Recent polling suggests that over 60% of Isle of Wight residents worry about affording basic necessities such as food and energy.
Conversely, 9% ‘strongly disagree’ and 16% ‘mildly disagree’ that they are unable to make ends meet – 25% of the local constituency. 15% neither agreed nor disagreed.
This makes the Isle of Wight the 438th most ‘concerned’ of the 632 constituencies in England. Scotland and Wales.
Nationally, 62% state that they worry about affording basic necessities, compared with 25% who do not.
These statistics come from an Unherd Britain survey, conducted by Focaldata. The results of the survey and the methodology used can be found here.
In answer to a further question, 47% of Islanders are believed to want to see house prices fall, whereas 16% would like to see them rise. 37% are thought to be undecided.
What do Island Echo readers believe? Do you or those close to you find it difficult to afford basic necessities? Is this situation getting better or worse?
Correct me if I’m wrong but there is no mention of how many people took part, so how can we get an idea of the correct percentages?
As George Michael sang “The rich declare themselves poor, but most of us are not sure, so we take our chance as God’s not keeping score”
Now the so called poor declare that they are, to ensure playing the ‘victim’ card gains them ever more handouts, on TOP of their free or heavily subsidised rent, c.tax, free health and dental care, free school meals, even during holidays, extra funding for eating and heating, free council gym membership, extra help if they say they are ‘single’ parents yet never sleep alone and ‘manage’ by miracle to have more children whilst living a solitary life.
Add growing, dealing drugs, add working on the sly, add thousands in tax credits, and they with good income little expenditure are doing ok
It’s getting worse,council tax won’t be helping
But most of the ‘so called’ poor DON’T pay their council tax. Most of these spongers are on ‘tax credits’ or now U.C so if working just sixteen short hours a week, get their wage made up to normal levels of full time workers, AND get free rent, c.tax, prescriptions and dental care for the whole family, free school dinners even in holiday time, free uniforms, free transport to school, free gym sauna, membership extra help heating and food. etc etc
So whilst we are doing a full weeks work, these muvers are enjoying life in the gym, or lazing on a beach in the summer or sat in a coffee shop or bar in the Winter, then whinge they are broke, yet have nails and lashes and spray tans, designer clothes. SEE them as they are
Yet all IWC do is put up c/tax so it can waste public money on dozens of new cars/vans , electric charging, more staff to fleet manage them and help make car manufacturers and Enterprise car rental pay their CEOs richer whilst front line care workers and lowest paid staff have to use food banks and go without heating etc, used to be able claim mileage using own car but no more — they still have to have own car to get to/from to collect lease car as often 11pm at night . That’s IWC,take take .
Are the 9 percent that strongly disagree that making ends meet is a problem second home owners down from London by any chance ???
More likely our IOW Councillors.
There will be a lot of people in debt very shortly if not already then just watch the knock on effect.
you have got £500 coming in £600 going out you have cut back as far as you can and your £100 short this week next week it’s £200 and so on.
it just can’t go on.
this is not life it’s a poor existence
Who has £500 coming in, £600 going out? Me, realistically around 2.5k going out?
Then work harder, do a weekend shift, earn extra money by working instead of whinging your benefits don’t cover your lifestyle.
Most people struggling who receive supplementary benefits are already IN WORK on low pay.
Thanks to Tory boys like you, it’s a matter of survival with high rents, high mortgage rates, high cost of food, high energy bills.
Buy don’t worry, Uncle Ben says don’t just sleep, use that time to work more.
Ignoramus.
