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The rising cost of living


StefanAVFC

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49 minutes ago, foreveryoung said:

It seems to be reported in the media that the private sector have had around a 6.5% increase in pay. But the poor public sectors are having to strike to get their 8-10%  rise. Are they kidding, I don't know anyone who has had more than a 3% pay rise in any of the private sectors unless you can tell me otherwise.  I certainly haven't been offered anything over 2% for this year, although I am a little ahead, so my director has reminded me??

There have been pay freezes in the public sector for over a decade. 

I wouldn't hold it against anyone in the private sector trying to improve their wages. 

Also imagine your company was like the Tories. They wasted billions on a new thing that didn't work (track & trace) they lost billions to fraud and seem to not care and they gave billions to their mates in dodgy contracts. And then continued to claim there wasn't enough money. Would you just accept it? 

 

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My favourite payrise was after the usual annual HR bullshit appraisal, being given glowing feedback from my peers, my line manager, but being told there's no budget for it this year, so sorry.

I made a point of openly browsing some jobsites on my lunchbreak in our open plan office, only took a couple of days :D 

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1 hour ago, MakemineVanilla said:

Inflation is really a regressive tax, which allows a government to claim they are a low-tax regime, when in fact they are confiscating spending-power, from ordinary citizens.

Worse still is that since fewer people in the private sector have any leverage to secure a decent rise to match inflation, it leaves the public sector employees as the only workers able to organise and attempt to maintain their income.

Ironically, the public sector not only have the power to improve their lot, they also enjoy the most sympathy from the left, while the powerless get left behind.

Private sector pay rises are currently way ahead of public sector pay rises. 

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1 hour ago, foreveryoung said:

It seems to be reported in the media that the private sector have had around a 6.5% increase in pay. But the poor public sectors are having to strike to get their 8-10%  rise. Are they kidding, I don't know anyone who has had more than a 3% pay rise in any of the private sectors unless you can tell me otherwise.  I certainly haven't been offered anything over 2% for this year, although I am a little ahead, so my director has reminded me??

There is a lot of talk in America about the "white-collar recession", with several sectors shedding staff.

If the same happens here it will produce even more downward pressure on wages in the private sector.

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49 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

I had a pay rise last year that means I can no longer have dark socialist thoughts.

Think yourself lucky that you live in Wales where unemployment is 3.7%, and have sympathy for your Villa brethren in the West Midlands, where unemployment is 4.9%, the worst in the country.

At least you can afford to be a socialist. 🤣

 

 

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1 hour ago, Demitri_C said:

They are saying inflation should halve buy end of the year

 

Just now, sidcow said:

All hail Rishi 

Doesn't matter who's in charge, there's a high chance of it hitting 5% by the end of the year anyway. No doubt the Tories will be banging on about it while trying to get re-elected.

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Just now, stuart_75 said:

 

Doesn't matter who's in charge, there's a high chance of it hitting 5% by the end of the year anyway. No doubt the Tories will be banging on about it while trying to get re-elected.

Yeah, I know.

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10 hours ago, sidcow said:

Private sector pay rises are currently way ahead of public sector pay rises. 

They are, but that’s only half the picture. For example, during the corollafungus pandemic in the private sector a lot of people lost their jobs, hospitality and entertainment workers, all kinds. Public sector workers were much better protected.  When the pandemic was declared over, suddenly pubs, bars, hotels, restaurants and the rest needed workers. They’ve all had to ramp up wages to compete.  It’s happened in other parts of the private sector too.

Regardless of any of that, very very few people have had pay rises that anywhere near keep up with inflation, public or private sector. We’re nearly all worse off than we were.

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1 hour ago, stuart_75 said:

 

Doesn't matter who's in charge, there's a high chance of it hitting 5% by the end of the year anyway. No doubt the Tories will be banging on about it while trying to get re-elected.

