To want the Government to do more about the Cost of Living crisis?

[user365241987]

I just cannot see what the Government is doing to support the insane rise in CoL. Our income is higher than it has ever beautiful we just scrape by every month. It's so depressing. Don't qualify for any benefits. So tired of it. I have written to my MP. I can't understand why they don't increase the lowest tax threshold as that would at least help everyone at the lower end. I don't see any improvement ahead.

You’re absolutely right. But all that will happen is the responsible among us will be making provision for ourselves early on, so the state pension can be taken from us and given to somebody who didn’t bother.

I’m in my mid 30s and have many friends who have no private pension and very patchy NI records. I don’t think it’s even occurred to them we are 15 years into working life now and they should really be thinking about these things.

This is what happens when you create a culture of endless safety nets.

Some “pay up”. But per my post what they are required to pay is also vastly insufficient to cover their liability for 50% of the cost of providing for the child in terms of housing, childcare and everything else they need. It is calculated as a percentage of the non-resident/ absent parent’s income (and reduced if they decide the have further children or move in with someone with existing children of their own!). That is nonsensical: the cost of raising the child remains the same. They created the child so should pay 50% of the cost. The resident parent doesn’t get to decide not to pay for the child’s clothes or house or food or childcare because they had a drop in income etc. so in effect they have to not only do most of the parenting and all of the career damage that entails but also subsidise the non-resident parent’s 50% of the costs.

The amounts that are required to be paid need to be far higher and based on evidenced cost, not salary. Like all other parents non-resident parents will just have to be poorer themselves and pay for the child’s needs first. Liability for non-payment needs to be made criminal, not civil. The money should be paid to the resident parent by HMRC and recouped from the non-resident parent with the same vigour as non-payment of tax with criminal charges, removal of any entitlement to state benefits at all for perpetrators until they clear the debt in full, and like other countries confiscate their passports and driving licences and register CCJs against their name etc for non-payment: a functional system with enforcement like in most developed countries.

Until such enforcement takes place there is absolutely no argument whatsoever to suggest including money that may/ may not be received (and the CMS often “write off” without the permission of the person it is owed to and receipt of which could cease at any point) in any calculation of income for tax or benefit purposes. Note also that any child maintenance that is received was already taxed before the non-resident parent paid it so trying to include this in taxable income for the other parent who administers it towards the child’s costs which they pay as the resident parent (it isn’t for them, but the children) would mean double taxation.

Your comments and those of @BigAnneseem to be an attempt to demonise single parents who are doing the work of two people already and are the responsible parent who has remained and actually fulfilling their responsibilities. It is quite disgusting to be attacking them, of all people.

As an economist I can tell you with no doubt at all that the problems with the UK economy are absolutely nothing to do with single parents. This is just nasty, spiteful rhetoric with no basis in reality, I’m afraid.

In short, you are barking up the wrong tree and this has pretty much zero impact on the issues with the UK economy, although the utter failure to provide robust enforcement does of course impact single parent families very negatively, who are already penalised significantly by the UK tax system, compounding existing disadvantage.

I suggest you find a new hobby horse.

The middle classes have been getting too big for their boots by bettering themselves financially in recent decades so now those in charge have to make things go back to normal with a larger distinction between those that need to keep all the assets and us lesser plebs.

You can be sure that actual millionaires aren’t sweating about energy bills, the price of food or losing BTL investment tax breaks.

The government will only do what the people at the actual top tell them to do. I remember Prince Philip giving the government a telling off after 2008 - that was quite telling.

Obviously the means-testing of state pension has to come alongside mandatory saving by employers and employees (and a similar mandatory scheme for the self-employed unless they can prove sufficient assets to provide for themselves in old age) with no opt out. There should be no option to choose not to save.

Other countries have made such reforms to make their pensions systems sustainable and capable of coping with demographic change. We need to do the same.

Then effectively pension credit and state pensions can be merged as a means tested benefit for those who cannot possibly provide for themselves.

That’s a false comparison because occupational pensions/ SIPPS/ public sector pensions don’t exist separately in most of those countries so what you are comparing as “state pension” is something people have actually paid for through large personal and employer contributions in those countries. Their “state pension” isn’t a welfare benefit in most cases, rather the equivalent of our occupational ones.

