“It could’ve been a lot worse”: Martin Lewis on the Autumn Statement | By Harry Clarke-Ezzidio
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While Jeremy Hunt confirming in the Autumn Statement that benefits and pensions will rise in line with inflation was “somewhat relieving”, millions of people across the country will find it “very difficult” to cope with the cost-of-living crisis continuing into 2023, believes Martin Lewis, the personal finance adviser.
Alongside the 10.1 per cent increase in benefits, the Chancellor’s statement yesterday (17 November) included an extra £1bn for the Household Support Fund, which allows councils to give one-off, targeted support to struggling residents. The policies were “reasonable” attempts to help the vulnerable, Lewis said, within “the understanding that this is a Conservative Party government”.
“It is still going to be a very difficult time for many people over the next year and a half, but this could have been a lot worse,” he said. “To be fair to Jeremy Hunt, the tone has changed from the Truss-Kwarteng era. I had a real fear that we were going to see benefits [and pensions], even in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis, not even get uprated in line with inflation.”
“The inflation car is running away from people and the question is, how much help [can] we give people to catch it? And had [the government] not done this, then the poor would have been falling even further behind.”
Lewis is quick to say that he is not taking a view on Hunt’s repeated line that his Autumn Statement was “compassionate”. “I’m not going to get involved in moral judgements,” Lewis said. “My point is, as this is a Conservative government – and we all know what that stands for – you expect Conservatives to lower taxes and lower spending, and certainly lower benefits… [but] this has been somewhat relieving compared to what it could’ve been.”
In March Lewis, who founded MoneySavingExpert.com, told the BBC Sunday morning politics show that he was “virtually out of tools” to advise society’s poorest who had already cut back on everything. That’s still “absolutely” the case, he says. “I feel sick. Those [who] cut back everything, there is nothing I can do.”
Even those above the poverty line will struggle, Lewis warned, as government support for the high cost of living, such as the energy price guarantee, is reduced over the next year. “The primary austerity for individuals is coming from inflation,” he said. “If we just take energy bills, this winter we’re [paying] double what we were last winter. But next winter we know that unless there’s a real drop in wholesale prices, the vast majority of people will be paying around 40 per cent more than they are this winter.
“I will leave it to those in the political sphere to define that and whether that is austerity, or whether that’s worldwide economic factors, but the reality is incomes are squeezed [and] expenditure is increasing. That’s not a good recipe.”
Lewis said there had been a cost for speaking out “in a more political way – never party political, but a more political way than ever before”. He said that he had suffered severe anxiety. “It’s very frustrating to see when you’re dealing with people’s lives, political games being played,” he said, referring to the failures of Liz Truss and her staunch defence of trickle-down economics. “It’s been a very difficult year for me personally, but nowhere near as difficult for the many people who are struggling to feed their family.”
Next year is “arguably going to be even tougher than this year” for millions, he predicted. “When I talk to my team at Money Saving Expert, I like them to understand the genuine impact of the work that we do and how many people rely on the information that we provide. I’ve talked to them about 2023. We have to keep our foot on the pedal – we have to keep going because this is far from over.”
The IMF gave the Budget their blessing today. I think if we set aside partisan point scoring, most people would have to begrudgingly acknowledge that it’s a decent effort and the least worst any government would realistically be able to do at this time. If you’re looking for a perfect solution to the problems the country faces, it doesn’t exist. Certainly not in the short or medium term.
Your getting less fucked than you could be so be thankful.
It’s still a bumming but they’ve used lube so yeah.
Is that the standard we’re holding our government to now? Well, they didn’t completely fuck us this week so I guess we’ll put the pitchforks back for now.
They’re an absolute disgrace
But what exactly are people getting back from there taxes, this country has become shit in everyway
Council tax increases are incredibly regressive and don’t do a damned thing to tackle the fact that rich people aren’t paying the same proportion of their income in order to simply exist.
A better way to raise money would be to tax people with multiple houses and freeze rents or tax heavily on rents over a certain threshold (my suggestion would be any profits over 5%).
Two things are driving up inflation: Brexit and corporate greed. During the pandemic we all accepted supply and demand, as much of the world closed down. The problem is, all the global corporations saw record profits as a result.
We would’ve all understood that as the price of things has gone up, we have to pay more as a result, but I think that was understood on the provision that without the increases, businesses would be making a loss (as many smaller businesses did)… not making records amounts of money.
Now the pandemic is, well, no longer pandemic, prices *should* have reduced. Some are higher because of Brexit. We left the EU and then 3 months later went into lockdown, so the effects were largely muted. Now the damage is showing. However, large corporate profits are still at record highs.
People want their wages to go up to compensate for the higher prices, corporations want to put up prices to pay for higher wages.
