The cost of Living all-time time High in the UK - Make Me Debt Free
The cost of Living all-time time High in the UK - Make Me Debt Free
The most recent cost of living Jeremy Hunt warns of tax pain for Britons ahead of the autumn statement on Thursday, and inflation rises to 11.1%, higher than expected.
Some economists believe the October figure of 11.1% will be the high point, but this is based on government assistance with energy bills continuing beyond April.
Inflation could reach 15% in the worst-case scenario, meaning more pain for household budgets as inflation continues to outpace wage growth, lowering the real value of incomes across the UK.
The increase in inflation is the largest since March to April when Of gem’s energy price cap was changed, and it occurs despite government energy support, which has sought to limit average annual household gas and electricity bills to around £2,500 per year.
Chancellor Jeremy Hunt has already stated that the Energy Price Guarantee, which was originally scheduled to last two years, will be reduced beginning in April to cost "significantly less than planned."
Households are encouraged to build up a credit balance with their supplier to offset higher winter prices, though there is widespread concern that the price increase, despite government assistance, is pushing more households into debt.
The best option now is to ensure that homes are as well-insulated and energy-efficient as possible. The only real way to reduce energy costs is to use as little as possible in the first place.
According to official data and the Latest News portals, the poorest tenth of UK households saw the greatest increase in living costs last month.
According to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), the gap between inflation experienced by the poorest and wealthiest UK households has widened to its widest since the financial crisis in 2009.
It comes after the ONS revealed that the country's Consumer Price Index (CPI) inflation rate was 11.1% in October, up from 10.1% the previous month.
Higher energy bills and rising food prices drove the increase, with staples like milk, cheese, and pasta seeing price increases.
According to the ONS, these increases are disproportionately affecting the poorest members of society, with the poorest 10% of households facing a 12.5% increase in monthly living expenses.
Meanwhile, the richest 10% of households saw 9.6% inflation in October.
The gap is thought to be primarily driven by increases in energy and food prices, as poorer households spent "a greater proportion of their expenditure" on these when compared to the top tenth.
What began as a few football bets resulted in one man losing a million pounds, facing jail time, and contemplating suicide.
He's not the only one.
With the World Cup starting in just five days, a new survey finds that more than a quarter of football fans are concerned about how much money they might lose while betting during the tournament.
Financial pressures and rising living costs may also drive some people to gamble more than they intend.
Meanwhile, according to research conducted for the charity Gamble Aware, six out of ten people agree that there are too many gambling advertisements during international tournaments.
Megan Baynes, our cost of living reporter, has written the full story, which you can read here.
When you start a new job, you gather all the bad news, announce the bad news all at once, and make the most gruesome, painful decisions all at once. You throw everything at it.
This strategy has been seen before, and not just in politics - though George Osborne's 2010 summer budget is frequently cited as a prime example. Take note of how, whenever a new CEO takes over at a company, they will invariably begin by telling you that the entire operation requires a desperate clean-up and a change in strategy.
Rishi Sunak and Jeremy Hunt will attempt to "kitchen sink" the bad news for the UK economy in the autumn statement.
There are several reasons for this. The first is that, in the aftermath of recent market turmoil, the Treasury wants to assure investors that it has a plan in place to repair the public finances. And it tends to overcompensate in situations like this.
One of the things that almost certainly worried investors back in September was that the mini-budget put the national debt on an upward trend. The main task for the chancellor this time is to change that trajectory so that the national debt falls in five years. This is where the much-debated "black hole" concept enters the picture.
The "eye-watering black hole" mentioned by the Treasury in recent weeks is quite simple: the number of spending cuts/tax increases required to reduce the national debt within five years. When you factor in what Mr. Hunt has already reversed, that comes to around £50-60 billion. These figures are subject to significant change because they are a/ based on imprecise estimates and b/ the state of the economy is largely unknown. But the gist is that the Treasury is eager to overcompensate, just as it under-compensated in the mini-budget, to send a clear signal to markets that it intends to reduce debt in the medium term.
And, to meet that target, a slew of bad news will be thrown in public sector pay settlements, departmental spending, tax increases for the wealthy, and personal allowance freezes. Then there's the energy price guarantee and what happens next year, which is a significantly scaled-back scheme to follow the current £2,500 average price cap.
But Mr. Sunak also wants to kitchen sink the bad news now because he has another date in mind: 2024. He believes that if the Conservatives are to win the next election, which is likely to be held before the end of the year, they must demonstrate both that they have repaired the damage done in recent months and that the light at the end of the tunnel is no longer such a distant prospect. His hope is that by raising taxes today.