I think part of the problem is lifestyles as well. Big houses multiple cars. 2 to 3 holidays breaks a year. Then there is posh coffees, nails , massages etc. Buying lunch out daily as well is costly. Budgeting helps we were both low paid jobs but managed to pay off our mortgage 10 years early. It's hard but doable

I am not demonising single parents. My daughter was working part-time, receiving UC and £350 pm child maintenance. We were both surprised that the cm payment was disregarded.

She didn't say she couldn't budget. She's sick of getting ripped off.

Best the government can do is digital ID and stealing your pension.

What was “doable” previously often isn’t now. It is these types of comments that demonstrate the cluelessness of older people.

Look up the current salaries for the roles you worked in aged 20 or 30 or whenever you bought your house. Then look up the cost of that same house now. Would you have been able to afford it? The vast majority would not, regardless of them buying a coffee or whatever other thing you deem to be frivolous.

Every generation before has wished for the living standards of their children to be higher than their own, not disparage their children for changes in technology which should make a higher standard of living cheaper as they have done gradually throughout human history, meaning living standards gradually rise. This is what people across the globe and throughout history have aspired to for their children: a better future. The fact that, despite the vast acceleration in technology, living standards are dropping like a stone in the UK, far in excess of what is happening in what used to be our comparator countries in the developed world, demonstrates immense economic mismanagement in the UK over decades. Having had 14 years of incompetent mismanagement we have got yet more of the same where pretty much every measure taken in the last two years will make it worse and accelerate the decline, and we have an electorate so ignorant that a significant proportion apparently think that voting for Farage would make it better. 🤣 The delusion involved is quite comical.

The problems have nothing to do with coffee or nails or avocado on toast or the fact that certain elderly people think young people should be grateful to have double glazing and washing machines and cars which they are quite happy to use themselves, of course.

This is NOT the source of our economic difficulties, this is normal human progress. The Four Yorkshireman sketch has been done to death and nobody’s interested in these trivial distractions from the real issues anymore.

The UK’s economic problems are structural and it IS possible to put a credible economic plan in place to address them. The well-off pensioners who would lose their unnecessary welfare payments of course would wail but it’s that or gradually watch the country go down the drain.

If you allow 15% of the population (a quarter or whom are millionaires and a further quarter of whom have much higher incomes after tax and housing than the average full time worker) to continue to bleed the country dry and claim welfare they don’t require and care costs they can fund themselves then the country will collapse into poverty with living standards continuing to decline exponentially. This is the inevitable outcome if politicians continue to pander to this cohort of supremely entitled people who want to blame everyone else and take no responsibility for failing to ensure politicians addressed these entirely predictable and predicted issues while they were working age themselves, and claim young people are lazy when all credible studies show they work much harder and get paid less despite being more highly qualified, are taxed more, and have a lower standard of living than the generation now retired for comparable occupations, and that the welfare cost for children and people of working age has remained remarkably static as a percentage of GDP over the last 50 years. So if young people are lazy now then your own cohort was, as well. This is not where the increased public spending has come from: all services that would benefit people of working age have been cut to the bone hence declining productivity and tax revenue. Education is a joke, infrastructure is a joke. It is not the working-age cohort that is bleeding the state dry.

Personally I find the self-righteous and economically illiterate nonsense spouted by such people beyond ridiculous. Either they are so economically illiterate and arrogant at the same time that they genuinely believe the nonsense they write and haven’t even bothered to check the numbers and the numerous economic studies on this, or they are fully aware of what they are doing and are being disingenuous knowing that they are wrecking any prospect of prosperity for their children and grandchildren and deliberately gaslighting people to pretend otherwise, in which case they are absolutely reprehensible.

Either way, no credible economist supports this sort of nonsense comment.

Digital ID would be great, and clamp down on a number of crimes. They use it in many other countries with no issue at all. I really don’t see what the issue is!

I do think some young people have no idea how hard it is to survive on poor wages / high house prices these days. You’ll be very unlikely to afford a house like your childhood home for instance. I think the BMA keep getting in a tizz about junior drs wages without realising that everyone finds the cost of living high and being a Dr doesn’t mean you can afford a huge house, fancy car, hide holidays etc. very few young people can afford that these days.

Until I met, and got chatting to, our wealthy elderly neighbour, I had no idea disability benefits aren't means tested.

Yes, and me. People need to take some responsibility. I don’t think the government will help much though. Reeves is saying there’s no fiscal room.

