The true extent of the Government’s blind spot on women has been revealed. George Osborne’s Autumn Statement will hit women harder than ever.
New analysis has shown that 81 per cent of the key additional direct tax, tax credit, and benefit changes announced yesterday will come from women – that’s a shocking £867 million of the £1.065 billion raised.
As a result of these changes, working parents will see child tax credits and child benefit cut even further in real terms – and this comes on top of the previously announced real cuts in Working Tax Credits and childcare.
Maternity pay is also being raided, a move that will take £180 out of the pockets of new mums by 2015/16, making it harder for women to afford to take their full maternity leave.
Overall the changes this Government has announced since the election now mean women are paying three times as much as men to bring the deficit down, even though women still earn less and own less than men. Things like the increase in public sector pension contributions, cuts to attendance allowance and social care hit women harder too. House of Commons Library research shows that out of the total £16bn George Osborne is raising in direct tax, credit, benefit, pay and pension changes, £12bn is being paid by women.
Yet at the same time the Tories are giving a £3 billion tax cut to the richest people in the country – worth an average of £107,000 for 8,000 millionaires.
David Cameron, Nick Clegg and George Osborne all have a real problem with women. Despite repeated warnings that women are being hardest hit, the Government just keeps coming back for more. Women are paying the price for the Government’s economic failure.