work, as well as those people who aren t working. steph, what do you make of that defence from government ministers? in the round, you guys have set out some pretty scary sounding things that are coming down the track for people. but in the round, how do you think the government s defence stacks up? we ve talked in the past - about the big mountain of savings that a lot of households came out of covid with, which was going. into hundreds of billions of pounds of savings that people had got, - in large part because they were not spending on restaurants and otherl things during lockdowns. that means that in the round, . they re in a much better position than they might normally be in, the typical uk household, - to have this squeeze i coming down the track. that s another reason why you might say national insurance is not - the thing to reverse. it would ve been better to have had an income tax rise, -
it s interesting. clearly, this is going to be a real hit for a lot of people, but when you ask the government about it, when they say they have to find the money somehow for the nhs and social care, and secondly, government ministers say actually, average wages have been going up. the minimum wage is going up. they have also changed the taper rate on universal credit so there is a bit more generosity into the top up payments on low paid work, as well as those people who aren t working. steph, what do you make of that defence from government ministers? in the round, you guys have set out some pretty scary sounding things that are coming down the track for people. but in the round, how do you think the government s defence stacks up? we ve talked in the past about the big mountain of savings that a lot of households came out of covid with, which was - going into hundreds