ChatterBank1 min ago
The Greatest Bugdet Ever.
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Absolutly bang on budget getting every aspect of it right in every possible way and very well thought out.
Hospitals, schools and carers, have been crying out for some proper action for 14 years. Well done labour, the only way is up now for this country with a solid foundation set in place. The cons have been shown how it should be done. Again well done SK.
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"i think people are making a massive stink over the NI contributions."
Then you haven’t really thought it through.
The rate of employers’ NI will increase from 13.8% to 15%. But as well as that, the threshold at which it begins to be paid is being lowered from £9,100pa to £5,000.
Currently an employer paying an employee £25,000 pa will pay £2,194 in employers' NI. This change will see that increase to £3,000 – an increase of £806 or 36.8%. If it is a small business with ten employees, that means £8,060 will be taken out of the business.
The situation is even worse for employers employing staff on the minimum wage. Currently somebody on the minimum wage who works 35 hours per week will earn £20,820pa on which the employer will pay £1,617 in NI contributions. With the rise in the minimum wage his earnings will increase to £22,222 on which the employer will pay £2,583 NI. So to keep that person employed, the employer must find not only £1,402 (6.7%) in increased pay but also £966 (59.7%) in increased NI.
So, many among those who you consider are making a “massive stink” over the NI issue have probably done a few sums as I have and are wondering how many of their minimum wage employees they will be able to keep when each one will cost their business an extra £2,368.
I’m afraid to simply dismiss those who worry about the extraction of £40bn from the private sector in which they operate as “a stink” demonstrates a remarkably high level of naivety.
“The tears roll down my face for the likes of Costa and McDonalds having to now pay for their staff…”
As well they might do - if you don't think about it properly but instead simply relish the idea that money is being taken from the private sector to "invest" in the public sector.
However, before you take out your small onion, you might like to ponder on this: there are around 1.3 million businesses in the UK which have fewer than 50 employees. Between them they employ about 8.5 million people. That is about a quarter of the country’s entire workforce.
It is these employers who will ponder over the sums I have done and it is their employees who will face an uncertain future after next April.
You may also like to know that McDonalds operate entirely under a franchising model in the UK (and in most of the rest of the world). So it is very likely that most of their establishments - which are effectively self-contained small businesses - are included in the “under 50” figures I provided above.
Costa Coffee do likewise but not to the same extent, preferring instead to operate on a mixture of franchised outlets and business partnerships.
You are spot on NJ about it being badly managed. One very small example of this is when I had my hip replaced I had a nurse come in to do my obs which she inputted into some sort of appliance all fine. Subsequently 3 other nurses came, within the space of 20 mins, to do the same thing. I told them that the obs had already been done but they all insisted there was no record and did them again.
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"One very small example of this is when I had my hip replaced I had a nurse come in to do my obs which she inputted into some sort of appliance all fine. Subsequently 3 other nurses came, within the space of 20 mins, to do the same thing. I told them that the obs had already been done but they all insisted there was no record and did them again."
Indeed Margo.
Those defending the NHS will say "Ah but that's just anecdotal and not evidence". that's very true. But these anecdotes can be found every day all across the land. I related one in another thread earlier this week where an elderly neighbour of mine went for a pre-surgery assessment. Part of it was an ECG. She's had one taken in the same hospital (just two doors down the corridor, in fact) two days earlier. She was told the results of that could not be used as it was "a different department".
Every aspect of the organisation that I've been unfortunate enough to encounter is a complete and utter shambles.
And I wonder how many of those 1.3 million businesses made their prospective employees aware of their right to universal credit on their interview in conjunction with the hourly rate on offer. The whole system has been used by many companies to expand their profits by paying low wages and zero contract hours to avoid NI and holiday pay.
You may know your sums regarding the true cost of an employee, but these companies have not been paying the true cost, the tax payer has. And all the time these companies have been laughing all the way to the bank with their vulgar profits. Maybe just maybe all the above helped create the black hole.
But the taxpayer wont be laughing all the way to the bsnk when they have to lay off staff they can no longer affors and said employees have to go on the dole with reduced chances of findinding other jobs for exactly the same reasons. Nicebloke your arguement above smacks purely of the ideology of envy
“And I wonder how many of those 1.3 million businesses made their prospective employees aware of their right to universal credit on their interview…”
Why would they? Employers have enough on their plates without doling out free advice on the benefits system.
“The whole system has been used by many companies to expand their profits by paying low wages and zero contract hours to avoid NI and holiday pay.”
They would have to do well to avoid NI. They would have to pay a gross annual salary of less than £9,100. For a person on minimum wage this would mean they were working fewer than 16 hours a week. Many people I have encountered who work such low hours are more than happy to see their wages topped up by the taxpayer. The UC system is flawed. It should not kick in until an employee is working a full week (i.e. about 35 hours).
But that is all by the way. The way to create more employment (and so see growth) is not to make it expensive to employ people.
This may sound flippant, but it is pertinent. Abbeylee's prospects of landing a full-time, decent job have just plunged through the floor.
Many part-timers will find their hours cut to keep them under the new, lower NI threshold. These will probably, be mainly, women with young children.
I had a chat to one if our local sheep farmers today - he is not a wealthy man and works like stink to run his farm on his own. He's 70. Fleeces only fetch a max. of 75 pence each. This year he's just buried a lot of them because he has had to hand -shear one sheep at a time (professional shearers cost too much now ) and that took him all Summer so he missed the sales.
He's so glad that he's worth less than a million and his house is falling down, like his barns. The much richer sheep farmer - I haven't had a chance to speak to yet.
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