Middle earners punished

[Eucalyptus321]

I am feeling so disheartened and frustrated by how middle earners are constantly suffering at the hands of ridiculous government priorities. My husband and I have a greater household income than other families we know but have less cash in hand due to increased taxes coupled with the fact we receive zero benefits like child benefit or tax free childcare etc. ZERO. If they want middle earners to fund the country thought tax then at least support us with childcare costs. It’s a joke that two parents earning £99k each get childcare funding but parents with one £101k salary and one £25k salary receive nothing. I just need to speak to people who understand the burden of raising a family amidst the current financial climate and then the potential of further tax rises!

People want a welfare state that supports those that pay in. If someone loses their job that they’ve worked in for years and years they deserve a heck of a lot more than the same rate as someone who’s done nothing all their lives.

I want children to be fed. Give their parents vouchers to buy food with instead of cash benefits and that will happen. You can understand that can’t you?

Huh?

You made it personal first - personal to you.
Read your own post.

Still no addressing the facts then?

I find it hard to accept that children should be punished for the crime of being born to parents who already have two children.

My local state school has just had a massive investment in a new building with a theatre and art rooms. It’s gorgeous now - much better than my shitty school was in the 90s!

I think you're being silly to think you're worse off than other people because you earn more.

My husband and I have a combined income of £60k and we are really struggling. Luckily, I've recently been promoted with a big pay rise otherwise we'd have to make some big cuts. We are still much better off than many other people and are grateful for that.

Child benefit for one child is £100 a month. Tax free childcare was my whole pay packet except for £300, so hardly a massive saving, and even when it was 30 free hours it was still £25 a day for 3 days and then £70 for the remaining 2 days.

I don't disagree that the current policies are penalising working people and everyone is feeling the squeeze, but if you earn £100k you are better off than someone earning £70k, regardless of benefits.

The biggest problem for everyone is the never ending frozen tax thresholds and ever increasing fiscal drag, coupled with rampant inflation. It's a killer for everyone, even those on NMW.

A friend of mine is off to New York next week for a work celebration with her DH who works for a privately owned company, which provides childrens homes to the local authority. The business has made so much money this year they are taking 6 senior managers and their spouses away so for all expenses paid 3 night trip to New York.

I don’t think that’s ok.

(Duplicate removed)

I see the minimum wage is increasing .I agree in principle, but it may erode differentials for people in say supervisory type jobs. I know someone getting about a pound above NNW to do this, she has said she’ll step down as it won’t be worth it for the responsibility

Yes. I now refuse to pay anyone in cash as I think a lot of people really fiddle the system
(Including my ex who is paid most of his salary in brown paper envelopes but CMS/HMRC don't care apparently)

Oh, now the racism. True colours being shown

Okay and? Yes it's bigger, so what? It's their money. I did some digging, and the vast majority of UK billionaires are self made.

They've set up, crested businesses that employ people.

That’s down to the underfunding of local authorities. Local authorities sold off all sorts of assets to raise cash to meet current liabilities - including children’s homes. The chickens are coming home to roost now. Just another example of the short sighted policy making we suffer with here in the UK.

I agree with you, it's not fair on the children. But the responsibility lies with their parents.

No, it’s down to the apparently limitless greed of the service providers. Remind me who was obsessed with the privatisation that kicked all this off - oh yes, it was Thatcher.

Don’t you think those on £100k deserve to be much better off than those on £70k though? They have clearly worked to get useful skills. If we tax everyone into getting the same sort of after tax earnings no one is incentives to be more productive.

I completely agree.

People certainly wanted the hand outs during Covid didnt they - furlough anyone?

And that was another major mistake. Not the whole thing, but the details. But I get there was no time to refine it.

My dog walker said she'd never had so much money. A friend's sister had just opened a cafe a few weeks before, go so much furlough money she bought a new kitchen (for her house not the cafe) and as soon as she could opened up for take aways and did a roaring trade while still getting paid for business disruption. She had more income during covid even without the extra money the govt paid her than she gets now the cafe is open!

My dd lived at home, was a uni student and got over £400 a month furlough money from her pt barista job where she normally only earned £200 a month. She'd done a load of extra shifts in Dec/Jan and it went on an average of the last 3 months wages or something so she was quids in.

Don’t think so with Nigel the Nazi “Hitler was right” Farage in charge.

I disagree. If the local authorities hadn’t sold off children’s homes then there would be no market for the private providers. This situation arose because the government let it.

"Look what you made me do!" eh?

You are deliberately misrepresenting the choice element which I have commented on already.

Agree with this. Friend of mine works in this sector and when I last spoke to her about how much they charge for some kids (which was a couple of years ago) I nearly fell off my chair. 20k per child per week is not unusual for some of the more disturbed kids who need 2 adults to 1 kid at all times.

I get that level of service is expensive to fund but it seems wrong that there are private companies making big profits on this. Why on earth is the govt not supporting local authorities to bring this back in house?

Is the waste of money I really object to.

Absolutely. My sister works in the sector too and this is not unheard of at all.