Brits don’t believe this is a country that rewards hard work
What conversations are you having at work, at home, in the pub? There’s plenty to talk about, from Traitors (BBC good?) to trust in public broadcasting (BBC bad?) to say nothing of football, Remembrance Day, the weather and Christmas.
Looking beyond these topics, is it possible to discern the national mood? Do we feel that we’re on the up, or is there a sense that we’re just muddling through? I dare say there are some people, places, companies and sectors where the mood is more buoyant, but it’s hard to escape the drumbeat of negative news.
Anecdotes can break through, but the numbers tell their own story. Unemployment has risen every month for a year, and a country that is losing jobs is not a country with a spring in its step.
At City PM, we’ve been polling the British public every month since January, and the unavoidable truth is that things are pretty grim out there.
Just under half of Brits say their living standards have worsened over the last 12 months compared to just 14 per cent who have seen an improvement. Almost 60 per cent expect the UK will worsen over the year ahead. Is this just classic British pessimism? Over three quarters of Brits (76 per cent) say they feel the country is heading in the wrong direction; this has risen consistently every month since May.
The juice isn’t worth the squeeze
Perhaps most worryingly of all, just 29 per cent of people agree with the statement that “Britain today is a country of aspiration, where people are encouraged to aim high and succeed.” Just a quarter agree that “Britain is a country that rewards hard work.”
If, as we all suspect, the Chancellor uses her upcoming Budget to pick the pockets of business owners (through higher dividend tax), workers (through restrictions on salary sacrifice schemes) and higher earners (through painful hikes to income tax) then not only will these gloomy sentiments be proven correct but the chances are that even more people will express the same views in our next poll.
For many people, whether on low incomes and struggling with the cost of living or higher incomes and suffering from perverse tax traps, there is a real sense that things are just too hard; that the juice isn’t worth the squeeze.
We need something to believe in; we need to see a destination worth striving for. Instead we see higher taxes and fewer rewards for risk and effort.
It is an unsustainable situation.