Budget Response: The Poor Are Fucked.

 So, lets see how Rishi Sunak "helped" the less well off in the spring statement.

By costing them more money. In my book that ain't helping.

So we'll be paying more in National Insurance for a Health service that has got dramatically poorer in the past few years. Now that most GP services are privatised, the service has gone down the pan. It's almost like they don't want to see you any more. Rishi says that raising the threshold before paying N.I. and Income Tax is actually a tax cut. Actually it isn't. At best it's neutral, at worst it's a tax hike for those on low incomes.

More N.I. to pay for a failing health service I've just had my first call in for my "annual" blood test for three years. Fuck my health then, I'll just put up with any health issues caused by the cocktail of drugs I'm taking while my GP gets paid to pretend to be a doctor. I guess I should be lucky that I'm around to have blood to test, given that certain people were given DNR notices without their consent during the pandemic.

Ah, you say, but maybe Rishi will save us the cost of fuel and energy. Maybe he will drastically reduce fuel duty and remove VAT from energy?

Er, no.

5p off fuel duty. When the price of fuel is going up by more than that a week. So basically Rishi has taken the cost of fuel back to last Friday. Or to put it another way, his tax cut will be wiped out by Monday. The past two weeks it has gone up 8p a litre each week. To me, that cut in fuel duty grants me a saving of £3 a week. when my fuel bill has gone up by over £20 per week. 

I'm now looking to downsize my car. Or I would if the small car market hadn't exploded in the past month as everyone else tries to sip petrol or get a ULEZ-compliant car. No electric car for me, I don't have a drive to charge it on, I don't even park the car outside the house, it's parked across the road. So I can't avail myself of the benefits that having an electric car would grant me. Even If I had all of the above, I rent my house so would need permission from the landlord to fit a charging point, which entails gutting most of the house running high current cables from the fuse box to the front of the house.

A lot has been said of those on fixed incomes: the people that get benefits, or pensioners. But in reality most low-paid workers are on fixed incomes. Wages rise at most by 3% a year. My last pay rise was 1%. Not even close to the current rate of inflation. But this is the norm now. Wages rise by fuck all, until employers hit the limit of minimum wage where they are forced by law to increase the wages year on year. 

This is where a truly progressive government could transform the fortunes of the poor: take those on minimum wage out of tax and National Insurance contributions. The minimum wage from 1st of April this year equates to an annual salary of nearly £20,000 before tax. It'll be interesting to check my P60 this year, because I'm not far off that figure. 

I shall be watching this year's budget with interest if I don't get an above average pay rise this year.