Middle-income households have been left as much as £6,000 a year worse off by tax rises and child benefit cuts, the Institute for Fiscal Studies has said.
Families with two children and both parents earning £54,000 a year or more have been hardest hit by tax and benefit reforms since January 2010, the think tank’s analysis found.
Ed Miliband, the Labour leader, has repeatedly accused David Cameron of protecting the wealthy at the expense of the poorest households.
However, the IFS found that households earning a combined £108,000 have become £120 a week worse off over the past five years.
That’s not sodding middle class. A household income of £108k is well inside the top 10% of household incomes (the average of which is £88k or so I think?). You might call that professional upper middle class maybe, but it ain’t “the middle class”.
A common mistake is to conflate ‘middle income’ with ‘middle class’, so what you say Tim about the £108k pa is correct only as far as incomes are concerned.
Class, however, isn’t so much about money, but more to do with attitude, outlook and behaviour. Money != class.
More evidence of the disconnect between the rank and file and those that influence policy.
The £88k figure is correct for a two person household with no children.
If however the couple has two children then the top decile household income is £150k, and the second decile £90k.
http://www.theguardian.com/money/2014/mar/25/uk-incomes-how-salary-compare
But as we know it isn’t really the bottom 10% that hate the top 1%, it’s the rest of the top 10% that do. After all, they are all professionals, and went to Oxford and everything. They have all the badges so they deserve to be in the top 1% otherwise they will scream.
The comments are pretty stupid. Currently the top one is some conspiracy theorist nutter:
I don’t mind the progress in Britain that means the Labour Party is now deeply concerned about the welfare of the top 10%
MatthewL>
That’s just the standard thinly-veiled antisemitic propaganda you get almost anywhere people talk about money.
It counts as middle-income in London.
“The art of taxation consists in so plucking the goose as to obtain the largest possible amount of feathers with the smallest possible amount of hissing.”
This article is just the sound of that hissing getting louder.
Matthew L
I agree
” People don’t seem to realise…” = “I’m a fucking nutter”.
For more info see the ‘Tax Research UK’ blog.
It’s worse than middle-class. The Telegraph are clearly implying that these are “the poorest households”.
Any reason why people on £108k a year need to receive benefits? Apart from the “I’ve paid my taxes” line.
@Rob.
Of course they need benefits. Collect the money, pay out the money, that’l be 10% for us, thank you very much.
Rob,
Exactly. Benefit cuts to such people ought to be something that both sides of the House could agree on. Seriously, Labour are complaining that not enough money is being redistributed from the poor to the rich?
I personally object to cuts such as the child benefit cut because it didn’t come with a concurrent tax cut. I think the Coalition are hopelessly politically naive if they think they can cut some spending now and cut taxes later: the state will always simply eat the money up elsewhere, and so the tax cut will turn out to be unaffordable.
Actually, Mark T, I think the issue is more between the top 0.1% and the the rest of those in the top 1%. The latter have a nice lifestyle, big house, fly business, occasional first class upgrades, occasional dinner at Michelin star restaurant, holiday in 4/5 star hotels, but still have to work for a living. Those in the top 0.1% are the private yacht, multiple dwelling, private jet chartering types who could stop work if they wished. The ‘poor end’ of the top 1% are closer to the poor end of the top 10% than they are to the top 0.1%.
Rob,
They shouldn’t need benefits, but the tax is levied on the basis that some of it will be returned to them. Cut benefits, cut taxes.
Here in Aus, now that our youngest has left her private school, our contribution to the taxman has jumped about $8500. We do not get any direct benefits from the taxpayer for the well north of $100k we pay in taxes.
SMfS
Most of the top 10% are taxpayer funded.
I liked this:
“David Cameron on Monday said that Britain must balance its books in the same way as families and businesses have had to in recent years.”
In recent years? Families have always had to balance their books (at least in the longer run).
Roue le Jour,
“Most of the top 10% are taxpayer funded.”
Care to provide evidence for that?
@DocBud, the 1% mostly fly Ryanair. And panic about the value of their “investment property” in Provescany when Ryanair cut the route to the nearby grass strip with asbestos shed masquerading as airport because they can’t screw enough money out of the local business federation. They didn’t get to be 1%ers by paying to borrow living space or more than bare minimum to get anywhere.
It’s the not-quite-1% with a luxury travel hobby that fly business to 5-star hotels.
@Andrew M
You’re missing the point. Left wing propaganda does not need evidence. Wild assetions are self-evidently correct.
The rich roast babies for Sunday lunch. Everyone knows that.
Mark T.
Spot on. As someone wrote a while ago, analysis of the interviews with the leaders of the occupy movement and their main grievances seems to be that the sons and daughters of the 10% can’t get the kind of jobs they wanted after college.
As you point out, they are not complaining because someone is rich and in charge. They are complaining because it’s not them.
“David Cameron on Monday said that Britain must balance its books in the same way as families and businesses have had to in recent years.”
Er, haven’t families been borrowing as much loot as they can get their hands on to get on the fabled “housing ladder”, that pathway to the Tory land of endless fabulous wealth?
I might be a bit late in realising this, but Cameron’s premiership has been one long sequence of bullshit statements like this, backed up with no results or any achievements at all. I can’t think of a single one worth the bother of typing.
They are not aristocrats (who are either stinking rich or struggling to maintain the stately home by showing visitors round), nor working class.
Therefore they are middle class, as stated in the headline. QED
Someone mistyped middle-class as middle-income in the text.
I don’t know how it is that I have never come across this blog before. The topics are of considerable interest and the comments policy affords a wonderful opportunity to deploy my considerable expertise in matters from economics to evolutionary biology and back to evolutionary biology. I look forward to a long, productive and repetitive relationship with my new audience.
Keith Hudson – “I don’t know how it is that I have never come across this blog before.”
Hi Keith. While I do appreciate a good troll from time to time, let me be the first of many to extend what I am sure will be your usual welcome here:
F*ck off you useless c*nt.
Keith Hudson has got be Arnauld shurely???
No he writes vaguely state-sucking missives on the ASI blog. Not an out and out leftist loon like Arnald but a pro-state/mixed-economy type. On an ego-scale of 1 to 10– 1 being Stanley Unwin (confused but pleasant enough) and 10 being any member of HMG/Opposition for the last 20 years ( evil arrogant self -righteous socialistic shite) he is about a 5–6.