Weak, pathetic statement. Blame everyone else instead of looking closer to home. I came from nothing yet hard work had achieved houses, cars, holidays etc. Typical leftie, oh don’t bite the hand that feeds you. With all my taxes going on weaklings like you.
it is unfettered immigration that has created a demand for housing, that is pushing up rents. This issue wouldn’t even exist, if we simply kicked out everyone that showed up here without the means to support theirselves and hadn’t travelled through the legally recognised immigration channels
we would not have such high energy prices in the UK had the green lobby not pressured so hard to reduce nuclear a decade ago. You will of course have noted the increased global demand for coal and gas, to generate electricity, yet under investment means less supply and subsquently, higher prices and higher electric prices to the consumer
green policies about nitrogen reduction is decimating farming – higher food prices
not the tories fault
Spot on, but no one wants to hear the truth, hence the red thumbs.
Immigration of the worst kind, has ruined this country now forever, and created far more problems, and misery along with overcrowding forcing more land to be built upon.
People are so dim, they think as we have no so many imm’s here, that we are ok.
But many indigenous COME here to ‘avoid’ living in areas they no longer feel at home in.
So it does ruin the Island as well as were they settle en-masse
Prob is, the media only show them now in a good light so the masses watching the Beeb are easily fooled.
So it’s all the greens and foreigners fault then Isle of wighter? Nothing to do with 10+ years of Tories continually running down incomes then.
Haha spot the Daily Heil reader.
Brainwashed doesn’t even start to come close to your rhetoric.
“Unfettered immigration” is a complete fabrication of your own deluded mind I’m afraid. You do realise that currently there are many many more vacant jobs than there are unemployed people to fill them? Would seem almost like we have too few people in the uk? This is a direct result of all that lovely ‘freedom’ or whatever twaddle you want to to spout about Brexit.
Your point about farming is also ridiculous. Yes farming is suffering massively, suffering from the effects of withdrawing from the EU. The EU provide massive subsidies to farmers which allow them to run and to be productive.
Brexit and the Tories have decimated our country.
Err liberal – you do realise that the vast majority of farming decimation is taking place in denmark dont you and the unfettered immigration into the uk, with the hotels full of illegals, that are then farmed out around the country, filling up rentals, at taxpayer expense is the primary reason for the lack of availability of rentals for uk residents, hence prices going up
sadly liberal – your narrative and view doesn’t fit the actual facts on the ground.
I would like to point out that farmers have had it tough since 2020 due to that lab outbreak. That had a huge impact on worldwide nitrogen fertiliser production and causing an 80% increase in prices for farmers. The Russia/Ukraine conflict has exasperated it further due to Russia producing roughly 25% of the world’s fertiliser production which has now come to a virtual halt due to the conflict. Like Isle of Wighter pointed out, the Green’s policies (whenever have they been wrong, eh?) have also made an already catastrophic situation even worse.
So next time you see empty shelves and soaring prices consider those points rather than the anti-Brexit rhetoric.
The fact that comments like this get down voted so much and nasty xenophobic racist bigoted comments get up voted so much tells you a lot about the type of people we’ve got living on this island I’m afraid.
virtue signalling doesn’t put food on the shelves of the stores does it mike
Name a firm who pays overtime, or is happy for you to get a second job? Most refuse, give you time off in lieu, or fire you if you’re not their sole employer.
Very true, no overtime available, many part time jobs, need to be flexible, different hours every month, so can get a second job
drivel mark – you may have to agree that what you do outside of your contracted hours, cannot be allowed to affect your job, however, no company has any right to control what you do in your own time. The one exception is generally working for a competitor.
and nearly all companies pay overtime, as they don’t employ enough staff to cover sickness
The council tax consumes a quarter of my state pension, energy another quarter. The council needs to cut it’s cloth accordingly, there are things that we cannot afford. Get rid of some budgets and reduce the hardship.
Get rid of these tax funded parasites. Instead of having to pay up front, ie as council tax, let’s us have a non profit commercial business that, like any other business, is paid on goods delivered. The present system is open to abuse. What on the island, never.
No, stop voting Tory. The Council should not have it’s funding reduced every year so people blame them, and not the Tory Boy lining the pockets of the rich Government!
