Budget17 Nov 2022 16:57
One of the aspects I find staggering and depressing in equal measure is that Hunt literally boasts about "not changing the headline rate of tax" as if that's a GOOD thing, when it's meant the majority of his measures are being implemented by stealth.
As an employer with around 30 staff, the increases proposed by the government are scary. We used to pay a decent chunk above minimum wage, but after the past couple of years of relentless cost increases, we are now expecting to finally have our production staff drop onto minimum wage.
We are now staring down the barrel at a possible 9.7% wage increase for minimum wage workers, following a 6.6% wage increase proposed last year. Our managers and senior managers certainly will not be receiving 9.7% increase, nor did they receive a 6.6% increase last year. We're also mindful of the future issue of managers thinking "why am I accepting all these additional responsbilities, when I'm no longer being paid a reasonable amount more".
I don't know what the answer is, keep putting up our prices up I guess? Our gross margin has already taken a battering this year.
Talk about saying the quiet part out loud. These people are so used to being dishonest they can't even remember when they're doing it.
Once upon a time, you'd get the likes of Gordon Brown who loved nothing more than to keep headline rates ostensibly low whilst stealthily raising tons via Fiscal Drag. At least he, vile though he was, actually understood his own policy enough not to openly point out what he was doing...