Squeezed middle

Who would you consider the squeezed middle, just listing to an ad from the indo who apparently are not going to champion the squeezed middle.

Your Face

Whoever's in the middle of a threesome.

qo2cj1dsne8y4k

Belongs in kneemos question thread

Fluffy Cat 88

Working people struggling to make ends meet, big mortgages, childcare, etc make it hard to make ends meet. Because they're employed there's no freebies from the government.

That's what I always considered the "squeezed middle" anyway. (Could also be used to describe me putting on my jeans )

FizzleSticks

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SEPT 23 1989

FizzleSticks wrote: »

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thats working class money not middle class

It is a real issue, but can become a handy populist rant, always suspicious when it is taken up as an issue by journalists especially by the indo.

beardybrewer

Anyone who has decided not to go to the GP because it will cost them €50.


The poor have medical card and statistically go more often than the squeezed middle. The rest are rich enough they just go.

_kookie

I think the squeezed middle would be anyone on 60 - 80k

beardybrewer

beardybrewer wrote: »

Anyone who has decided not to go to the GP because it will cost them €50.


The poor have medical card and statistically go more often than the squeezed middle. The rest are rich enough they just go.

One of my children works in the NHS in the UK and that scenario is use in an ad, because the is an ideological push to get people to pay at point of use for the NHS.

It shows someone holding up a gas bill and saying, will i go to the doctor or pay this bill.

andekwarhola

It's a valid category: generally middle earners (with the attendant expenses like health insurance, mortgages and kids to put through college) that are earning enough to pay a decent proportion of their wages at higher rate but not high-earning enough not to be hurting from a raft of stealth taxes and increasing service costs.

beardybrewer

beardybrewer wrote: »

Anyone who has decided not to go to the GP because it will cost them €50.


The poor have medical card and statistically go more often than the squeezed middle. The rest are rich enough they just go.

That is a really good point in another way as well, car's holidays music lesson all the middle class bells and whistles are a choice to an extent so very hard to quantify, but health care is not you either need it or not.

Calahonda52

Its also a well documented and peer reviewed medical condition

seamus

Anyone who has a permanent job, who manages to save very little or nothing at all on a weekly basis, and receives no direct state assistance beyond universal payments like child benefit. That's the squeezed middle. People for whom any increases in tax or the cost of living makes the largest impact.

Anyone who receives welfare benefits like rent allowance are working class, and won't feel the pinch of higher taxes or costs of goods quite so badly.

Anyone who is capable of saving a good chunk of money (10%+ of their salary) on an ongoing basis or has decent liquid assets to fall back on, is middle-upper or upper class and again doesn't feel the impact of higher taxes or costs quite so badly.

Grayson

seamus wrote: »

Anyone who has a permanent job, who manages to save very little or nothing at all on a weekly basis, and receives no direct state assistance beyond universal payments like child benefit. That's the squeezed middle. People for whom any increases in tax or the cost of living makes the largest impact.

Anyone who receives welfare benefits like rent allowance are working class, and won't feel the pinch of higher taxes or costs of goods quite so badly.

Anyone who is capable of saving a good chunk of money (10%+ of their salary) on an ongoing basis or has decent liquid assets to fall back on, is middle-upper or upper class and again doesn't feel the impact of higher taxes or costs quite so badly.

Working class isn't someone who can't afford to support themselves. That's just poverty.

OldNotWIse

Grayson wrote: »

Working class isn't someone who can't afford to support themselves. That's just poverty.

Poverty is working and having fúck all to show for it.

The Rape of Lucretia

The squeezed middle are just those who want to be in the middle, but have not accepted the reality that they cannot afford to be in the middle. They are middle class wannabes in otherword, not a true middle. Their stress come from aspirations of, or actual, living beyond their means.

Fratton Fred

The Rape of Lucretia wrote: »

The squeezed middle are just those who want to be in the middle, but have not accepted the reality that they cannot afford to be in the middle. They are middle class wannabes in otherword, not a true middle. Their stress come from aspirations of, or actual, living beyond their means.

