Poor people 'hit hardest' as new figures deal killer blow to George Osborne's 'all together' claims

The respected Institute for Fiscal Studies said the recovery in wages had seen their “slowest recovery” in modern history

George Osborne’s claims “we are all in this together” were blown apart tonight by figures showing the poorest had been hit hardest.

The respected Institute for Fiscal Studies also found the Tory cuts to public spending are set to be double the size of anything inflicted so far.

And the economic think tank said the recovery in wages had seen their “slowest recovery” in modern history.

In a damning verdict on the Chancellor’s Budget, it said the Coalition’s tax and benefit changes had left the poorest tenth worse off.

Since 2010 the bottom 10% of households have lost £2,000 on average, while the richest 10% had lost around £1,250.

And those in the highest eighth and ninth income brackets had seen barely any change their incomes.

“People on middle and upper incomes have been remarkably insulated on average from tax and benefit changes.

“Looking only at the changes implemented by the Coalition, the poorest have seen the biggest proportionate losses,” it concluded.

IFS director Paul Johnson warned the poorest were also facing a further battering under Mr Osborne’s plans to slash welfare by £12billion.

This would include cuts to disability benefits and child benefit, he suggested.

“You would have to do something relatively radical to save that kind of money. Even freezing benefits for the whole of the first years of the parliament won’t save enough.

“So you’re going to have to do things like further big cuts in child benefit or really substantial cuts to housing benefit or significant reductions to disability benefits,” he said.

In the Budget, Mr Osborne had boasted “we are all in this together” and living standards were now back to 2010 levels.

But the IFS said this was only “probably” true if you excluded pensioner income and it “still represents by far the slowest recovery in incomes in modern history.”

“Having household incomes crawl back above pre-recession levels six or seven years after the recession hit is no cause for celebration,” it said.

It added: “We are, for sure, much worse off on average than we could reasonably have expected back in 2010.”

The Institute also warned the planned Tory spending cuts would be as £5billion higher than the £13billion announced by Mr Osborne. This could involve cuts to councils, the police, defence and other departments of at least 9.4% - twice as deep as the cutbacks between 2010-15.

In addition, the Chancellor is planning a £5billion raid on public sector workers which will see them have to up their national insurance contributions from 2016.

“The cuts of more than 5% implied in each of 2016/17 and 2017/18 are twice the size of any year’s cuts over this parliament,” Mr Johnson said.

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By contrast Labour will not have to make any spending cuts and could have a surplus of £9billion if Ed Balls sticks to his plan to pay off debts at a slower pace and keeps the Tory welfare cuts.

Mr Johnson also challenged the Chancellor to spell out exactly which benefits he was going to axe. Mr Osborne yesterday signalled the Conservatives would not reveal the details until after May’s general election.

“The Chancellor argues that because he is committed to £12 billion of welfare cuts and £5 billion of anti-tax avoidance measures, the required cuts to public service spending are much more modest.

“But if he really wants us to believe that, he needs to be more explicit about how he actually thinks he can cut welfare spending and raise substantial additional sums from clamping down on tax avoidance,” Mr Johnson said.

Ed Miliband said the scale of the Tory cuts would bring public services “to their knees.”

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/poor-people-hit-hardest-new-5366115


The only people he is 'all together' with is Bankers, Tax Evaders and Tory Party Donators.