The abrdn Financial Fairness Trust has issued a new report suggesting that:
As the nation prepares to go to the polls, new research shows people are willing to prioritise some policy areas which they don't think will benefit their own finances. The public strongly support investment in public services, even if it means they are taxed more. Twice as many people believe spending on public services should be increased even if it means tax rises for households like theirs (56%), than agreed that taxes should be reduced for households like theirs, even if it meant less spending on public services (24%).
As they noted:
Prospective voters also ranked areas such as cheaper energy tariffs for low-income households and income support for people with disabilities as important for the country, despite not giving their own households a financial advantage.
The policies that were most likely to be seen as good for the country but not for their household were:
• More hours of free childcare (33%)
• Raising the rate of tax for higher earners (29%)
• Increase in Child Benefit (27%)
• Cheaper energy tariffs for lower income households/those on benefits (26%)
• Increase in disability-related benefits (25%)
• Higher taxes for private schools (25%)
Hey explained their methodology, created by the University of Bristol, as follows:
The Financial Fairness Tracker, commissioned by the abrdn Financial Fairness Trust and analysed by a team of researchers at the University of Bristol, has been monitoring household finances since the start of the pandemic. Researchers questioned around 5,600 households about their financial situation as well as policies the next UK government should prioritise.
To contextualise the findings they noted:
The last four years have seen a decline in the number of households who are financially secure (a drop of seven percentage points or nearly two million households) and a significant rise amongst those in serious financial difficulties and struggling financially (an increase from 28% to 39%, nearly three million households). Despite the squeeze many have indicated they would vote for policies which are good for the country above those which will benefit their own household situation.
There research did als9 extend to interest rates, where they found:
Three times as many households were in favour of policies which allow interest rates to be lowered as they believed it would benefit the country (21%) as those who said the policy would actually benefit just their household (7%). This likely means that many households with savings, who might see reduced returns if interest rates fall, recognise the pressures that high interest rates put on others; for example, those with mortgages.
Before, however , it is thought altruism always held sway:
However, on some areas such as income tax and council tax, voters are swayed by policies which will improve their own financial situation (as well as thinking it would benefit the country). When asked what policies the next government should prioritise, the most common answer was a reduction in Council Tax (43%).
I have deliberately quoted what this Trust has had to say at length. I did not wish to put too strong a spin on their words. That said, I think three things can initially be noted.
The first is that the majority of people are as concerned for others as they are for themselves. The idea that we are the self-centred, coldly rational human beings that neoclassical and neoliberal economics believe us to be does not reflect the reality of life. Other people matter to us. I take much courage from that.
Second, the scale of the research suggests that this finding is likely to be statistically significant.
Third, and importantly, this finding reaches beyond taxation.
The implications are obvious. The first is that the whole focus of this election campaign, centring as it has on tax cuts, has been wrong. They are not people's priority. No wonder people feel indifferent to what is happening.
Instead, the meeting of need is what most people want, and we have heard far too little about that.
Last, people innately understand that society requires that there be justice. I suspect it also follows that they know that society fails when justice is denied, as neoliberalism has done, and will still do under Labour. In other words, they know how to defeat the far-right, and they know neoliberalism is not the way to do it.
We just need politicians to talk about this now.
Thanks for reading this post.
You can share this post on social media of your choice by clicking these icons:
You can subscribe to this blog's daily email here.
And if you would like to support this blog you can, here:
Might it be that those who manage the Overton window manage the present and the immediate future?
Somewhat confused by who is managing the Overton Window’s curtains here ..
Do you mean abrdn the mammoth investment group ?
Why would abrdn commission this type of work when their agenda is as a global investment company / asset manager “committed to helping our customers achieve their financial goals.” ?
This would seem to be more a JRT type research project.
Altruism is not the abrdn MO.
That I may be suspicious of their motives does not necessarily mean the results are not interesting.
These trusts do have some independece from the settlors who name them
I stress, ‘some’
Yes, but if enough people say what cannot be said and say it often enough they will wrest control of the Overton windows from its managers and it will move all by itself.
Neoliberalism doesn’t make any such judgement of the type that you suggest.
