Hard Working Families

I am sure (pre-punditing the budget are we - economics ed) that the Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne is going to use that phrase during the forthcoming Budget this Wednesday.

Now, don't know about you, I have always wondered what this phrase actually means

To start with, that does, "Hard Working", mean?

• Does this means people who do their contracted hours of employment? 
• Does it mean people, who work more than their contracted hours (overtime) of employment for extra pay or for no extra pay?
• Does it mean low paid people who cannot survive on the minimum wage and so have two jobs, for example 80 hours a week security guard, the 80 hours a week cleaning woman (Reinemachefrau, name that film - entertainments ed). 

Even Wikipedia struggles to come up with what this phrase actually means.

Could we assume that, "Hard Working", means having a job that requires some kind of physical effort i.e. strength. But, this cannot be the case as, most if not all of the heavy industries of the past, that required physcial strength, rather than intelligence, have withered overthe past 50 years or so, for example coal mining down from 718,000 in the 1940's to 12,000 or so today, manufacturing jobs down from 8.7m to 2.5m.

Most jobs today are in the service sector, around 75% of the workforce, with its mostly 'clean', knowledge based office jobs, so how does, "Hard Working", fit in with this?

Are the, "Hard Workers", the ones that eat their lunch at their desks? No, they are just web browsing

Maybe, the "Hard Workers", are the workers that are more productive than their compatriots? If so, how is this determined, and more importantly how does Mr. George Osborne know who they are?

Is there a box that employers have to tick as part of the, "Red Tape",  that clogs up the arteries of UK business, for instance,

Please indicate for each member of staff whether they are a:

• Hard
• Medium
• Soft

worker?

Sounds more like they are boiled eggs! (I prefer hard boiled, mashed up with a little mayonnaise, black pepper, salt and a dash of chilli, then spread over a freshly baked pannini, hold the cress, hmmm - food ed)

Maybe the, "Hard Workers", are  just, "Hard", as in tough, people you wouldn't want to get the wrong side of, perhaps, they are the bullies, who force the rest of the workforce to keep their noses to the grindstones, (are you by any chance referring to Managers? - ed).

What is most interesting, (oh no, not that word again - ed), is that it isn't just about the workers, it is, "Hard Working Families", so presumably that includes the children as well?

Yet, again, where does Uncle George get the figures from?

Do teachers have to assess on some kind of regular basis whether the child is hard or not, and submit this information to whatever the name of the Department of Education is called this week (for non-UK readers, Ralph and Esmerelda in particular - the name of the government department that handles education is renamed on a regular basis to what end I do not know, here is the history of the department and it shows nine different names over the past 174 years, with the time between changes decreasing, much in line with the decreasing levels of literacy and numeracy in the country! - ed)

So I am totally bewilderd (are you sure - ed). I have no idea what kind of criteria the politicians use to determine that a family is hard working? I cannot for the life of me think of anything that is sensible? I can think of some rather silly criteria, but I would be worried that whaever silliness I think of might actually turn out to be the case!

So over to you, Mr. George, give us a plain spoken English version of a, "Hard Working Family", so we have some idea what on earth you and the rest of the politicians are talking about.

Afterthought
Maybe the Chancellor is simply trying to discriminate between those that work for a living and so generate taxable income for him to spend rather than those who do not generate any taxable income.

But even then, even if you don't generate any taxable income, you spend money that does generate tax for the government, see post Taxing Matters to see how much!