MNHQ here: are you a JAM ("Just About Managing")?

[FinnMumsnet]

Hello,

With the Chancellor's Autumn Statement coming up next Wednesday (23 November), rumours swirl that it will include measures targeted at a group the government has been calling "JAMs", or those "just about managing." There's some suggestion that this will include action on things like childcare subsidies, the cost of holiday flights and fuel duty. (For more, here's the Mirror, the Telegraph and the FT.)

We know from previous conversations that many MNers are having to work hard to make ends meet, and we'd love to hear your thoughts on whether you think you fall into this category, what action you'd like the government to take, and whether any of the proposed measures (though we don't have any more details we're afraid!) would make a difference to your lives.

Thanks,
MNHQ

I'd like an itemisation of what happens to our national insurance - where does the money actually go? Because the banging on about the NHS nnot having enough money accompanied by the increased age on receiving a pension can't be right as increased population = more national insurance being paid.

toptoe
A fascinating list of unaffordable wishy washy la la land

tiptop
Your requests re housing are contradictory and mutually exclusive

No wonder the Government ignore people when they clearly do not understand even basic economics

REgulate letting agents (cap/scrap fees), more land needed for building council houses. that'd be a start.

toptoe
Have a look at the ukpublicspending website

Pensions cost more than NI raises, leaving nothing for the NHS

divine
What has land supply got to do with council homes.
Councils are pretty much banned from building them

Everything that would make a difference to us (young couple with no dependents) would be unthinkable being arranged by a Conservative government. They have sheer contempt for JAMs. It's not what they say but their actions that show how they view us.

What would be super useful:

• Massive increase in house building, in particular social housing, much like Labour's proposition now to build enough houses with 50% of them being social housing.
• Rent caps.
• Increase in LHA for Housing Benefit claimants because it's a joke - but if you had rent caps and vastly more social housing this wouldn't be so important anyway and the benefit bill would decrease overall.
• All benefits should at least be rising with inflation and it goes without saying that ESA should NOT be cut by £30 a week, that is going to push disabled people and their families including dependents into poverty and debt, it's a disgusting idea.
• Improve public transport and bring the railways as a starter back into public ownership as Labour are proposing. A better, cheaper public transport system would vastly improve employment opportunities for people.
• Crack down on casualisation/zero hours/sham 'self-employed' contracts; the Uber ruling recently is very welcome but how sad it is that unelected judges are protecting our rights over our elected representatives!!
• Removal of university tuition fees and loans replacing them with grants and free education and reinstating ESA; this provides routes for people into higher education and subsequently employment and out of poverty. This is particularly so for courses like nursing where we have a severe shortage of nurses but we're pricing out many people would be fabulous nurses by ending their bursaries, it's perverse.
• Change NMW to a REAL living wage as defined by the Living Wage Foundation and make this applicable to all workers regardless of age, it's disgusting that being under 25 I get paid less for my work! And likewise it's disgusting that I can't claim tax credits because I'm too young when other people my age will be financially better of as a result of just being older!

All of the above are never going to brought in by Tories though.

meadowhay
Nice list of spending plans.
How do you propose paying for them?
I reckon its around 3% on tax

meadowhay - the only thing on your list that would help my 23 year old about to start working in london is the rent cap - and that wouldnt help for some time anyway. i guess this might help your situation. no doubt we will have to keep subsidising him - and frankly i'm not wild about paying higher taxes to help a limited demographic, and then still having to help my kids out big time because they are ignored.

[snort] at cheaper flights

My London rent has gone up 50 per cent in under 4 years. The block in which I have a tiny flat has caught fire four times in the past 18 months.

Critical care served as a home for my neighbours for some time; they came back home from hospital to a further rent rise demand.

The local council and fire brigade cannot force the landlord to take adequate measures to ensure further residents aren't incinerated, because deregulation of rented property means landlords can in practice do what they want. And put the rent up.

Thanks to austerity cuts, the local fire brigade had their fleet cut to one vehicle last month. Another fire? Do you think I'll get out?

This is Tory policy in action - how the Govt affects just one single woman in London.