The nere do well are overpaid. Free rent, free council tax, free school meals, extra help with heating and food, no fees for dentist or prescriptions, free school transport and uniforms, and trips. Free gym membership.
Thousands in top up money from either tax credits or universal credit for working just 16hrs a WEEK, so use the rest of time to either laze around in coffee bars, pubs, free sauna’s, or beach in summer, only ‘hardship’ having to pick the kids up from school.
Many lie about being single parent to up the payments and a lot grow dope, or work on the sly to up tax free income.
Hence a nice little life for many.
If your council tax is a quarter of your state pension you must be living in a very large, expensive house. My council tax is about a tenth of the state pension. The people who are struggling are those who think they are entitled to fritter away money on non essential items like booze, fags, smartphones, stupid hairstyles, tattoos, pay TV, takeaways etc., instead of prioritising the essentials such as fresh food, energy bills, and then expect handouts for everything.
really – band A council tax is about £145 a month – state pension for an individual is max of £185.15 a week- that is about £800 a month – meaning the cheapest band for council tax is still nearly 20% of the state pension
yet another made up poll!! utter rubbish im afraid.anyway…i never got too take part or even see and im guessing noone else over here did neither or would of even bothered tbh.
apart from well off …EVERYONE is struggling.not 6 out if 10
Do you think cost of living crisis will switch people towards cycling like the crisis of the 70s did in the Netherlands?
IOW can be cycled from north to south in an hour, and already attracts tourists with cycling – so sounds like an excellent place. We just need more separated infra where people could feel safe.
My Dutch bike has TCO of £0.03pd to date, and it’s going down with every day obviously. 1 mile of 4-lane highway is an equivalent cost of 300 miles of cycling paths. Saves time and/or money (gym) on physical exercise, and saves money for NHS because people get more fit.
I think we could do it. After all Dutch started it 50 years ago with little help. We on the other hand could steal their cycling solutions for free 😉
Not to mention “cycle to work scheme” is a very cost-effective form of salary sacrifice because you can buy a bike with your pre-tax £ thus reducing tax and NI.
It saves you between 33% and 48% of the cost of your new bike, and you can still put it on 0% arrears up to 48 months if you wish to control your cash flow like that
And because it’s a 0% debt you basically earn every month when we have no deflation.
So you can buy any bike for half its price, pay less tax, pay less NI, and effectively earn on 10% inflation by having 0% debt. This can easily reduce TCO over few years to less than a penny per day even on more expensive e-bikes 😉
Do ya a favour you hippy and cycle to the Netherlands! and take you ridiculous dreams with you!! We need less morons cycling around on children’s toys, clogging up the rds, if I had the opportunity I’d ban them all!!
But the whole idea is to build separate infrastructure ready for everyday commute (not tourism) so that bikes don’t have to use roads at all?
Ah, yes. In the “Great” Britain of 21st century it is “ridiculous” to have a “dream” of… let me check, ah, yes… an extremely cheap cycle tracks so a lot of people could effectively travel for close to £0 on a tourist island that already targets cycling tourists.
About what other things should I dream? Pavements? Water?
But I do like to go do Amsterdam – it’s a cheap, short, direct flight from our SOU perfect for a weekend trip. Is it any wonder that as a small, tourist Island with beautiful views and Tour de Britain we inspire ourselves with bike-friendly Dutch design rather than Detroit?
Me: I like cycling cause it’s a healthy physical activity for close to £0 which is important during the cost of living crisis. Do you think more people could get more fit and save £££ if we had safe infrastructure?
Driver Bob: Hippy! Moron! Children’s toys! Ban them all!!!
Hon… I might be riding a kid’s toy but the only one here behaving like a kid is you.
Seriously, where are all the true men… nowadays even a mention that you like to cycle to shop for a fresh loaf of bread is breaking their fragile masculinity, lol.
Wow, so many thumbs down.
Either people really prefer to share the road with cyclists instead of having a separate cycle way – that’s very kind of you!
