“SOAK THE RICH”

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 66, Issue 5601, 5 April 1943, Page 5

“SOAK THE RICH”

INCREASED COST OF LIVING “Soon ‘Soak the Rieh’ as a political slogan will be as out of date as is ‘Three Acres and a Cow’—for the rich are disappearing,” Said Mr Emry’a Jbnes in th e “Daily Mail.” “Sit Kingsley Wood tells that of the 10,500,000 people paying income tax.in Britain only 106,250 have. £lO or more in their pockets each week after paying tax. Then the number of net incomes between £lOOO and £2OOO has fallen since 1938 from 155,000 to 106,000; between £4OOO and £6OOO from 12,000 to a mere 1170. These figures are startling enough, but Sir Kingsley does not here look at the story behind these groups of figures—especially the first section of the second group, the people who were, and still are learning between £lOOO and £2OOO a year. Vast numbers of them are earning now what they earned in 1938. They have not increased their salaries, though the cost of living has gone up. Further, they have the same commitments —comparatively high rents which they could afford to pay in 1938, perhaps hire-purchase agreements, and almost certainly insurance premiums—which still have to be met on a reduced amount of ‘spendable’ cash. Therefore, this class is worse off than those people who were on a lower pre-war standard of living but have had increases to meet the rising cost of living;”