Are you better or worse off than this time 5 years ago?

[RiffRaff]

Significantly worse : 70% reduction in household income...but not due to any fault of the government. My fault for being made redundant.

[SteveJ68]

.......................

Edited May 2, 2015 by SteveJ68

[Michael_W]

Capital assetts increased (due to inheritance)

House value reduced

Wage increase around 2-3% over this time (well below inflation)

Pension worth less than 2009

Another Pension company gone bust and in the Pension Protection Fund which has a reduction

Retirement working to 68 before I can get my pension now

 

Oh I long for those days under Labour when we had decent pay rises and I could look forward to retirement safe in the knowledge I'd got a couple of decent pensions.

 

Better pay rises under Labour ? What sector do you work in ?

Many working people have endured little in terms of pay rises for years, including those Labour years under Blair. The public sector may have had inflation rate increases under Labour but large sections of the private sector had pay and pensions depleted under his government, you can also blame Labour's overspend for making us work until our late 60s !

[jane2008]

Worse off, bedroom tax and council tax. I'm still undecided who to vote for

[SteveJ68]

Better pay rises under Labour ? What sector do you work in ?

Many working people have endured little in terms of pay rises for years, including those Labour years under Blair. The public sector may have had inflation rate increases under Labour but large sections of the private sector had pay and pensions depleted under his government, you can also blame Labour's overspend for making us work until our late 60s !

 

Working people should get into banking, cushty little number that is!

[Michael_W]

Working people should get into banking, cushty little number that is!

 

While your blaming the bankers just remember it was a Labour government who watched over and failed to prevent the Brown stuff hitting the fan !

[Titanic99]

Better pay rises under Labour ? What sector do you work in ?

Many working people have endured little in terms of pay rises for years, including those Labour years under Blair. The public sector may have had inflation rate increases under Labour but large sections of the private sector had pay and pensions depleted under his government, you can also blame Labour's overspend for making us work until our late 60s !

 

Definitely private sector for me.

 

Here's an article that proably sums me up, due to lack of wage increase my wage level is probably about 2003 levels now.

 

As an aside the company has posted record profits but due to the unemployment levels they've got us over a barrel.

http://www.theguardian.com/money/2013/feb/13/real-wages-fall-back-2003-levels-uk-ons

[SteveJ68]

While your blaming the bankers just remember it was a Labour government who watched over and failed to prevent the Brown stuff hitting the fan !

 

It's the cowboy capitalist bankers who screwed things up Michael and they are laughing at us. They've got us arguing amongst ourselves when we should be angry at them!

[Waldo]

5 years closer to death. Can that be better off?

[I1L2T3]

While your blaming the bankers just remember it was a Labour government who watched over and failed to prevent the Brown stuff hitting the fan !

 

This argument would be ok if only the Tories hadn't spent the whole last parliament berating Labour for regulating the banks too much. Osborne famously heralded Ireland as a blueprint for us and look what happened there! Been to Ireland recently?