…or cost of living crisis really isn’t that bad as everyone is happier to spend loads more money on driving.
Either way, good news!
Excellent suggestion so we all start cycling everywhere instead of driving our cars. And all the issues we have with high rents high interest rates high energy costs high food costs etc etc will all just melt away
Of course not, what a strawman that is!
When budget goes down, people look for ways to save money. In the 70s it caused Netherlands (along with a few nasty car crashes) to look into cycling, and then they embraced it.
Making cycling more popular is not a solution to the cost of living crisis but rather cost of living crisis can be a reason for cycling to become more popular.
it’s completely other way around than what you’re saying.
The article is about the cost of living crisis and people struggling to make ends meet so me talking about high energy costs high rents high interest rates and high food costs etc is not a straw man argument is it don’t be stupid.
But much of Netherlands population is drugged and has lots of third world people involved in drug dealing and prostitution and serious crime, so NOTHING like here….Is it?
I have friends who are bring in over 60k a year into their house and yet find it very hard to make ends meet. It’s lunacy that people with good well paid jobs have to walk to work because they can not afford to get their car fixed.
clearly they are living beyond their means then and need to make cuts
Actual samples sizes for areas are not shown on the website. The total sample size for the UK was 10,009. Given that the UK population is about 65 million and IoW population is 140,000, the actual sample size for IoW from that 10,009 is about 21 people. Useless sample size and meaningless conclusions.
And what does Sandown Town Councillors do, increase the Council Tax payments for residents! Unbelievable. It’s a disgrace and should have been contested.
This isn’t an Isle of Wight poll.
It was a national poll which had only 10,009 people responding to it. That’s 10,009 out of something close to 68 million people.
By some method they call ‘Multilevel Regression with Post-stratification’ they break this number down to individual constituencies. By my calculations, which I accept could be wrong, it works out as if they asked around 20 Isle of Wight people their view and published that as a basis of what residents as a whole think.
The results may or may not be representative, but on such a low number of people questioned I don’t think anyone could claim it as a fact.
Is there an echo in the room? Already said that you daft bat.
IOW Alliance Council and all the others who add to the tax misery, will feel short-changed.
Next years target will be 9 in 10.
Do you find it hard to manage, yes, well would they say anything else, I mean when you have to toss up seven days of takeaways, 40 fags a day, the latest i phone, unlimited alcohol balanced agains finding enough money for their weed, its very stressfull
There is always goinfg to be a percentage of people who struggle financially.
I disagree with the percentage figure judging from the information from my daughter who is manager of a travel agent’s. They have never been busier. The most surprising thing was that the two busiest times were when the government paid out large amounts of money to help those on benefits. Several said we would rather spend it on going somewhere warm as nobody is going to cut their utilities off if they plead poverty.
Well the £100 increase for pensioners has been swallowed up by increases within all utilities, phones, council tax, parking charges and no doubt Road Tax along with the massive hike in food prices and even the Charity Shops are getting more expensive than Matalan Sales, I wouldn’t mind but the items are donated and tops are now 4-6 pounds minus a penny. Never have I been more grateful to my education which included Domestic Science (cooking) and Rural Studies (gardening). It is amazing what you can do with left over veg to make a decent meal. Statistics are OK if presented correctly showing how many took part, age group, and home income, if they don’t they mean nothing
I noticed most of the nail bars were full in Newport today!
Priorities I suppose!
Yeah!! So bung up the council tax! They’ll help : ( NOT
Bloody hell. It’s clear that prices have soared for bills and groceries etc for everybody. We’re all feeling the pinch for gods sake. Not everyone is skiving money grabbers on benefits. Some have to have a bit of help for short time to get back on their feet after injury or something like that. Those who do use it and abuse it fair enough. We’re struggling and we’re not rich or poor, it’s across the board to a large degree
I didn’t mean fair enough ti use anc abuse. I mean no they shouldn’t obvs