cleggeron corporate tax cuts

JasonLVC

chucky wrote: »

i'm not a fan of a bloated public sector but i read something the other day that 70p in the £1 of public sector take home pay get's spent in the local economy.

i'd like to see if this is the case in the private sector. as salaries are higher here i can't see it being anywhere close to this.

I'm not trying to correct you on this, you already said you "read something somewhere" so appreciate you're posting from the hip so to speak.

The 70p in the Pound was a stat from The Mirror's "Buy British" campaign last year and the figures were 'sourced' from The Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) which don't mention their source of that stat anywhere on their website. Strange, considering it was their campaign.

The actual quote from the FSB was that "The figures show that up to 70p in a pound spent in a small business will go straight back into the local economy in which it works"....which suggests the statement refers to all spending by consumers locally, not just public sector workers spending £1 in the corner shop.

Chinese whispers indeed......next someone will be telling me that CT rates are going to be cut;):D

chucky

ILW wrote: »

Bottom line.
Without a profitable private sector, there is no public sector.
Not the other way round.

a profitable private sector benefiting from lower taxes is one thing.

a profitable benefiting from lower taxes and investment orientated private sector is another.

we need the latter, you're not guaranteed that with the tories, maybe the Lib Dems but not the tories.

Kohoutek

lemonjelly wrote: »

With the tories in, each day it seems more & more like the private sector got us into this situation. It will be the public sector that bails us out.

That's a huge oversimplification though - you can't seriously believe it was the whole 'private sector' that got us into this situation? Probably 99% of the private sector in the UK contributed nothing towards causing the global financial crisis.

chucky

JasonLVC wrote: »

I'm not trying to correct you on this, you already said you "read something somewhere" so appreciate you're posting from the hip so to speak.

i wasn't claiming it was true by the way - it's an interesting point though.
from a quick google the sources are a bit biased but there is/must be some truth in it i guess.

i've read it a few times now, most recently heard it quoted on Panorama.

"We know that for every £1 a public sector worker earns they spend 70p in their local community. Any squeeze on their pay will put a stranglehold on local businesses and services, cutting off much needed income."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/cornwall/8553487.stm
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/chancellor-angers-unions-over-public-sector-pay-cap-1837019.html
http://www.journallive.co.uk/north-east-news/todays-news/2010/05/19/union-chief-david-prentis-warns-of-black-monday-61634-26474055/
http://www.salmayaqoob.com/2010/05/for-every-1-public-sector-worker-earns.html

ILW

Kohoutek wrote: »

That's a huge oversimplification though - you can't seriously believe it was the whole 'private sector' that got us into this situation? Probably 99% of the private sector in the UK contributed nothing towards causing the global financial crisis.

Much of the crises was worsened by governments spending more than they were taking in to spend on the public sector. It had to hit the buffers at some point.

Kohoutek

I find it hard to believe that 70% of their income after tax goes to the local community and local businesses. I would have thought a large chunk of people's income, private sector or public sector goes towards shopping at supermarkets (big retail companies), paying a mortgage (big banks), and petrol (big oil companies).

chucky

Kohoutek wrote: »

I find it hard to believe that 70% of their income after tax goes to the local community and local businesses. I would have thought a large chunk of people's income, private sector or public sector goes towards shopping at supermarkets (big retail companies), paying a mortgage (big banks), and petrol (big oil companies).

i find it hard to believe too, i'm just quoting what i had read.

don't forget public sector workers are paid less well and would tend to not have a mortgage and not drive a big car that consumes petrol. they would spend more on consumables, paying more towards VAT etc...
that may be a generalisation and a very broad statement but you get where i'm going.

70% off of their take home pay is a lot to believe though.

Thrugelmir

chucky wrote: »

i find it hard to believe too, i'm just quoting what i had read.

don't forget public sector workers are paid less well and would tend to not have a mortgage and not drive a big car that consumes petrol. they would spend more on consumables, paying more towards VAT etc...
that may be a generalisation and a very broad statement but you get where i'm going.

70% off of their take home pay is a lot to believe though.

Average public sector pay is 9% higher than the private sector.

Also public sector employees receive pensions which many private sector employees have to self fund.

So your generalisation isn't the real world of the 99% of the Companies in the UK which are small and medium sized.

Kohoutek

Maybe the original quote in BBC article was only intended to cover Cornwall - I can believe that just about, it's a very poor part of the country and they live obviously differently out than urban areas of the UK, much more of a focus on small communities.

JasonLVC

No worries Chuky - as I posted, not having a go at you or your post, just interested in the actual statement and its origins.

Sounds to me like a distinct case of QI itis. That is, a simple error is repeated, contorted, changed and then becomes fact.

Doing a quick Google of the phrase "70p in the pound" brings up interesting stuff like :-

the government take 70p in the pound on every gallon of petrol you buy -
http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/news/article.html?in_article_id=432398&in_page_id=2

the government take 70p in the pound from 500,000 low income families as a result of benefit changes - http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:GEnuVXUEo0wJ:www.independent.co.uk/opinion/when-it-pays-to-be-single-while-the-tories-castigate-lone-mothers-the-benefits-system-seems-to-encourage-them-says-mary-campbell-1510748.html+70p+in+the+pound,+statistics&cd=7&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk

Dorset Fire Authority were informed that the Treasury would only be able to recover 70p in the pound from Icelandic Banks -
http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:RoYhafniD9kJ:www.dorsetfire.co.uk/uploads/file/MINSFEB10(1).pdf+70p+in+the+pound,+statistics&hl=en&gl=uk&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESjBKHtmVNsea19agpGWMj4JxGJ2AO3H5zdQlqT7AvK3v9z9ZXrn5bEfYyjhmxB6lOLx0flQ8zTuK2G-3_WxaG0LKK-ATzFRs9UCQtldPRNu69j6Av24kxAvKPnKsz5cT30OMOJV&sig=AHIEtbQ23BdxDucdMkKWCwv0LWlJVEn2LQ

Polly Tonybee mentions that public sector workers earn about 70p less an hour than private sector workers (which destroys the argument public sector workers are paid less than private sector workers, but that's for another day ) - http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:t9A1FWDI7EIJ:www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jul/06/public-sector-private-pay+70p+in+the+pound,+public+sector+workers&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk

This 70p in the £ statistic is quite popular isn't it? I may change my username to 70p£ as it'll improve my popularity no end here on MSE:D

and then after all that, we get to the 'source' of this factual statistic :-

http://www.journallive.co.uk/north-east-news/todays-news/2010/05/19/union-chief-david-prentis-warns-of-black-monday-61634-26474055/

"Mr Prentis (that is David Prentis of the Unison union) added: “It is not just public sector workers, this will be felt much wider than that. For every pound they earn around 70p is spent locally, so it is just as likely to be local businesses that feel the pinch.

Maybe the Unison website will give a bit more detail on the subject....http://www.unison.org.uk/asppresspack/pressrelease_view.asp?id=1857 .....nope, just Mr Prentiss makes the statement and so it becomes fact.

I suspect that 60% of the time, the statistics are 100% accurate and that for every 70p spent in the £1... 40p of that goes to people who earn less than 25% of the minimum average.:D