Are you better off?

[Rico]

With all the gloom and doom about the economy, and the concurrent disdain for New Labour, I've been thinking about the big picture. I think it started with Location, Location, Location this week from Newcastle and the mention of its dramatic changes in the last decade.

Truth is, I'm much better off today than I was 10 years ago. New Labour has actually been good for me. And I think that's true for all economic classes of people in the UK. One article last week noted that many lower income people will have difficulty taking their usual two-week holiday to the Med. Fair enough that it's more costly, but in the big picture, we now expect people on low incomes can (and do) take such holidays.

Perhaps we're returning to a bit of 'boom and bust', but it does occur to me that this downturn still won't take us back to where we were before. Sort of three steps forward, one step back.

So now I'm warming to old Gordie. But not sure. It seems the loudest voices are on the far left who would have us move toward such a radical re-distribution of wealth that we'd end up with everyone worse off.

Though I do still think we need to give Labour a topple and let Conservatives have a run. But maybe New Labour gets a bad rap when we all look at where we are personally today and where we were (or our equivalents were) 10 years ago.

[mockney piers]

I can categorically state that New Labour haven't had the slightest impact on my life over the last 10 years, except for that awful 2 hours I spent at the Millennium Tent, only getting to see the doctor after I was better the twice I was ill enough to warrant an appointment, and making me irate about Iraq.

[Ant]

Hard to judge, as 10 years ago I was only just starting my first job. I'd expect to be better off now (and am, thank goodness) but I think that's got more to do with where I am in my life and less to do with the government.

(Edited for speelign.)

[Rico]

Really? You make good points, but my life is much better. Maybe I'm the exception.

[SteveT]

We are probably all better off, inspite of the government:)

[paragon]

10 years ago I was just about to do my G.C.S.E's earned 2 squid an hour delivering leaflets for the local sandwich shop which was largely spent on latest chart singles and the odd illicit bottle of cider. Now I can afford to buy my own clothes and pay my own travel costs. I am even self-sufficient when it comes to food. I largely accredit this to Gordon Brown and his excellent Chancellorship (sp??)

[DaveR]

"I'm much better off today than I was 10 years ago." "New Labour has actually been good for me"

Not necessarily connected. New labour have been good in the sense that they have not been old labour - T Blair & G Brown realised in '97 that their best plan for the UK economy was essentially to leave well alone. Still couldn't resist blowing too much cash on the public sector wage bill tho', plus a few (not so) stealthy but very damaging taxes on business and investment.

The real trouble started when Gordon broke up with "Prudence" and started dallying with some racier dates (apologies for unwieldy metaphor)

[Jah Lush]

When I bought my flat in 1990 (right at the end of the boom and straight into the bust) I was then in negative equity for next ten years. Of course I should now be a lot better of and in some ways I am. The trouble is that now matter how much I earn I still manage to piss it all up the wall. Hence, I'm still as skint as I've ever been.

[mockney piers]

Oh I'm much better off, but that's down to investing in my skills (no help from gov't there) and getting a career that pays and being good at it.

If I should be grateful to nu labour for our latest issue from the Royal Mint NOT being a ?100 billion note, then I'll doff my cap, but other than that...meh.

[SeanMacGabhann]

not much fussed about me or my position.

But I expect if I was still on the lower rungs of the job ladder that (still inadequate) minimum wage thingy would have put a smile on my face when it was introduced. Ditto the rumoured closing of the restuarant-keep-tips loophole

I've been soo disapointed with this government for so many years - but they certainly haven't hindered me in any way as I go about my business

[Alan Dale]

removed

[ratty]

I am better off and I believe the country is. People have some short memories!

Yeah Labour have cocked up now, but David Cameron has been described by someone very close to him as a "Nasty Bastard". His true colours will out once he is in power so be fooking careful what you wish for.

As for me, I work with the homeless - under the tories I will be in a growth industry! New Labour have got far too many people off the streets and into secure housing and treatement for my liking. When the tories get in they will be left to rot again and I will have a guaranteed wage for another 5 years!

Bring 'em on!

[cdonline]

My salary has grown, but due to me building up credit cards debts that I have to pay off, I feel piss poor.

It's a shock to have to live within your means, but you get used to it. When I have it, I spend it, albeit more slowly. I no longer use credit cards.

The credit crunch has meant that alot people can't borrow more money left right and centre. Is that a bad thing?

I do believe that Labour have done much to improve people's lives, but if people are feeling the pinch and see their house prices go down, they aren't necessarily going to care.

[dave]

I'm better off. But I was finishing university in May 1997 and entering the world of work. With 10 years' working experience and after good health, working steadily, a couple of moves (including the big one to come to London in 2000), I'm more experienced, more senior and better paid. My earnings have more than kept pace with the increasing tax burden in terms of direct taxation changes, National Insurance and the various less transparent forms of taxation most of us are subject to. Since I chose to buy a house later than I might have, and my earnings weren't going up in line with house prices, I probably got less than I would have (and for more money). While I don't blame the government for this, since I chose not to buy earlier, I do feel that part of the problem now for a lot of people is that nothing was done to slow down house price rises earlier by the people stewarding the economy - house price inflation seems to be cherished as no other sort of inflation is.

Several of my friends are GP's and thanks to the government's cack-handed negotiation of new NHS contracts, they're considerably better off, while working less unsociable hours.

