Budget

[rov1200]

Help for the lower paid???

A £1000 increase in their tax allowance...so far so good

Vat going up by 2.5% to 20%
Child benefit frozen for 3 years

As most of the lower paid earnings are spent on consumables won't they be worse off?

[DrFilth]

don't forget the tax went up for the low earners, was it 20p in the pound last year.
it was a struggle to keep warm last year so with vat going up it will be a struggle to keep from freezing this year :)

[Thunderchild]

@ new judge, thats 1.8% - still not there and food WILL go up because of transport costs and other excuses, if they want to keep it fair for the low earners they need to introduce price control to stop supermarkets hiking prices as soon as tescos says "oh we think alcohol is cheap" or the the government raising VAT, I've been laughing at out inflation figures of 2%, never heard so much rubbish, food at one point went up by 15-30% in one go at one point! they can do that again without even an excuse

[New Judge]

Yes, you are quite right about the inflation figures TC.

Unfortunately you cannot consider only the items you buy most for these purposes. The index also takes account of "big ticket" items such as TVs and washing machines. Prices of these goods are actually falling and, although you may buy them rarely or if endeed at all, they skew the figures.

[Thunderchild]

but to consider the prices of goods that are falling mainly because they get cheaper and cheaper to make is wrong and yes we buy them rarely, the main living costs of people is FOOD and other consumable goods that we cannot do without, I don't buy new cars and I don't even own a TV so what do I care ? basically I get a pay rise of 3% and my food goes up by 15%, as a single person that gets 14'063 a year (well 14484 now) that has just been able to buy my first house and has a mortgage of £57'500 I can survive, and survive alone, i will not be able to permit myself any luxury at all as it is my 13 year old mondeo is a luxury to me even though I've probably broken the economy record of 43 mpg around town with it.

[bundleone]

I may appear dumb, but where do we borrow the money from or pay it back to,? this is a puzzle to me.

[Thunderchild]

oh well time to do lots of dodgy work on the side to recover my "losses" if they won't look after me why should i look after them !