Actually having some sort of breakdown of where people struggle financially is done and the ONS publish this. The bulk of their expenditure is on food and non-alcoholic drinks, housing and energy, transport, and basics such as clothing and toiletries.
The idea of the feckless poor is generally just lazy thinking and ring-fenced spending has been shown to be ineffective. I heard a seminar by Rory Stewart on overseas aid which drew similar conclusions. I can’t find the video off hand but he did write this article. It refers to overseas aid, but the lessons apply equally domestically:
However, I think we will look back on the post war social consensus as a golden age. Imagine! A family could buy a house and raise a family on one basic salary. Healthcare provided, and a safety net if things go wrong. Then a decent retirement to look forward to.
It’s not really a reasonable argument to say “yeah well, in the 1920s you would be living in a slum/conscripted/die of cholera”. Of course that’s true. But we expect human progress to be…well…progressive. At the minute, it’s regressive.
Again, we all know the reason for this. You can’t have a society where so few have so much and it not put stress on the bottom end. A rising tide lifts all boats? Not if you haven’t got a boat. Then you just fucking drown.
Ah, I thought it was more like 65%. I’ll revise my ‘vast majority’ to just ‘majority’. It’s still a lot though, and it’s still notable that people don’t consider their state pension to be a benefits payment.
On the triple lock, I don’t necessarily have a problem with linking to inflation or average wage, but a flat 2.5% irrespective of other fiscal context is bizarre.
I understand that the aim of the triple lock is to prevent pensioners slipping into poverty, but pensioner living standards are now exceeding those of younger generations (fewer pensioners live in poverty than younger people) so without means testing this, it just has the effect of shifting the burden to younger generations, who end up funnelling money towards people who probably have a higher standard of living than they do.
I think we know why the triple lock really exists - older people are much more likely to vote.
On a different note It’s shocking to see how much of our welfare expenditure goes on in work benefits. It’s basically a subsidy to big businesses who refuse to pay a living wage.
Essentially, the state pension is means tested, as it is taxable. Those who rely on it as a sole source of income won’t pay any (although it may have now caught up with the personal allowance). Those with additional income will pay tax and those with higher income will pay the higher rate of tax.
The triple-lock has become a political millstone. A bit like the winter fuel allowance, which was a quick fix and has become a complete nonsense. I’d suggest that the state pension should be eventually tied to the minimum wage, because that is what it is functioning as: ensuring a minimum income to those who are no longer able to work.
What a, um, well, bizarre thing to post. But I’ll respond to this as it’s pretty special.
You said this a day or so ago.
I was thinking to myself “you’re soooo close”
And then you pass a lazy insult my way by saying if I’m too stubborn to support people that would actually deliver more of the above policies under some fictitious illusion that it could make the UK better. I’ll stay calm, not bite and respond as I did previously. It’s a question that makes zero sense. Farage supports more of the above policies. His MP’s are former Tories that supported the above policies. Reforms policies are designed to increase the very concern you have mentioned above.
Yes the UK needs inward investment, but that must deliver value to the UK.
It’s projected to exceed personal allowance in April 2027, and I think Government have said that anyone who rely on State Pension as sole income won’t have to pay anyway.
So at the moment the upper rate of income tax (in England) is 45%, payable on income over £125k.
But that’s where it stops.
How about they implement a “super tax” bracket at 55 or 60% for say anyone who earns over £200 or £250k?
Probably because the major players in UK politics are up there or above.
I don’t think people earning in that bracket are necessarily the problem. Capital gains above a certain value is certainly one area to look at as is a lot of the loopholes that allow corporations to avoid paying any tax whatsoever. Starbucks haven’t paid any tax again last year for example.
No. Someone earning £200k and already paying 45% tax is less of an issue compared to someone earning £20m through hedge funds and paying less than 20% tax.
My point is if you want a more progressive tax system you go after the big discrepancy areas first.
Apologies If my previous post wasn’t clear enough on my thoughts here.
Up to 150k people in the UK have a pre tax salary of over £250k.
Taxing them an extra 10% on earnings over £200k will generate approximately.£750 million.
His point was a perfectly reasonable one, and there is absolutely no need to be a bellend about it.
Someone earning 250k is certainly wealthy enough to pay an additional 10% on anything over 200k. No problem there.
The issues are that…
For people closer to 250k, that money is still probably money they are being economically productive with. It’s not covering essentials, but it will still be money that is being returned to the economy somehow.
It’s likely to be electorally unpopular. People tend not to like more taxation in the kind of ballpark they can imagine themselves being in. So you can shout all you want to people who are on, say 100k, that it wouldn’t affect them. But people think it’s a tax on their aspiration. It’s silly, but it how people’s brains work. When Labour have proposed Policies like this have been really unpopular with people who wouldn’t be affected by them (although the media have a lot to answer for in that regard).
I would obviously be in favour of a more progressive tax regime, but I’d have it much more graduated than that. Something an addition 2% every 50k over 200k. Something like that.
However, @Noo_Noo’s point is that if you want to raise money quickly why would you go after people earning 200k when you can you after people and corporations earning millions through capital gains. These are the people who are screwing us, and they are not only massively under-taxed - being allowed to hoard that much wealth is actively damaging to the economy.
At my firm Unilever, on our induction the subject of pensions wasn’t raised. Queue four and a half years down the line. The lads were talking about yheir pensions and they said that there were no payments at the time.
We asked them how come and we’re told that the pension was doing OK and so they’d stopped taking payments. I went to see personnel. They asked ume why we hadn’t joined after our induction? I told them it was never raised. They doubted this so zi got another lad in who was on the same induction. He backed my story up and we were both put on it backed up
To the day we were started.
Politicians will never go after corporations, their noses are too deep in the trough.
So no point rolling out completely unrealistic solutions claiming ah but more money can be raised this way, it’s pointless.
