As Britain grapples with the worst cost of living crisis in 40 years, ordinary people are now working out how yesterday’s Autumn Statement is going to affect their lives over the coming months and years.
Among them are the Mirror’s Cost of Living Panel members, who have been sharing their struggles and concerns as bills and prices have rocketed over the past year.
In the budget, there were huge tax changes, with a freeze on the Income Tax personal allowance and National Insurance thresholds confirmed.
This essentially means millions of workers will be handing over more cash to the taxman.
There were also changes to the Minimum Wage and energy bills, plus more cost of living payments to come.
Here four families discuss what they think Jeremy Hunt’s budget will mean for them…
Carly Newman, 36 - single mum
Carly works four days a week as a senior manager for a national charity and lives with her four-year-old son Ezra in New Cross, south east London.
She thinks that announcements are bad news for working people like her don’t earn enough to get by.
She says: “My overall sense was of worry and concern. The rise in tax is really going to affect me and other working people.
“I was pleased to see benefits increasing in line with inflation, but by Universal Credit payment is really quite small now, so I don’t think that will level off the increase I’ll have to pay towards tax.”
Carly, who rents privately, points out that while benefits are rising, wages aren’t. “Everything is going up, energy bills, food, everything is very expensive and getting more expensive, but we’re not getting paid more.
“And while we’re paying really high taxes they are not going towards improving the services we use. The NHS, social services, education, they’re all falling apart, so the fact that the increase in tax isn’t likely to go towards the services that support us just feels very worrying.
“It is mostly those of us on average or below average wages who are paying for this, and suffering because of it in terms of little we are left with and not being back to access the services we need.
“Yet none of this is our fault, we’re having to pay for the mistakes of the Tory government. I don’t buy that this is all because of Russia or the pandemic, this is to do with Tory policies and values.”
Mel Vivers, 38 - young family
Mel and her husband Rob, 37, live with their 12-year-old son in their mortgaged home in the Rhondda Valley, south Wales. Mel works as a Slimming World consultant while Rob has a stable job as the manager of a vehicle salesroom. While they are feeling the squeeze to their living standards, Rob’s job means they aren’t eligible for any help with the rising costs of bills and food. Mel says she feels “not worried, more frustrated” that she will soon be paying even more in energy bills and council tax.
“We’re managing, not yet struggling, but the situation seems to be changing daily. Everything seems to be going up, and now we’ll be paying more tax, more council tax and more for energy, while everything else is a lot more expensive - and yet there’s no help for us.
“We’re fortunate that my husband is in a secure job, but things are a lot more expensive and we’ll definitely be having to cut down on our spending.
“I’m glad that people who need it more are getting help, but I think the whole thing needs to be sorted and I don’t think those in government fully understand what the rest of us are going through. We know what they were getting up to in No10, and spending money where they shouldn’t when they should have been sorting things out. The government could be doing much more.”
Peter Marciniak, 70 - retired
Peter, a former NVQ assessor, and his wife Jayne, 65, own their own home in Nottingham, and live off Peter’s £812-a-month state pension, and Jayne’s £400 private pension.
Jeremy Hunt has pledged to increase the state pension in line with inflation, but for Peter the increase will actually mean he is worse off.
He says: “It means, with my pension and my earnings from our savings, we’ll have passed the threshold for paying income tax. It’s one way of giving with one hand and taking away with the other.”
And he’s not impressed with the £300 cost of living payment to those over the state pension age either.
“It won’t make much difference to the extra amount we are having to pay, with energy and food bills going through the roof.
“Those on benefits are getting much more help, so what about the pensioners? We’ve paid into the system all our lives, we have contributed to what they are paying us, but the government is leaving us out again.
“We’re not protected from the increase in the energy cap, or the rise in council tax. The council tax in Nottingham is already far too high for what you are getting, and it’s now going to rise even further.”
Peter says: “We’ve started going to the supermarket every day and just buying what we’ll be eating that day, to try to save money by just giving ourselves £5 to spend each day.
“And since the bus fare went up by 30p we’re now walking into town and getting a bus back.
“The energy bills are the worst. We’ve either turned off the storage heaters, or turned them down a low as we can, and yet we’re still paying around £7 a day. It’s unbelievable. If these energy companies are making billions of pounds in profits, the government should be taking much more of it and passing it on to us.”
Tracy Davies, 59- disabled mum-of-two
Tracy, who suffers from fibromyalgia, lives in Cheshire with her husband and full-time carer Paul, 56, and her two adult children Hanna, 33, and Adam who are both autistic.
She says that the fact her benefits will be rising in line with inflation will help her family, but doesn’t take away her worries for the coming months.
But one blow from yesterday’s budget is that the lifetime cap on care costs, brought in by Boris Johnson and due to kick in from October 2023, will now be delayed for two years.
Tracy says: “My mother-in-law is 78 and has been in a care home for the last seven years, paying £1200 a month, so we were thinking that she’d soon not have to pay for her costs.
“At the moment they take all her pension, and my father-in-law’s pension, and it leaves her with just £31 a week.”
Tracy, who used to work in insurance but now receives employment and support allowance and Personal Independence Payment (PIP), says that while the extra payments for her energy bills are welcome the family will still struggle.
“It’s still going to be a difficult winter. During the week we sit in the cold wearing extra clothes because the bills have gone up horrendously. I’m trying to be creative about Christmas, making and embroidering things for my kids, otherwise I wouldn’t be able to afford it, I’d go under.”
She adds: “What MPs need to do is take a cut in pay themselves, their daily allowance and expenses, and I’m sure they could make up a lot of the shortfall."
