In the midst of the worst cost of living situation in 40 years, the country is now trying to figure out how the Autumn Statement is going to affect them. Bills and prices have sky rocketed over the past year, impacting thousands. On Thursday (November 17), Chancellor Jeremy Hunt announced huge tax changes, a freeze on Income Tax personal allowance and National Insurance thresholds.
The Mirror reports the budget essentially means millions of working people will be handing over more money to the taxman. For Peter Marciniak, 70, from Nottingham, it means he is actually worse off than before the announcement.
Read more: Autumn Budget calculator shows if you're better or worse off
The former NVQ assessor lives with his wife Jayne, 65, and they own their own home. They both live off Peter’s £812-a-month state pension, and Jayne’s £400 private pension.
The announcement means Jeremy Hunt has pledged to increase the state pension in line with inflation. Peter said: “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.”
He is not impressed with the £300 cost of living payment to those over the state pension age either. Peter added: “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 as 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.”
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