The Budget

[Diasi]

I see that the left-wing media hasn't used the word 'Reevesonomics' as her budget has crashed the markets & sent the cost of borrowing up.

Also the media has missed the fact that she robbed pensioners of their WFA in order to reduce the price of beer.

https://bitly.cx/Uzzd

[klondike]

Beer won't go down anyway. The Minimum wage an NI changes will see to that and then some. Plus close down even more pubs.

Still at least we can ride around in buses all day to avoid heating our homes.

[Diasi]

Still at least we can ride around in buses all day to avoid heating our homes.

You can if you live in an urban area with a decent bus service.

[klondike]

Ok.

At least I could ride around in buses all day to avoid heating my home.

I'd need to be desperate to do so though. An excellent way to ensure catching all manner of lurgies and they are only really hot in the summer anyway.

[GrannyMac]

Single pensioners just over the cut off have it worst IMO. We don't have great pensions, but combined, we do OK.  The £200 WFA was a nice extra, but we don't 'need' it. However, if either of us lived alone, there would be some tough choices. 

[Diasi]

Single pensioners just over the cut off have it worst IMO. We don't have great pensions, but combined, we do OK.  The £200 WFA was a nice extra, but we don't 'need' it. However, if either of us lived alone, there would be some tough choices.

And bingo, you've just hit the nail on the head as us singletons don't have half the the costs of a couple when it comes to heating, insurance, maintenance etc.

[klondike]

I didn't "need" the WFA but considered it to be just part of my pension which I paid in for all my working life never having claimed any benefits.

Had Brown increased the basic pension rather than going for a gimmick it would have attracted all the percentage increases since. Instead he chose to make it more expensive to administer and it has remained the same despite fuel costs probably tripling or more since it was introduced.

My mother's £300 was paid out into her estate after she died because she was alive (in hospital) on the required date in September used for qualification.

This bunch will not be seeing another term in five years time after that and the disastrous budget which will hammer the "working people" even harder as the economy stagnates and they lose their jobs to even more imported still cheap labour. The trouble is we will likely return to the equally hopeless Tories.

[Diasi]

The entire budget is a smoke & mirrors con trick. 

[klondike]

Increasing the minimum wage was a smart move to con the lower paid. Most of the extra will be snatched back in lower Universal Credit.

[GrannyMac]

I don't have a problem with that.  There has to be good reason, IMHO, why any reasonably able person under pension age doesn't work full time. 

However, I agree with your earlier post k, the WFA should have been added into the pension.  I'm still pee'd off about the more generous pension for more recent retirees too. 

[Diasi]

I don't have a problem with that.  There has to be good reason, IMHO, why any reasonably able person under pension age doesn't work full time.

However, I agree with your earlier post k, the WFA should have been added into the pension.  I'm still pee'd off about the more generous pension for more recent retirees too.

[klondike]

There has to be good reason, IMHO, why any reasonably able person under pension age doesn't work full time.

There is. Once the expenses associated with working (travel, clothes, lunch etc.) they can get close or even more from benefits without all the annoyance of going to work. Wages for the unskilled are too low in this country. Forced down by cheap imported labour.

[Diasi]

There is. Once the expenses associated with working (travel, clothes, lunch etc.) they can get close or even more from benefits without all the annoyance of going to work. Wages for the unskilled are too low in this country. Forced down by cheap imported labour.

As I've posted numerous times, those on benefits look at the difference between what would be their take-home pay after all the expenses list by klondike & their current benefits & that's what they say they'll be working for.

If I'd got a £ for everyone who said "I'm not working 40 hours for 20 quid" I'd be quite a rich man.

[JBR]

As I've posted numerous times, those on benefits look at the difference between what would be their take-home pay after all the expenses list by klondike & their current benefits & that's what they say they'll be working for.

If I'd got a £ for everyone who said "I'm not working 40 hours for 20 quid" I'd be quite a rich man.

I have worked all my life (until retirement), but the way things are going and if I were young again I'd have to think very carefully if I should bother.
I can well understand why so many young people these days choose to take the easy option and pretend that they have physical or mental problems which permit them holding down a job.
Of course, one day a government like today's will decide to stop such payments.
What will our young people do then?

[Diasi]

I have worked all my life (until retirement), but the way things are going and if I were young again I'd have to think very carefully if I should bother.
I can well understand why so many young people these days choose to take the easy option and pretend that they have physical or mental problems which permit them holding down a job.
Of course, one day a government like today's will decide to stop such payments.
What will our young people do then?

If I were young again I wouldn't be in the UK.