The UK government has released a report stating that the cost of living in Britain is not as high as people claim. What do you think?
The cost of living calculator is a website that allows users to input their claims and find out how much they are worth. It also gives the amount of tax, cost of living, and pay for each claim.
News from the Reality Check team
picture credit: Jessica Taylor/UK Parliament
While Boris Johnson was abroad in the United States, Dominic Raab, his deputy, took his place at Prime Minister’s Questions.
Some of the allegations he – and Labour’s deputy leader Angela Rayner – made have been examined.
‘Because of our engagement with the US, they have instantly given us the boost to trade and companies by resuming travel from the UK to the US,’ said Dominic Raab.
Mr Raab was replying to Labour’s charge that the prime minister had made “zero progress” in achieving a free trade agreement between the UK and the US.
True, President Biden announced the move yesterday, but it wasn’t limited to the United Kingdom.
The resumption of travel into the United States begins in November for fully vaccinated citizens from 33 nations.
China, India, Brazil, and the majority of the European Union are among them.
‘His administration decided to reduce the income of a worker on £18,000 a year by almost £1,100,’ Angela Rayner said.
This is Labour’s most recent assessment of how the cuts to Universal Credit and the increase in the rate of National Insurance (NI) next year would impact employees.
The removal of the £20 per week ‘uplift’ to Universal Credit would bring the total to £1,040.
A worker earning £18,000 a year will pay an additional £105 in NI starting in April, as part of a hike to help finance health and social services.
‘We’ve got increasing employment and rising earnings, which will help everyone,’ Dominic Raab says.
Employee numbers are slowly returning to pre-pandemic levels.
Wages have risen as well. According to the Office for National Statistics, average total pay increased by 8.3% from May to July this year compared to the same time last year.
However, not everyone will profit from this, according to the ONS, who claims that the increase is due to two transitory impacts.
The first is shown in the graph above. People were furloughed in the early months of the epidemic, which meant their pay was cut in many instances or they worked fewer hours. The yearly numbers we’re seeing today are compared to early in the epidemic, resulting in a larger pay rise.
The other is that during the epidemic, more low-wage workers lost their employment than high-wage workers, resulting in an increase in average earnings.
Clearly, some individuals have seen their salaries rise lately, such as HGV drivers, but this does not mean that everyone has benefitted.
According to the Resolution Foundation, the public sector pay freeze affects 2.6 million employees, who will not benefit from increasing salaries and will have their purchasing power eroded by rising inflation.
picture credit: Jessica Taylor/UK Parliament
‘The government has abolished the zero-carbon house requirement and lost the storage facility that stored three-quarters of our gas,’ says Angela Rayner.
Angela Rayner accused the administration of a slew of energy-related missteps.
She is correct in claiming that the Green Homes Grant, which provided families with up to £10,000 in subsidies to build insulation or low-carbon heating, was scrapped in March 2021, after only six months.
By 2016, all new houses would have been carbon neutral thanks to the zero-carbon dwelling standard. It was canceled in 2015, which we’ve already discussed as a failed promise.
Instead, the government has set a new deadline of 2025 for new houses to be “zero-carbon ready.”
The Rough gas storage facility, which was responsible for 70% of the UK’s gas storage capacity and was located off the coast of Yorkshire in the North Sea, was decommissioned in 2017.
‘We reduced income tax, saving every worker £1,200 a year,’ Dominic Raab said.
Since 2008, the basic rate of income tax has been 20%; the deputy prime minister is referring to the personal allowance, which is the amount of money you may earn before you have to pay income tax.
The personal allowance was £6,475 when the coalition government took office in 2010. It has now risen to £12,570, implying that you may earn an additional £6,095 each year without paying any income tax. The basic rate of income tax is 20%, therefore £6,095 divided by 20% is £1,219.
For many employees, this is a significant tax reduction. However, not every employee will save £1,200. People who make less than £12,570 per year or more than £100,000 per year will save less.
The personal allowance will be frozen for the next four years, according to the chancellor.
‘He’s whining about having to share his 115-room taxpayer-funded home with the foreign secretary,’ Angela Rayner said.
This is a reference to Chevening House, a rural retreat popular with foreign secretaries in Kent.
As Mr Raab pointed out, Angela Rayner is incorrect in claiming that it is financed by the public.
Chevening was handed to the government as a gift in 1959, and its operating expenses are covered by a Trust funded by a bequest from Lord Stanhope, the property’s previous owner.
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The cost of living salary calculator is a website that allows users to input their information and get an estimate on how much they will spend in taxes, salaries, and cost of living.
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