Budget measures

The impact on households

The Chancellor announced that the measures introduced in this and previous Budgets and Pre-Budget Reports support the government’s objectives of promoting work and tackling child and pensioner poverty. The 2008 Pre-Budget Report announced the bringing forward of Child Benefit uprating to January 2009 and future year increases to Child Tax Credit to help families with children.

Working-age taxpayers also gain from personal tax measures announced in the Pre-Budget Report. This Budget announces measures to support pensioner households including an additional payment of £50 (£100 if someone is aged 80 or over) paid alongside the Winter Fuel Payment in 2009/10 and an increase to the amount of savings that pensioners are allowed to hold without it affecting their benefit payments.

This Budget also announced measures on individuals that contribute towards the consolidation of the public finances in the medium term. These measures largely impact on those who can afford to pay, people with the top 2 per cent of taxable incomes.

As a result of measures announced in this and previous Budgets and Pre-Budget
reports in 2009/10, compared with 2008/09:

households will be better off by £10, on average;

households in the poorest fifth are better off by £25, on average; and

families with children are better off by £90, with those in the poorest fifth of the population better off by £175 on average.

As a result of personal tax and benefit measures introduced since 1997 by April 2011:

households will be £1,550 per year better off, on average; and

households with children will be £2,350 per year better off, on average, and those in the poorest fifth of the population £4,750 per year better off, on average.