**Who should give in first? Should we accept lower wages or should they accept smaller profit margins?**
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“It could’ve been a lot worse”: Martin Lewis on the Autumn Statement | By Harry Clarke-Ezzidio
/
While Jeremy Hunt confirming in the Autumn Statement that benefits and pensions will rise in line with inflation was “somewhat relieving”, millions of people across the country will find it “very difficult” to cope with the cost-of-living crisis continuing into 2023, believes Martin Lewis, the personal finance adviser.
Alongside the 10.1 per cent increase in benefits, the Chancellor’s statement yesterday (17 November) included an extra £1bn for the Household Support Fund, which allows councils to give one-off, targeted support to struggling residents. The policies were “reasonable” attempts to help the vulnerable, Lewis said, within “the understanding that this is a Conservative Party government”.
“It is still going to be a very difficult time for many people over the next year and a half, but this could have been a lot worse,” he said. “To be fair to Jeremy Hunt, the tone has changed from the Truss-Kwarteng era. I had a real fear that we were going to see benefits [and pensions], even in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis, not even get uprated in line with inflation.”
“The inflation car is running away from people and the question is, how much help [can] we give people to catch it? And had [the government] not done this, then the poor would have been falling even further behind.”
Lewis is quick to say that he is not taking a view on Hunt’s repeated line that his Autumn Statement was “compassionate”. “I’m not going to get involved in moral judgements,” Lewis said. “My point is, as this is a Conservative government – and we all know what that stands for – you expect Conservatives to lower taxes and lower spending, and certainly lower benefits… [but] this has been somewhat relieving compared to what it could’ve been.”
In March Lewis, who founded MoneySavingExpert.com, told the BBC Sunday morning politics show that he was “virtually out of tools” to advise society’s poorest who had already cut back on everything. That’s still “absolutely” the case, he says. “I feel sick. Those [who] cut back everything, there is nothing I can do.”
Even those above the poverty line will struggle, Lewis warned, as government support for the high cost of living, such as the energy price guarantee, is reduced over the next year. “The primary austerity for individuals is coming from inflation,” he said. “If we just take energy bills, this winter we’re [paying] double what we were last winter. But next winter we know that unless there’s a real drop in wholesale prices, the vast majority of people will be paying around 40 per cent more than they are this winter.
“I will leave it to those in the political sphere to define that and whether that is austerity, or whether that’s worldwide economic factors, but the reality is incomes are squeezed [and] expenditure is increasing. That’s not a good recipe.”
Lewis said there had been a cost for speaking out “in a more political way – never party political, but a more political way than ever before”. He said that he had suffered severe anxiety. “It’s very frustrating to see when you’re dealing with people’s lives, political games being played,” he said, referring to the failures of Liz Truss and her staunch defence of trickle-down economics. “It’s been a very difficult year for me personally, but nowhere near as difficult for the many people who are struggling to feed their family.”
Next year is “arguably going to be even tougher than this year” for millions, he predicted. “When I talk to my team at Money Saving Expert, I like them to understand the genuine impact of the work that we do and how many people rely on the information that we provide. I’ve talked to them about 2023. We have to keep our foot on the pedal – we have to keep going because this is far from over.”
The IMF gave the Budget their blessing today. I think if we set aside partisan point scoring, most people would have to begrudgingly acknowledge that it’s a decent effort and the least worst any government would realistically be able to do at this time. If you’re looking for a perfect solution to the problems the country faces, it doesn’t exist. Certainly not in the short or medium term.
Your getting less fucked than you could be so be thankful.
It’s still a bumming but they’ve used lube so yeah.
Is that the standard we’re holding our government to now? Well, they didn’t completely fuck us this week so I guess we’ll put the pitchforks back for now.
They’re an absolute disgrace
But what exactly are people getting back from there taxes, this country has become shit in everyway
Council tax increases are incredibly regressive and don’t do a damned thing to tackle the fact that rich people aren’t paying the same proportion of their income in order to simply exist.
A better way to raise money would be to tax people with multiple houses and freeze rents or tax heavily on rents over a certain threshold (my suggestion would be any profits over 5%).
Two things are driving up inflation: Brexit and corporate greed. During the pandemic we all accepted supply and demand, as much of the world closed down. The problem is, all the global corporations saw record profits as a result.
We would’ve all understood that as the price of things has gone up, we have to pay more as a result, but I think that was understood on the provision that without the increases, businesses would be making a loss (as many smaller businesses did)… not making records amounts of money.
Now the pandemic is, well, no longer pandemic, prices *should* have reduced. Some are higher because of Brexit. We left the EU and then 3 months later went into lockdown, so the effects were largely muted. Now the damage is showing. However, large corporate profits are still at record highs.
People want their wages to go up to compensate for the higher prices, corporations want to put up prices to pay for higher wages.
**Who should give in first? Should we accept lower wages or should they accept smaller profit margins?**