Indeed it actually says almost the exact opposite – that people seek to maximise utility, even where this actually reduces wealth.
Admittedly this requires a basic understanding of economics.
And tell me – how do you measure this unknown thing you call utility so that you can maximise it?
How do you deal with uncertainty?
Or even a lack of knowledge (except by explaining it away)?
And how does the peson, given these two things know they have achieved their goal when maximisation is what you say life is about?
And how can it be reconciled with the neoclassical/ neoliberal assumption that the business maximsie profit without consideration of externalties? This applies whatever the legal structure used, I stress. In other words, individuals are meant to maximise profit when trading.
Please provide precise and detailed reasoning.
Neoliberalism (or more correctly, neoclassical economics) does indeed claim that people seek to maximise utility, even where this actually reduces wealth. But this is a naïve oversimplification which someone with a basic understanding of economics might accept uncritically.
Much economics is based on “homo economicus”, and idealised person, which assumes that people are consistently rational and narrowly self-interested. At best this characterisation is useful for ulterior motives, to enable neoliberalism to maximise profits at the expense of everything else, including people’s health.
See the organisation: Rethinking Economics, https://www.rethinkeconomics.org/about/
“The problem we face is the total dominance of a single and outdated form of economics at universities, which promotes the marketisation of society, leading to increased inequality, injustice and significant harm to the natural world.”
Read: The Microeconomics Anti-Textbook: A Critical Thinker’s Guide – second edition (2021)
“Mainstream textbooks present economics as an objective science, free from value judgements. The Microeconomics Anti-Textbook demonstrates this to be a myth – one which serves to make such textbooks not only off-puttingly bland, but also dangerously misleading”
https://amzn.eu/d/0eanfw7L
Thanks
Such is the myth of ‘homo economicus’
There is surely a risk that high earners will take lesser paid roles, or just give up. The tax take is now so high, balanced against the expectations form an employer paying a high gross, that people just stop.
If you find yourself some place in that middle ground earning 100-200k based on years of study, personal motivation, frequent travel, high expectations, and high stress it gets to a point when each day, people just stop doing it.
I see people saying ‘no’ to doing this every day now. People giving up and taking less money to rebalance their family life. The tax take is so high above 100k that it’s not worth the stress and hassle.
There is a massive tax on aspiration in this county. Personally, I find it very annoying when the answer to everything is taxing higher earners.
Total and utter BS
You are gishing
You also have no clue how human psychology works
Or tax, come to that
And yet we have plenty of evidence of doctors choosing not to work due to the impact of tax on their pensions:
https://www.bma.org.uk/news-and-opinion/reforms-promise-end-of-pension-tax-trap-for-senior-doctors
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/tax/doctors-quitting-nhs-to-avoid-labours-pension-tax-raid/
https://www.aomrc.org.uk/publication/academy-response-to-doctors-pensions-tax-issue/
Once again, real world evidence doesn’t support your claims.
Let’s be clear, they have suffered ridiculous tax charges on Tory created tax rules that are obviously unfair in their application. To extrapolate that absurd microcosm to a generality is crass, in the extreme. But you did it.
That argument doesn’t really work for me.
Healthcare is a significant proportion of the economy, and doctors are a significant proportion of workers with potential to earn high incomes.
Doctors are not a majority but nor are they a microcosm.
But of all sectors of workers, doctors are the ones you would least expect to change their behaviours because of tax incentives. I can understand the international hedge fund wunderkid deciding to quit or go into an occupation with fewer hours because of high marginal taxes. One sort of expects them to be selfish.
One doesn’t expect doctors with their oaths and commitment to health care to be quite so dissuaded by £ incentives to work less at cost to everybody.
So if we were to extrapolate from the data on doctors, the outcomes for society are even worse than you would think.
I would take this seriously buit for three things.
First, I can find no one of your name on the web in the UK, and that is odd for a Dr.
Second, if you are a Dr, it is not of medicine as you think doctors take oaths and they do not. A very basic error.
Third, if you knew anything about the tax problem doctors have, it is caused by being taxed on the arbitrary increase in the value of a pension fund over which the doctor has no control. Of course that does not translate generally.
