I noted this in The Guardian this morning:
Care home bosses are demanding the next government funds a 44% pay rise for frontline staff to stabilise the crisis-hit sector and boost a system that is “in an extremely precarious state”.
Care England, whose members include the largest care home chains, is calling for the next prime minister to set a £15-per-hour minimum wage for care workers as part of a £10bn a year support package.
I also noted this comment in the article:
Tax expert and campaigner Richard Murphy recently calculated that restricting pension tax relief to 20% would raise up to £14.5bn a year - more than enough to stabalise social care.
This is exactly why I am writing the Taxing Wealth Report 2024. My intention is to show that problems in the UK can be addressed if only we will raise more tax on the wealthy.
It looks as though this, as a strategy, might be working.
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The corruption in the UK is of such long standing in terms of inequitable arrangements for the wealthy there has to be a considerable mountain hidden in plain view that can be mined!
Perhaps I am a cynic, but your quote suggests the care home operators are asking the government to subsidise their staff costs (at a more economic level) while they still continue to extract profits which for many of those chains are what I would consider excessive. That doesn’t seem to me a good use of public money.
At the same time I do think care staff should be better remunerated, with correspondingly higher expectations of professionalism (from elderly relatives’ experience standards vary). Your point that money shouldn’t limit ambition on this could simply mean that publicly funded care workers (NHS and the little remaining local authority provision) get that higher pay, and publicly funded care home places are no longer commissioned at below actual cost, on the basis the private sector would then need to offer pay which is roughly comparable.
Is there a link to your whole “Taxing Wealth Report 2024”. Perhaps in Key Resources > Publications. I only seem to find links to specific chapters in PDF format?
The web site will be ready very soon
Maybe tomorrow if I can tidy last bits
https://thecorbynproject.com/demands/
Prem, Cat and Corbyn on here tonight. One of the 5 demands is to build a national care service along with investing in a fully publicly funded system of healthcare.
I am sure Prem will put them right about how to fund it.
I can see that capital = wealth and so i can see how we get to talk about wealth taxes. I can see we want to avoid talking about capital because capital = capitalism and people who talk like that are always portrayed as commies.
I think it would be much better (more effective politically) if the discussion was reframed as a campaign for fair income tax.
This is why.
I recently listened to The News Agents podcast episode – We Need to Talk About Wealth. I skim read. Picketty who they referenced, but it was some time ago. They gave the example of Sunak (topical, recognisable) because most of his income is classed as a capital gain he pays what amounts to an effective rate 21% overall on the income he receives (thats as i recall they had calculated it).
I think that when most people hear wealth tax they simply imagine either higher income tax or higher property taxes or even tax on bank balances. They can easily clock overseas holdings as avoidance, and they may be ambitious – they don’t like any tax because they experience allowances being frozen and get dragged in to higher rates, when life is a struggle and services are getting catastrophically worse..
What the podcast advocated, but still lumped under the badge of a wealth tax, was in fact income tax reform i.e. treat all sources of income in the same way regardless of source – wether it is from paid employment or investment (wealth but why major on that label)
There was more in th podcast, they also talked about inheritance and not all the ideas align entirely with some of your proposals but it does bring in the very large amounts of money needed. ~Making it about fairness and income still allows aspiration and removes the “red menace” defence – that they are coming for your stuff.
I support the Enough is Enough campaign which as one of it calls on the government tax the rich – this is how to operationalise the idea. Now WTF about the Labour Party!
I do not propose a wealth tax.
Instead I propose many tax reforms.
Income tax reform is not enough.
What the central problem is that too many people believe free market capitalism automatically balances the needs of all. It does not. You actually have to constantly work hard to make that balance and that requires quite a high degree of humility.
Maybe I’m grasping at straws, but is it progress that the Guardian said ‘stabilise’ rather than ‘fund’?
“raise up to £14.5bn a year – more than enough to stabilise social care.”
Live with hope….
I have a 35 year old autistic son who is supported 24/7 by a care organisation with charity status. There is absolutely a crisis in the care sector. His carers are paid a little over £10.00 per hour. Recruitment and retention are challenging with agency workers filling shifts which is highly undesirable for individuals with learning disabilities. There is also the issue with his benefits not meeting his frugal living costs therefore required his parents to fund circa £300 per month which is not sustainable. The crisis will deepen unless radical measures are taken
All of whuich makes the Guardian linking their report to my suggestion even more sensible