My employers have repeatedly failed to offer me a regular employment contract, despite me working regular hours and duties that are set by them. Even though I've bravely told them this is illegal, they are insisting I sign a zero hours contract. Tory policy in action again.

No matter how hard I try, and how much work I do, I will never be able to buy a home, even a tiny box. I must leave London - and my ageing parents who need family help - to find safe, affordable accommodation.

I have a master's degree, 20 years' management experience in a prestige field in an industry where Britain leads the world, and have always worked full-time, if not two jobs. I've created a lot of jobs and developed businesses for the UK over these two decades. Governments all over the world love taxpayers and wealth creators like me.

It's not just wealth that I've contributed - I work free for local charities, who are struggling to take on care for people who the State now leaves in the gutter, often literally.

I've had nothing back. I wasn't expecting this.

I know at 48, things won't get better. Specifically, things can't get better as current housing, health and employment policy stand.

I have another 20 years of full-time work to look forward to - for no reward. It's not just the unskilled and exploited who are struggling - the middle classes in the UK are working harder and harder for less and less.

The contrast in my standard of living on all fronts - nutrition, leisure, working hours, housing and health - with the lifestyle of parents at the same age is beyond extreme. It's hilarious.

But I'm not sure I, or any of the rest of Britain's core assets, are laughing.

Action pls:

• rent cap
• stop cutting lifesaving local services
• bring back employment rights to pre-Cameron status.

All that would make my life slightly less laughably perilous. And might make me want to stay in Britain.

"Cheaper flights"
Jesus

Rent cap - HOW

Funding for services = tax rises

Employmrnt rights - the country voted for Brexit, sod that

More help when returning to work. I've just come off income support and the day I started work my income support stopped and I had to wait weeks for tc to be sorted.

Make absent parents pay child maintenance.

More social housing.

Employment rights. I've just took a job as a typist "self employed" except I'm not. I'm employed in everything but name - so set hours, set hourly rate, have to go into the office etc but no holiday pay, no pension and when the boss takes a week off guess who also has to take time off with no pay? Also agree with PP about under 25s being paid less - it's disgraceful and discriminatory. I was living on my own and working full time from being 16. Even working 40 hours a week (earning myself the princely sum of £120 a week) I struggled to pay rent and eat. I think if under 25s get paid less then they should get subsidised housing/travel/food/utilities. Not everyone has parents that are able to financially support them until they're in their late 20s.

Forgot to add the £120 per week I earned was in 2003 not the 1980s (when it would've been an alright amount).

Absent Parents should be made to pay maintenance
More Housing No more RTB

I rather assumed that the 'cheaper flights' were to help the airlines as opposed to the JAMs?

Many people on here have talked about housing costs, and it's true that these are a huge factor in the discrepancy between cost of living and incomes.

But I think housing costs should also be considered alongside transport costs.

Most people live as near to their work as they can afford or manage and then pay whatever the cost is to do the journey. In my case, because I work in London and am only an ordinary person, I have to Iive 40 miles away to have a house suitable for me and two children, and then I have to pay around £300 a month to get the train to work.

It's also the case that the time spent on my commute is a drain on my family's resources, as well as the money I spend on it.

long hours at work + high housing costs + long commute + money spent on commute - are just caning my salary or any sense of well being

What annoys me about this question really is that it reminds me of trying to talk to management at work about how (after they made 2 people redundant in a team that was 3, and now you are on your own) there is just too much work. They refuse to see things simply: if you want this much work done, it needs more staff-hours. they witter about prioritising and try to fudge things and so on.

this conversation reminds me of that. This is really simple. People are required to do too much with too little money and as a result have no security or quality of life. It is really, really simple. yes, if you have children it would help if childcare were cheaper - a lot cheaper. but not everyone has children or a family without a SAHP. If you have a car, it would help if petrol were cheaper. But not everyone has a car. the nearest-to-universal thing is that if housing were cheaper, it would be better, for many, but no one can agree on how best to make it cheaper and all their circumstances are different, so what's good for one isn't good for another. Fuck all this noise.