In other words, you’re talking pure drivel and are almost certainly a troll.
“Middle ground earning 100-200k” ?
Yavvinalarf.
The poor people earning in the middle ground, eh?
Wouldn’t it be nice if those with the best brains would be proud to put them to the use for the good of all and not solely for personal gain.
But that leads me to ask whether one who acts purely selfishly should be counted among those with the best brains.
In “It Ain’t Half Hot Mum” the upper class Captain says, “As a university graduate I hardly fall into the realm of the village idiot Sgt. Major”, to which the Sgt. Major replies, “That may be so luvvly boy, but most of the world’s problems is caused by university graduates and not the village idiots.”
🙂
@”Ian”
‘The tax take is so high………’
Bollo, Ian. Who told you that? Do you know nothing of the past fifty years?
Reading the comments on Aditya Chakrabortty’s article in the Guardian today reveals that as always the two central issues in this election are hardly any elector understands how the country’s monetary system works and as part of this how equitable taxation is in the UK. This long standing double ignorance has allowed the closet Tory Starmer to take over the Labour Party. Even if the country had a PR electoral system would this really end the double ignorance? Even a relatively new party the Greens can get their monetary system thinking right!
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/jul/02/euphoria-reality-labour-future-thatcher-tory#comments
Too depressing to read Guardian comments
Yes I think so too but the Guardian doesn’t help because it refuses to adequately engage with monetary issues. An obvious example is how Buy2Let landlords gain profit from government housing benefit. This reveals little effort either to adequately analyse the government benefits the wealthy receive nor indeed the tax breaks. I’m also amazed by the cognitive dissonance in some of the Starmer Labour Party supporting comments that fails to recognise that the Tory Party is on its way out because of inadequate government spending on public services. Starmer is lauded by such supporters because he is proposing to stick with this Tory policy!
If the main parties are out of touch with what the electorate want:
1. They have been bought (by business interests)
2. Political corruption is commonplace
3. We no longer have a democracy
This is not speculative, the number of examples is overwhelming.
Sadly, the public gets who they vote for.
@ Ian Tresman. Your assessment seems to be accurate. Starmer proposes little in the way of changes to public spending yet the Tories are facing their worst defeat in years mainly because of lack of adequate public spending. Starmer supporters can’t see the connection. Media and politician corruption can only be the reason why.
I thought the following article was interesting, providing the polling was representative:
https://taxpolicy.org.uk/2024/03/17/tax_and_nhs_spending/
A bit dispiriting, if this is actually the case.
I enjoy reading the twitter posts by Dan Neidle as he offers a different viewpoint, or more precisely, a view from the coalface with information about the practical difficulties/possible outcomes with implementation of changes in tax policy. Also he provides a technical overview of tax ‘scandals’ reported about politicians and notes which ones are claptrap or don’t make sense. Also investigated the likes of Mone (or, more precisely, her husband) and reports on the way they appear to have broken the law.
I did notice Neidle was very disparaging about MMT the other day, though this was in response to a rather abusive post against him. Perhaps a case of somebody so wedded to the numbers, that he doesn’t have a wider view about the Macro side?
I am going to be as generous to Dan as he has always been to me.
I do not trust his methodology.
He has never been a friend of tax justice.
And like most so-called tax experts, he is clueless about the role of tax in society or the economy at large. That may be generous.
Thank you and well said, Richard.
Not entirely off topic, Richard and readers may be interested in: https://unherd.com/newsroom/blackrock-buyout-is-another-example-of-britains-american-surrender/.
It is worrying how the New and New New Labour careerists are so intimate with the US and prioritise Wall Street and DC over UK government and domestic capital and local ideas.
@ Richard and Schofield: The Grauniad BTL is appalling, not just the Chakrabortty article, but the Cole Stanger one about France, too. I used to post there, but was banned a decade ago after highlighting the hypocrisy of Polly Toynbee, the malign influence of Wall Street in Whitehall and, get this, posting an old French nursery rhyme with regard to the Tour de France in Gascony. Three strikes and all that.
No Guardian journalist reads the BTL comments on their articles
Thank you, Richard.