Thats The Point Thats My Point GIF - Thats The Point Thats My Point Point -  Discover & Share GIFs

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54 minutes ago, blandy said:

They are, but that’s only half the picture. For example, during the corollafungus pandemic in the private sector a lot of people lost their jobs, hospitality and entertainment workers, all kinds. Public sector workers were much better protected.  When the pandemic was declared over, suddenly pubs, bars, hotels, restaurants and the rest needed workers. They’ve all had to ramp up wages to compete.  It’s happened in other parts of the private sector too.

Regardless of any of that, very very few people have had pay rises that anywhere near keep up with inflation, public or private sector. We’re nearly all worse off than we were.

From what I remember, a lot of public sector jobs were opened during the pandemic (largely in helping with it, e.g: track and trace people etc) which largely counteracted the loss of jobs in the private sector (pretty sure I read somewhere that the jobs created in the public sector was enough to fully re-hire those people who lost jobs in the hospitality sector).

Our company did really well during covid times for what it's worth - healthy pay rises off the back of it.

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1 hour ago, stuart_75 said:

 

Doesn't matter who's in charge, there's a high chance of it hitting 5% by the end of the year anyway. No doubt the Tories will be banging on about it while trying to get re-elected.

Yep, Rishi has already positioned himself to take the credit from the gullible with his 5 pledges.

Edited by Wainy316
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1 hour ago, stuart_75 said:

 

Doesn't matter who's in charge, there's a high chance of it hitting 5% by the end of the year anyway. No doubt the Tories will be banging on about it while trying to get re-elected.

It’ll probably still be the highest of all G20 countries.

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5 hours ago, Demitri_C said:

They are saying inflation should halve buy end of the year

If it does fall to just over 5% then assuming you get a pay rise of 5% you'll be no worse off than you are now. You, and other public sector workers though, who with inflation running at 11% received an average of around a 3% pay rise last year, if you get similar this year it'll mean being around 10% worse off than you were two years previous. So a 10% wage cut in effect. That is why many public sectors are rightly striking.

Edited by markavfc40
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3 hours ago, markavfc40 said:

If it does fall to just over 5% then assuming you get a pay rise of 5% you'll be no worse off than you are now.

This is something that bugs me massively - not the principle, but the maths. It's complete nonsense. Here's why:

Take 2 people, person 1 earns (before their 5% pay rise) £100,000. Person 2 earns £20,000.

Person 1 gets a £5 grand a year pay rise, and person 2 gets £1 grand. Person 1, even assuming that they use more electricity and so on, is likely able to cover their increased bills, and have plenty left over. Person 2 on the other hand is in a different situation. Their £1 grand pay rise is likely insufficient to cover increased bills.

I know higher income people pay more tax and all of that, but people's costs for food, energy & other basics like water and travel to work are not inextricably liked to their income, though of course if you have more, you may choose to spend more.

Sorry to be a maths pedant, but it's been bugging me for ages, since all the discussion on strikes and so on. Inflation affects people very differently and it's not really correlated at all closely to their wages. If you have no mortgage or rent to pay, then interest rate rises have a much less significant impact on your personal cost of living. If you travel to work by public transport then maybe Petrol price rises affect you less, but train price rises affect you much more, and so on and so forth. It's much more complex than the RPI or CPI percentage v Wage percentage increase. Grrr.

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18 hours ago, foreveryoung said:

It seems to be reported in the media that the private sector have had around a 6.5% increase in pay. But the poor public sectors are having to strike to get their 8-10%  rise. Are they kidding, I don't know anyone who has had more than a 3% pay rise in any of the private sectors unless you can tell me otherwise.  I certainly haven't been offered anything over 2% for this year, although I am a little ahead, so my director has reminded me??

Not mean to be a brag, but our entire company is getting 5%. I think it would have been more but we got extremely generous rises and bonuses last year, mainly because the company had let people go in the pandemic and ended up having unexpectedly good financial results anyway, so I guess they felt like they had to give that back

Edited by Stevo985
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