The National Insurance tax increase has been an incredibly controversial move made by the Government during this tumultuous period of national and international crisis. 

Multiple blows have been dealt to the economy. Firstly, Brexit turned the international political and economic bonds that this Nation had fostered on their heads. Then, to add more fuel to an already raging fire, a global pandemic swiftly kicked the country whilst it was still down. 

Now, as we are slowly picking up the pieces, the government has decided that the working class must bear the brunt of this economic storm. It has been, and largely still is, fiercely debated as to whether or not this was the right call to make. Whilst my opinion on the issue is largely uninformed, from an economic analytic perspective, and my experiences are still vastly limited in the world at large, I feel l can speak from the experiences I have lived through and around, coming from a working-class community, specifically the Black Country.

Growing up in a community comprised of working-class folk, finances have always been a tender subject. People work long, hard hours and still have to scrimp and save to make ends meet, and our ideas of luxuries probably differ greatly to those of the typically privileged MP’s in the Government. 

It is a sad reality that our representatives in the Houses of Parliament are not all that representative of the electorate of which they serve. For example in 2020, 68% of cabinet members were privately educated (consider that nationwide approximately 7% of children in the UK are privately educated) and almost half of the members attended an Oxbridge university, according to an article written by Helen Lock in February 2020. 

It would be very hard to convince me that this Government understands such concepts of thriftiness or paying fair. Whilst the Conservative government have always had a white-knuckled grip around money, this is very different to the type of desperation thousands of families face as they live paycheck to paycheck. 

The decision to increase the National Insurance Tax in order to help finance the NHS and social care in the UK appears to be almost admirable, but upon scratching the surface it is clear that this an unfeasible endeavour to save our health and social care systems. 

As of late, there have been countless news articles capturing the increasingly desperate economic situation of society’s most financially vulnerable. For example, ‘price rises have seen the biggest jump since records began on 1997’, and the cost of living has increased by 3.2% between January and August. 

Sadly, the economic troubles do not end there. Universal Credit (designed to assist those in need) has seen a cut of £20 a week, perhaps not much to someone who was privately educated at Eton College, but this could make all the difference to families who already struggle to get by. Further, gas prices have soared by 250% this year, many householders can now expect to face a large increase in energy bills in the coming months (perhaps the worst timing now we are entering the colder portion of the year), according to the BBC.

Of course, if we are to get the Nation back on track, certain services such as the NHS must be appropriately funded. But surely the Government could have adopted a tactic which shared that burden more equally, rather than putting it on the workers who are already facing such troubling times?

I suppose it is easy to insinuate that this Government could be doing more and that there are better solutions than the one chosen for us, but in times such as these, with most people’s disposable income dwindling more and more with each coming month, I have to ask whilst we are all bailing out the NHS and Social Care services, who is bailing out society’s most financially vulnerable? 

While everyone paying National Insurance Tax prevents extremely high private health and social care, it is a method that cripples certain groups far more than others. I wonder if an MP were to receive a typical labourers wage, with all the tax deducted to live off for a fortnight or a month, they would still stand by the decision as the best possible way of funding the NHS and Social Care services. 

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