Spring budget's tax cuts risk deepening women's burden amidst austerity which the country simply cannot afford
5 March 2024, 07:43
- Viktoria Szczypior works for the Women's Budget Group, the UK's leading feminist economics think tank
The Chancellor's rumoured tax cuts at the expense of investment in public services in this week's Spring Budget spell disaster, especially for women.
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We know from over a decade of austerity that when essential services are slashed, it has a triple-whammy effect on women. Women shoulder the bulk of unpaid care work, they rely more on public services, and they also make up the majority of its workforce.
Women also tend to fill in the gaps left behind by spending cuts with their own unpaid work, often at the expense of their own income.
Tax cuts also disproportionately favour men and high-income households while draining crucial resources from public services.
This was evidenced in the Autumn Statement last year with the 2pp cut to NICs from which lone mothers have benefited the least.
If the Chancellor chooses to cut NICs again this week, it would be another transfer from wallet to purse.
Taking 1pp off NICs would mean a £40 increase in net pay per year for a lone mother, compared to £156 for single men and £298 for a childless couple.
On average, men would gain 9.4% more per year from the cut than women. And the costs to the public purse would disproportionately fall on women.
This also makes no economic sense. Dismantling the very foundations keeping our economy running while undermining people’s ability to sustain themselves and others, will inevitably further weaken the economy and erode living standards.
We know that these cuts aren’t what the public wants.
People in the UK recognise that taxes are the fair contribution they make to fund our vital social infrastructure, and they are far more desperate to see their loved ones taken care of and to find a nursery place for their child than they are for a marginal tax cut.
The cost-of-living crisis is far from over, and women remain the shock absorbers of poverty.
The Chancellor may claim that we’ve turned a corner, but we know that millions of women and low-income households up and down the country continue to struggle, at the same time as cost-of-living payments are ending.
Instead of tinkering with tax rates that will hardly make a difference to people’s wallets in order to roll out another round of austerity, the Government should prioritise investment where it's needed most: in our crumbling social infrastructure and to provide better support to the most vulnerable households.
We simply cannot afford more austerity.
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