PEOPLE NEED TO BE PAID BETTER AT THE EXPENSE OF PROFITS THAT GO TO THE RICH 1%

Lego:
"Improve tenants rights. In all likelihood, many of us who are in our 20s & 30s, in low paid jobs & renting, will never be able to afford to buy our own houses. This is a headache the government will have to deal with in 30-40 years (as previous generations have mostly owned their own houses by that age -but that's another issue). "

Couldn't agree more. They (gov't) are relying on not being in power (or being retired if their party is in power) by then, and it's a timebomb.

The issue at hand is that it's harder to live in a rental. You can't put up shelves, install insulation, fix a TV to the wall. We have no thermostat. We have absolutely no inbuilt storage. ...
If we owned the house we could sort all these problems & the house would be warmer, tidier as we could have proper cupboards, we'd spend less on the utility bills. In January 2016 The Conservative party successfully opposed a Labour bill that would have made it compulsory for landlords to ensure their properties are fit for human habitation, stating that this should happen & that local authorities should use the powers already in place - the fact is they demonstably don't. And don't suggest we should move, no-one will take us on one wage & tax credits, we've tried.

Yup. You don't live in a rental, you exist. You can't put up shelves, medicine cabinets, bookcases (unless you are happy not to tether to the wall, and we have a climbing toddler), even pictures in some rentals. We had a new boiler fitted after the old one broke, last December. It took four weeks for them to fit it. Four weeks without heating or hot water. For which we were offered: one halogen heater. On loan.
The boiler has not been properly installed, and depressurises, and leaks. I have now waited eight weeks, and no sign of the repairman. The bathroom has black mound from the broken extractor fan. The cupboard doors are falling off in the kitchen. Floorboards are broken, carpets pulling up at edges, there's holes in the vinyl in the kitchen. It's a dump.
For this I pay £1650 per month.

If my landlords were on fire, I would point and laugh and throw on fuel. They are immoral bastards. Regulation of private rental industry is so long overdue it's not even funny.

HOUSING

• build loads and loads and loads of council houses; they'll pay for themselves (as well as providing desperately needed secure accommodation)

EMPLOYMENT

• make it easy to fire and hire people (protects private sector growth/efficiency), but improve state safety net provision in the event of redundancy/ job loss

CHILDCARE

• free, good quality childcare for all; it'll pay for itself because of the increased productivity of 50% of the workforce (as well as improving the prospects of children from less well off households)

It's not rocket science...

LaPharise
Housing : its illegal for councils to borrow to build .... now what ???

Employment : the UK has the weakest employment rights other than the USA, what more do you want ???

Childacre : and how exactly do you expect that to be funded given your points above ????

If benefits are to be capped at £500 a week then full time minimum wage should be more. Say £550 for example. This makes it worth working while allowing a family to decide whether both parents work full time and are much better off financially or if they prefer to split work/child care/life balance. It would also cut the need for tax credits.

Free education through to degree level with grants for living costs like we used to have. We should be enabling our young people to develop skills.

Decent housing for all.

Affordable public transport that works for the people who use it. If a shift change is at 8am in a hospital or factory then public transport should coordinate.

More help for those on benefits when they return to work. Those offered temporary employment should be able to receive money until they are paid, even if it means paying it back later.

Healthcare should be free, including prescriptions, dental and optical.

Tax avoiders should be made to pay.

Cheaper flights

I'm not Phil Hammond, I'm not a political stooge
I'm TiP
I'm the same lary moo I've been for 15 years

but by golly a lot of you talk utter shit

Your requests are
(a) contradictory
(b) illegal
(c) unaffordable
(d) stupid

Ladies PLEASE : start to think it through - stop leaving the door open for the political wonks

Well cheap flights won't help us because we don't go abroad.

Legalise euthanasia in this country & you'd save a lot of money spent on chc.

Controversial, but I work with elderly patients who just don't want to be here anymore. Quite a few would be happy to go.

I plan to go to a dignitas type clinic while the sun is still shining & I have capacity. £7k compared to £1k a week in a nursing home.

If NMW was increased to £550 pw, lots of things would get a lot more expensive and a lot of production would get moved overseas. Also people who currently earn that sort of money including a lot of graduate jobs like teaching and nursing would want a payrise so that they earned more than minimum wage jobs to recognise their extra skills and expertise.