The odd one does as, now and again, the author pops up BTL and addresses a reader comment.
The moderators tend to be young, not well informed and a bit sensitive.
The daughter of a friend is a journalist and has worked on effectively zero hour contracts at the Mail, Standard and Mirror and reports its increasing use at the Grauniad and Independent. Only the star columnists tend to have better pay and conditions. Also, social media companies sponsor content and have ways of making their views known.
I am aware of the conditions – and most of the expens8ve older journalists are going.
A friend had gone from the Mirror
The Guardian has a generous redundancy programme for older journalists
I don’t believe the Guardian is progressive at all. It seems to concentrate on stoking up indignation but provides little in the way of clear-headed and integrated solutions.
The way in which the Graun piled in on Corbyn, clearly with the collusion of the LINO wing of the Labour Party, put paid to any ideas that it is a progressive newspaper. Whatever Corbyn’s weaknesses and failings, it was a media-led character assassination. Yet still it is the only real left-ish newspaper in the country. The Mirror is a non-serious tabloid so wouldn’t really class as a proper left-wing paper to me.
Thank you, Schofield and Mariner.
The period of, say, 1960 – 2010 was an exception in the Grauniad’s history. It was founded and owned and still owned by oligarchs and reflects their views. The NY Times, Washington Post, Le Monde and Liberation across the waters are similar.
One should not be surprised at the character assassination of Corbyn, subject to academic study a couple of years ago*. Some of the Grauniad types are rather well bred and to do and more Cameroon than Blairite. *Including how overnight from late 2015, the words anti-semitism came to be associated with Corbyn despite the man having been in public life since the 1970s.
Most Grauniad readers and contributors have no idea how the paper is set up and where, how it’s funded and how healthy its funds are. They have also have no idea of the charlatans in the ranks, including how their crowd funded pet projects were shams.
Unhurd seems to take the view that higher taxes or more taxes on capital will drive away wealth and be counter-productive. One comment -which I saw on social media a few days ago-stated as a fact that Harold Wilson’s tax rises caused many rich people to live.
Live or leave?
I would agree 98% tax was not a good idea
I would go nowhere near that rate
As I have shown, we do not need to do so
Just heard 6 o’clock news on Radio4. Clearly Mr Starmer hasn’t read that abrdn report (or else it’s come too late for him to do a policy U-turn).
Richard, Possible typo: 2nd last para states “society fails when injustice is denied”. Did you intend that to read “when justice is denied”? It could be interpreted both ways: if the people are denied access to justice it could result in the failure of society. Or: if the people are unjustly treated, but this is refuted by government the society, then society may well fail. It had me scratching my head.
You are right
Corrected
Whilst travelling up and down Britain with work, I have heard many comments about tax levels.
A common theme is that people resent a family or single mother not working and having children they cannot afford (their words, not mine) they will usually name them and give examples of how said family/single mother spends their money.
Also common is asylum seekers in hotels and how they get dental treatment and doctors appointments when those complaining have to wait days/weeks to see their GP and there are no NHS dentists.
The fact that tax evasion and fraud is much higher does not resonate as this is “unseen”
People are seeing declining town centres and high streets, lack of secure employment and lack of public services.
They believe what the likes of Farage tells them as, agree or not, he can put his point across well.
They don’t realise that he is as much part of the establishment and as neo liberal as the majority of politicians.
I usually challenge people when they say things like that. They either get angry or the conversation goes something like:
“How do you know how she spends her money? Do you have a private detective tailing her?”
“Everyone knows how she spends her money.”
“Oh! can you introduce me to ‘everyone’, I would like to hear them confirm what you say.”
“But that’s how people like that behave.”
“ We are taking about a specific person, not ‘people like that’. Besides I was a single parent some 45 years ago and things have only got worse since then. I know for a fact that most of what you are saying cannot possibly be true.”
My sister likes to say that I don’t take prisoners when confronted by bigots.
They don’t realise that he is as much part of the establishment and as neo liberal as the majority of politicians.
This cohort of the electorate see Farage as “a great guy in the pub”, when it’s patently clear that Farage wouldn’t be seen dead with them.