should increase free pay to £15000 a year and then tax everything after that at 30% , wages, pensions, dividends, rents, interest on bank accounts and all state benefits. That way everybody pays the same whatever their income source so no one can say its not fair

Are we still peddling the all pensioners are loaded stuff? The basic state pension is under 12k. Yes there are some very rich pensioners but I work in a sector where I see plenty at the other end.
My husband gets the basic pension. He (not because he was a feckless workshy povvo, other reasons) only has a tiny work pension and I work for the nhs on under 30k a year - because it's a job I trained for and love
It's really not that much and we still have a mortgage and normal bills.
Why must we all be hated and compared to 'working' families? It seems acceptable to do this and a lot of us are sick of it

Are we still peddling the all pensioners are loaded stuff?

No, they are all poor apparently

Does that include people with chronic conditions? I have free prescriptions due to epilepsy. This means the condition is managed and I’m able to work full time. If I were to have to pay for it independently there are times in my life I’d have been unable to afford it. At which point you become ill and unable to work…..
It doesn’t make sense to me though that I get all prescriptions free. It would be more reasonable to have a list of free items. Though I’d imagine administratively complex and nightmarish.

My husband gets the basic pension. He (not because he was a feckless workshy povvo, other reasons) only has a tiny work pension and I work for the nhs on under 30k a year - because it's a job I trained for and love It's really not that much and we still have a mortgage and normal bills.

And yet workers on low wages are told to get a better job...

Also agree with this! Min wage should be enough to live on, not min wage + benefits. Not sure how to fix the situation now though, I guess gradual min wage increase over a few years.
Businesses who can’t afford it are not viable so
do we really want to prop them up with public money?

They can lump it. No one is magically entitled to anything.

Some are poor some are rich, some are somewhere in between - just like all other generations.
Hope that helps your understanding 🙂

They can lump it. No one is magically entitled to anything.

Except pensioners apparently

Yes but this is all ‘used to used to used to’ history (they also paid NI!) Are those pensioners, that have no opportunity to increase their income, immune to COL increases? Does everything remain the same price for those until they die? Of course not. You want to cut the benefits for pensioners, not go cannot supplement their income? What you going to do when they fall into poverty, get ill more thus costing the NHS even more? Where will the funds come to support them then?

I have income protection insurance for this. Like I have home insurance incase my home burns down. It’s just what a responsible adult does. Can’t be bothered to pay for it? You take your chances, obviously.

@Gingernessy It's not me who thought they were all rich...

@ainsleysanob why should today's children & young people pay for it though?