That's bollocks to be honest.

It's the ones that, for several reasons, earn too much for Richard Boyd Barret to care about, but not enough for Fine Gael to give a **** about.

The ones struggling to pay USC, mortgages fees for school books etc and getting no freebies.

RobertKK

Fratton Fred wrote: »

That's bollocks to be honest.

It's the ones that, for several reasons, earn too much for Richard Boyd Barret to care about, but not enough for Fine Gael to give a **** about.

The ones struggling to pay USC, mortgages fees for school books etc and getting no freebies.

Speaking of bollocks, when bulls are squeezed they become bullocks.

Permabear

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Pim Pictus

Fratton Fred wrote: »

That's bollocks to be honest.

It's the ones that, for several reasons, earn too much for Richard Boyd Barret to care about, but not enough for Fine Gael to give a **** about.

The ones struggling to pay USC, mortgages fees for school books etc and getting no freebies.

You had me until "fees for schools". The only people paying school fees are people that have lots of money anyway.

seamus

Pim Pictus wrote: »

You had me until "fees for schools". The only people paying school fees are people that have lots of money anyway.

You may have missed the word "books" there - "fees for school books".

Though I would disagree with your assertion that people payign school fees have "lots" of money. They're not struggling, but they're often not rolling in it either, and they're making sacrifices to pay those school fees.

DEFTLEFTHAND

Who represents the 'squeezed middle' in Irish politics? They just trundle along like little worker bees keeping the country afloat and nobody in the Dail gives a crap about them.

mohawk

The Rape of Lucretia wrote: »

The squeezed middle are just those who want to be in the middle, but have not accepted the reality that they cannot afford to be in the middle. They are middle class wannabes in otherword, not a true middle. Their stress come from aspirations of, or actual, living beyond their means.

Wannabes

Mortgages/rent, childcare, bills, transport costs are necessities.

Two people working should be able to support a family and save every month.

Look a cost of buying or renting a 3 bed in Dublin. It is hardly fair to say people are stressing because of their aspirations.

The Rape of Lucretia

mohawk wrote: »

Wannabes

Mortgages/rent, childcare, bills, transport costs are necessities.

Two people working should be able to support a family and save every month.

Look a cost of buying or renting a 3 bed in Dublin. It is hardly fair to say people are stressing because of their aspirations.

If two people are working, then they can support a family. What is out of kilter making them feel 'squeezed' is their view of the standard of living they should be supporting. Probably spending too much on the mortgage, maybe shouldnt have had as many children, too many bills, unnecessarily high bills, unneccessarily expensive transport. Save every month ? Why should they be able to do that ?
Its not that they are stressing because of their aspirations, rather, that they are living some of the aspiration rather than just aspiring to it, or, unwilling to down scale from a previously affordable situation to one that matches changed circumstances.
This syndrome has been widespread in Ireland over the last 10 years. Now they feel they need someone else to recognise them as an unfairly put upon group who are being squeezed by others. And the Indo feels it can take up the banner for them. Cry me a river.

GerryDerpy

Scobes to the left of me, snobs to the right, here I am, stuck in the middle with you.

The Rape of Lucretia

GerryDerpy wrote: »

Scobes to the left of me, snobs to the right, here I am, stuck squeezed in the middle with you.

FYC

riclad

Squeezed middle are middle earners, who are on paye, pay high tax,s ,usc etc
but are over the limit for a medical card ,or any benefits like
student grants .
They may be paying high rent, but its hard to get a mortgage and save for
a deposit .
rents are going up,taxes are high.
People on higher incomes can buy a house and invest in other schemes to reduce their tax bill .
Maybe they have high childcare bills ,but cant afford to take a few years
off work .
they may be on 40k plus wages ,buy they have little left over after paying all the bills etc
They may have bought a house for 200k thats now worth 120k.

Squeezed middle refers to the anguish felt by the lower-middle classes, for having so far acquiesced to the notion that a society run in the interests of workers would be prejudiced against the lower-middle-class's prospects for wealth accumulation, find themselves unable to accumulate wealth in a society run by the wealthy.