They are tested as to the disability. It’s no cheaper being disabled regardless of whether or not you’re wealthy. 🤷‍♀️

The disability remains the same.

Scrap the triple lock, are you kidding. My dad’s 92 and just scrapes by as it is. He paid in for his pension and it’s nowhere near what he was promised. He was promised two thirds of a tradesman’s wages. He’s getting £274 one third. You would be happy to take money from the group in society that have no means of earning any more money. Minimum.Wage must keep going up because it’s not enough to live on, but if your old then fuck you, you don’t matter any more.

This isn’t the same. For an awful lot of people, there hasn’t been the usual ‘boom’ time in between crises so belts have been tightened and tightened and tightened and there hasn’t been any breathing room since pre-2008. People on higher incomes are starting to see the effects now and for those people then yes, it might mean a period of lowering their expectations but for ‘ordinary’ folks it’s misery piled upon misery.

As for benefits, I’m a single parent and a government worker whose income is topped up by universal credit (just the child element). Had civil service salaries kept pace with inflation rather than effectively being cut every year for 14 years, my salary would be around 10k higher and I wouldn’t qualify for any help, as well as being significantly better off per month.

Abd it costs far, far more per month than PIP covers. It is a small contribution towards the costs of disability which enables disabled people to participate in society.

It’s far cheaper than the lost tax revenue, additional care costs, additional costs of homelessness or justice costs that would be caused by removing it.

And again, total economic illiteracy from people who bang on about this when it is a tiny fraction of the most wasteful and unnecessary spending which is almost all on pensions and the NHS.

@Hayfield123how was your dad promised 2/3 of a tradesman’s wage? That is just not true. Even 45 years ago when your father could have changed his position, the pension was set at substantially below that - he could have chosen to save extra for 15 years.

How would this help?
Council tax receipts stay in the area that they are collected to pay for local services.
An expensive house being taxed more in Westminster isn't going to help residents council services in poorer parts of the country

Something needs doing about council tax, the monthly payment is 20% of my income, it's crippling at this point when everything else is going up. But I also know councils are in financial crisis trying to meet their statutory obligations. The problems aren't going to get better with the aging population and falling birthrates.

There's no money. As one start point the people who earn the money that pays for the state ie: the tax payers are outweighed by those who claim welfare. Income tax revenue is £331bn, welfare is £333bn.

Well, now you know why. So presumably you won’t make such uninformed comments again.

Except that income tax isn't the only tax on income. National Insurance represents another £200bn+ and in theory funds the biggest component of social protection expenditure - pensions.

In my opinion there is a lot of wastage and bureaucracy at council level. Council spending should be cut. Council Tax is completely inequitable in my view and should be charged per person rather than based on some historic house valuation that bears no resemblance to the property size or current value.

The planning departments in most areas are a joke and are incredibly wasteful. The whole planning system needs simplifying and sensible reform before the whole countryside is covered in unaffordable housing that is not designed to meet the needs of the country.

The roll-out of yet more recycling bins has been a complete disaster as the bins are as good as useless for containing the waste. Most people I have spoken to around my rural area have decided to put their new bins to better uses as they are not fit for purpose!

At a national level I do think we should increase the tax allowance to give people sufficient funds to live on without needing UC top ups. Again the whole system creates jobs for adminstrators to take tax on one hand and give it back with the other.

Incentivise work and stop penalising employers. Scrap NI completely and add it onto income tax and corporation tax above a fair threshold.

Higher rate tax payers should pay more. The thresholds need to be less severe, but there should be more of them, more differential for super-high earners and those with unearned income above £200,000.

Company profits also need to be taxed more as individuals are using companies to shield income from the income tax system and accumulate vast reserves - there needs to be better parity for the employed and self-employed.

Keep the triple lock on pensions as those who don't have much will need it, but it should be means tested as should all other benefits. Where I grew up, only those who really needed benefits claimed and the rest of us just managed without and we wouldn't have dreamt of putting in a claim if we were out of work for a few weeks or had a disabled child. We just got on with it ourselves as we were too proud to claim. I'm not saying this is right either, but I think today people are too quick to claim every penny they can even when they have savings or sufficient earnings. There are so many posts on forums like this from people asking how to 'hide' savings or an inheritance. Families don't seem to pull together like they used to do to support each other.

Increase import duty and VAT on all the imported tat from China, etc. Most of it ends up in landfill anyway.

These are just a few of many many examples.