Would I be able to say I was better off (to take a few examples) if I was becoming a student now or if I had a child who wanted to go to university and needed my support? Or if I was disabled and dependent on support from the government? I tend to think not. And regardless of the absolute truth, this is the central failure and for me the key disappointment of this government - they've reduced the chances of upward social mobility through education free at the point of consumption and failed to set an example by coming across as willing providing a safety net (rather than a stick) for the weakest in society.

[mockney piers]

House price inflation gives people confidence in the future and collateral to borrow against, all encouraging spending. I'd say it wasn't a case of nothing being to done to slow things down, but that it was a situation positively encouraged as it gives the illusion of a healthy economy and growth.

Of course it's easy to see with hindsight that it was a castle built on sand, but then it was easy to see it with foresight, hence why every evening standard headline for the last n years has been something on the lines of 'Boffo the Gorilla dies at London Zoo, House Prices Unaffected' and plenty of press given to unsustainable levels of personal debt etc (when did it hit a trillion quid? 2 years ago?).

So something could have been done to head this at the pass, but higher interest rates don't win elections, pretending we're all hunkydory did.

I do have a mortgage, which doesn't stretch my resources too badly, and I haven't been in any other form of debt for a long old time; like Dave it's best to live within your means, and if you can keep the odd penny away from the proverbial wall, then try putting a few of them away.

On that count I don't recommend getting married btw, severely dents it ;-)

[Cassius]

When money is short I choose between 'doing' things or 'having' things - not trying to stretch myself to both.

[DaveR]

"On that count I don't recommend getting married btw, severely dents it"

Only if you give in - ban wedding mags from the house, and insist that simplicity is the latest thing. Wild flowers only, and pork pie and guiness at the reception. That kind of thing.

[mockney piers]

The Beeb didn't exactly help: "We're fine, our houses are worth lots"

Ha ha DaveR, :D, I wish.

[EDOldie]

Don't want to be a miserable old git but, after 10 odd years of New Labour the poor are worse off and more heavily taxed, both income and indirect taxation. We have it dead easy in London. The poor are poorer, and the rich are much, much, richer. I don't think being rich is a bad thing but I do think being poor is a very bad thing. This government has squandered it's massive opportunity to make things better for everyone. Financially much better off, but morally bankrupt.

[beef]

I was much better off, then the gas bill dropped thru the door.

[????]

On average,the long term trend is that people have got progressively better off since the 2nd world war....economic growth innit....your argument is a fallacy.

[ChavWivaLawDegree]

I'm worse off, but that's cos I no longer run my own lucrative business and started everything again in a different area a few years back.

I like the tax credit's I get tho as I don't think I'd have had enough money to eat when starting off as self-employed without them a couple of months back. They give me more than I got on income support, except I have to pay my rent (well my lodger does that for me) so even though I hate all the corporate pigs in the trough, I have to admit tax credits help the transition for people who want to get back into work.

I see the tories have decided they are a vote winner and reckon they won't scrap them, well not straight away anyway!

[will dex]

Well,

having gone to university in 1998 was one of the first to pay fee's- former generations paid no fee's and got a free non-repayable grant..

Every month i am charged 10% on most of my gross (not net) wages in compulsory repayments.

This is a massive amount and i have already been paying for 6 years.

The Labour government drove this through. I dont think elder people realise fully how the burden of education has been pushed back on the young, as will be the cost of caring for the old in the coming few years. - Maybe the generation above me have had it slightly too good and run us dry.

Big issue, not enough said.

Yes im better off, but were it not for the above id be a lot happier with the Blair Year's..

[Marmora Man]

I'm better off too - tho' like a number on this thread I see that primarily as a function of my work and effort.

However, looking forward I see the country as a whole becoming worse off for next 5 - 10 years as it works through the consequences of the last 11 years. Government spending now exceeds ?500 billion a year. Tax revenues are falling, PSBR is rising - the sooner we all realise that government intervention and government spending isn't the answer the better. UNless we wish to leave a bankrupt country to our children and successors the only answer, to my mind, is to downsize government spending massively - not by the ?20 billion efficiency cuts the Lib Dems and Tories have identified - incremental cuts won't do it. Radical surgery is necessary.

[Bellenden Belle]

will dex Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Well,

> having gone to university in 1998 was one of the

> first to pay fee's- former generations paid no

> fee's and got a free non-repayable grant....Maybe the generation above me

> have had it slightly too good and run us dry.

>

I had a really interesting conversation with a social analyst the other day. His take was that it is the people in their 30s who are really in a financial crisis nowadays - we had no university fees and so thought the world was our oyster... and once we started working many of us thought nothing of running up credit cards and saddling ourselves with mortgages that stretched us to our limit. In comparison those in their 20s appear more prudent, more financial savvy since debt has been a part of their lives since they left home - and they don't have a limitless supply of credit. It sounds old-fashioned but perhaps this crunch will make us value things a wee bit more - I think of my parent's generation in comparison to mine and blush at my extravagance (or as my mother would have said, the way I squander money .... squander is such a great word).

Am I better off? Yes but again it's more about where I am in my life. But if we look at the minimum wage, things like Sure Start, the money that has gone into social care and regeneration then I think improvements have been made. And I think London has improved considerably under the Labour government and thanks in part to the mayoral office. I remember the South Bank when it was a desolate place - now I feel absolute joy when I'm there.