I'm going to risk getting lynched, but -- speaking as someone whose only income has been carer's allowance for the last three years -- now is not the time for the government to be worrying about us. If anything we're in a position of strength because we're used to living off a very limited income, and our money is 'creamed' off the rest of the productive economy.
That economy is currently on very, very shaky ground. Millions are facing their overstretched, undersaved, precarious lives with a sense of dread, wondering if they'll have any income at all tomorrow. Under normal circumstances I'd have little sympathy. When I started work, the first thing I did was save until I could survive for a while if that job went away.. I'd struggled with nothing before and I didn't want to be in that position again. And when I got my flat, I immediately started overpaying to ensure that secure accommodation couldn't be taken off me in a hurry if my life went pear-shaped.
Ok, not everyone can or should think like that, especially if they have a family to support, and I'm not looking for a Captain Smuggo medal for self-righteousness (a gold star will do). I'm just illustrating that I have no patience at all for the modern trend to spend, spend, spend and borrow, borrow, borrow, then expect the magic money tree to pay for any problems.
But now is different. UK PLC is having a heart attack and even if covid-19 blows over quickly (unlikely!) the damage caused by -- quite rightly -- shaking the magic money tree incredibly hard, all around the world, to stabilise societies will cause problems that could dwarf the problems after the financial crash in 2008/9.
Sorry to sound so negative or lecturing or... well, like a right twit, but now is a time for all of us to count our blessings, few though they might be as dementia carers. At the moment I'd rather the supermarket workers had a pay rise, because we're learning to appreciate them in a way we never used to.
I'm biased though. I spent 25 years filling shelves and although my spine was 'glad' to have an excuse to give it up to help my mother instead, I have never been so glad to be out of that business as I am now. At the same time I feel a bit like a retired nurse, feeling that I perhaps ought to be back with my old colleagues helping them at a time of extreme stress and exhaustion (well, for the conscientious ones anyway!)
Having said all that, I am in favour of a Universal Basic Income (at about the rate of current statutory sick pay) for all which replaces all benefits including ours. That would give us a big pay rise up to £94 a week. It's expensive in the short term, and recent experiments in other countries have failed, but the vast majority of the money spent administering all the million kinds of pension and benefits would be wiped away in an instant, so it's not all lose, lose.
Right, I'm shutting up now and going back under my rock. No, actually, I'm going out to check whether the frog in the garden's ok before Mum wakes up from her post-breakfast snooze. I upended a huge tub earlier and didn't notice the frog under it until I think I stepped on it. :-(