In short, it is anguish in the face of the failure of what they have always believed, that if you work hard in life, you will accumulate wealth and security.

The answer to the despair of the 'squeezed middle' is inevitably (and fallaciously) one of enhanced liberalism, lower taxes for corporations, smaller government, and so on.

The middle class is the most powerful economic bloc in society. They, above anyone, have created this crisis (insofar as a hefty VHI bill is a crisis, relatively speaking) for themselves. Short-term, narrow-minded, selfish behaviour created this.

zl1whqvjs75cdy

These threads always depress me cause they make me feel poor.

Colser

Shout out also for the self employed ..often seen as raking in in but after paying public liability,tax,van expenses etc would often be better off unemployed financially...can't afford to get sick and no assistance when work is slack.

Bonzo Delaney

Colser wrote: »

Shout out also for the self employed ..often seen as raking in in but after paying public liability,tax,van expenses etc would often be better off unemployed financially...can't afford to get sick and no assistance when work is slack.

True and after every year you say to your self next year has to be better and just as things pick up a little bit and you start to get a bit of confidence going all the running costs of your business go up and your back to square one again saying hopefully next year will be better it's a viscous circle.

Ireland is such a small close knit place where most people would have all walks of society in their immediate family/ circle of friends , are we becoming so west Britain that a class system is been applied here. Hopefully not. I quiet like the idea that I can go to the pub or a match and be in the same company as the local scrounger or doctor ,wealthy farmer or struggling worker and all have a mutual respect for one another or is that just a country thing.

lawlolawl

The squeezed middle pretty much pay for a load of things that they aren't "entitled" to and it makes a difference to how they live their lives unlike really wealthy people who pay a lot but don't care because it's a drop in the ocean or people who are "disadvantaged" who will never really pay for anything and yet they get the benedfits of everything that their betters pay for.

Social mobility in this country is a joke because it just means you end up paying more tax so scummers can do **** all with their lives. I pay nigh on 50% tax on any overtime i work and i'm only slightly over the average national wage.

I'm eternally glad some useless **** gets the money i worked for because he spunked in his equally useless woman and now the government decides i should pay their bills for them.

Pim Pictus

seamus wrote: »

You may have missed the word "books" there - "fees for school books".

Though I would disagree with your assertion that people payign school fees have "lots" of money. They're not struggling, but they're often not rolling in it either, and they're making sacrifices to pay those school fees.

You're right, I did miss the books bit.

I do think that if you can't afford or have to make sacrifices to the extent where you feel "squeezed" you should be availing of our excellent public school system.

Fratton Fred

A Tyrant Named Miltiades! wrote: »

Squeezed middle refers to the anguish felt by the lower-middle classes, for having so far acquiesced to the notion that a society run in the interests of workers would be prejudiced against the lower-middle-class's prospects for wealth accumulation, find themselves unable to accumulate wealth in a society run by the wealthy.

In short, it is anguish in the face of the failure of what they have always believed, that if you work hard in life, you will accumulate wealth and security.

And whose failure is it?

Is working hard to create a better one for your family a failure? Should everyone just decide that their career is pointless, Jack it in and develop a heroine addiction, or is the state failing to help those people realise their dreams?

**** it, I often look at the lucky professionally unemployed and wish I could spend all day in the pub and let someone else pay for things that are my responsibility, but my own self respect prevents me from doing that.

**** em, why should I pay for someone else's poor life choices.

Pitstop Pete

mariaalice wrote: »

Who would you consider the squeezed middle, just listing to an ad from the indo who apparently are not going to champion the squeezed middle.

Wha are you on about Chief? Are ye talking about womens corsets or what?!

Arcade_Tryer

Fratton Fred wrote: »

**** it, I often look at the lucky professionally unemployed and wish I could spend all day in the pub and let someone else pay for things that are my responsibility, but my own self respect prevents me from doing that.

Nonsense.

Nothing to do with self respect, and everything to do with trade offs and desired standard of living.