Some notes on Stop the Squeeze
The latest shouting that taxes must rise - from the highest levels since the 1950s - and there must be more government and we should be as babes in the arms of bureaucrats. Just three points that leap out at us:
Between 2014 and 2019 the number of children living in poverty in the UK increased by 500,000 to 4.3 million, while the number of emergency food parcels distributed by the Trussell Trust charity reached 1.9m in 2019/20 (up from 61,000 in 2010/11).
Both of those cannot be true. Or, at least, are most unlikely to be so. Free food is a reduction in poverty, so more free food means that poverty is lessened. But that count of poverty is being made without including the effect of more free food.
No, really, whatever you think of whether there should be food parcels, food banks - we think they’re an excellent idea, filling in the gaps caused by the incompetence of the State - or not, it’s undeniable that their existence reduces inequality and poverty. So, as here, using their expansion as an indicator of an increase in poverty simply ain’t right.
One option would be to set a goal to reach £15 per hour as soon as possible. The Progressive Economy Forum suggests this can be achieved by 2024/5, with the extra tax revenue government would receive used to compensate small businesses to ensure that the higher wage remains affordable
As we’ve suggested before arguing for an increase in the minimum wage by cackling over how much tax will be lifted from the wallets of the poor disgusts us. Whatever the level that minimum wage should be we think it unarguable that it should be untaxable. Simply because the argument for that minimum wage, whatever level it is, is that this is the minimum that someone should receive for their labour. So, it should be the minimum received then, shouldn’t it? That is, the personal allowance and the minimum wage should be the same number.
This is simply buffoonery:
Wealth has risen from three to eight times national income since the 1980s. Whilst, as outlined above, household income has undergone the largest squeeze since the Napoleonic wars, wealth increased from £8.9 trillion in 2008/10 by £6 trillion to £15.2 trillion in 2018/20, with more than half of the gain in wealth accruing to the top ten per cent of individuals.
The reason why it is is this: expected lifespan has increased from 73 years to 81. Therefore people are, quite rationally, converting more of current income into pensions savings. Which leads to this:
Median wealth was highest for households whose head was aged 55 years to under State Pension age (£553,400); the wealth of this group was 25 times higher than those aged 16 to 24 years.
People are putting more aside to fund their gloriously longer lives and this is now some problem that has to be taxed away?
Actually, that’s not simply buffoonery, that’s a vileness which should be met with a substantial display of the Anglo Saxon Wave. As, in fact, with that idea that the minimum wage should rise so it can be taxed more.
No, we don’t think any of this is a good idea.