Latest news with #economicwellbeing
The Independent
01-08-2025
- Business
- The Independent
Six tips to ensure a more financially secure 2026
Though 2026 might seem a distant prospect, the financial decisions made today are pivotal, shaping your economic well-being for years to come. Whether you aim to rebuild savings, finally venture into investments, or simply understand the monetary landscape ahead, experts agree. Even small, immediate actions yield significant long-term benefits. Here are six practical steps to foster a more robust financial outlook for 2026. 1. Get clear on your financial priorities There's no point trying to manage your money if you haven't defined what you're managing it for. One of the most impactful moves you can make in 2025 is to know what your intentions are. 'Write down your own financial priorities in life – whether it is being debt free, helping your children, or having enough money to retire – and allocate a specific amount of your disposable income to these priorities,' explains Iain McLeod, head of private clients at St. James's Place. From there, McLeod says it's worth getting expert help if you're unsure: 'Seek financial advice to ensure that these savings are working harder for you – from a taxation and investment perspective. 'The worst move is to do nothing,' he says, 'the second worst move is to follow a flow chart – everyone's circumstances are as unique as their fingerprint.' With inflation still above the Bank of England's target and interest rates holding at 4.25 per cent, it's easy to feel stuck between stockpiling cash and making big purchases before prices rise again. But timing the market or second-guessing interest rate decisions isn't the point. 'The best approach is to focus on what you can control,' says McLeod. 'Once you have balanced how much you would like to spend and how much you can afford to save, you are in a stronger position to commit savings to longer-term investments. This provides the foundation of a longer-term plan, which can be resilient against shorter-term shocks in the markets.' Or, as TrinityBridge' s financial planner James Ballinger puts it: '2025 is no different from any other time […] Generally, if you are younger in age or still haven't reached financial independence, you should be looking to maximise savings and investments – whilst still enjoying life!' If you're new to investing, don't get distracted by market noise or get-rich-quick stocks. Instead, think about what you already have in place. 'The best area to start is always with cash,' says McLeod. 'How much do you need readily available at the bank for emergencies such as house repairs, large expenditures such as holidays, or simply an amount that gives peace of mind?' From there, longer-term goals should drive your strategy. 'Start with the end in mind – how much do you realistically need to save in order to meet your retirement goals?' he explains. And whatever your level, 'diversification should be a core principle […] it is generally the safest way to achieve longer-term investment goals'. Ballinger agrees that the mechanics don't need to be complicated. ' ISAs and pensions are both tax-efficient ways to save for the future,' he says, 'more basic than that, having a separate bank account that you earmark for saving, can help to avoid overspend.' 4. Rebuilding your savings without feeling skint If you dipped into your savings recently, you're not alone – but getting back on track doesn't have to mean cutting out everything you enjoy. 'A lot of planners will talk about 'paying yourself first',' says Ballinger, referring to the habit of setting up an automatic transfer into savings the moment you're paid. 'This creates discipline and forces you to adapt to your remaining budget through the rest of the month.' Budgeting tools can help. Ebony Cropper, money-saving expert at Money Wellness, suggests using banking apps or online tools to track where your money is really going. ' People are often surprised to find they're spending hundreds a month on things they don't actually need, like forgotten subscriptions, daily coffees or impulse buys. Just cutting £5 a day could save over £1,800 a year.' 5. Don't ignore the changes coming in 2025 and beyond From tax thresholds to pension rules, the financial landscape is constantly shifting – and not necessarily in your favour. 'The 2024 autumn Budget introduced a number of changes that could impact savers in the future,' says McLeod. Capital Gains Tax has risen, and from April 2025, the Stamp Duty threshold in England and Northern Ireland dropped from £250,000 to £125,000. 'First-time buyers will also be impacted, with their stamp duty threshold dropping significantly from £425,000 to £300,000.' Even more significantly, he adds that 'unused pension funds and death benefits will be included in the value of a person's estate for Inheritance Tax from 6 April 2027.' If that affects you, it's time to speak to a financial adviser. Ballinger notes that there's likely another government Budget coming in autumn, as he says, 'we may see further changes to tax then'. 6. Make the most of what's already out there But don't let what's to come send you into a state of panic. There are still government schemes and benefits going under the radar. 'Over £23bn in benefits goes unclaimed every year,' says Cropper. Even higher earners could qualify for support depending on childcare or housing costs. 'Someone earning £30,000 with two kids and high childcare costs could be entitled to hundreds of pounds in support.' She also recommends cashback schemes and checking your tax code, noting that 'errors can cost you hundreds'. And for those with modest means, she says the Help to Save scheme is a no-brainer: 'Save £50 a month and you'll get £600 in bonus payments over two years – and £1,200 if you keep it going for four. That's a 50 per cent return, completely risk-free.' Ultimately, the financial habits you build now – from budgeting smarter to using tax wrappers wisely – will pay off not just in 2026, but well beyond. As McLeod says: 'The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.'
Bloomberg
09-06-2025
- Business
- Bloomberg
Europe Must Defend Rule of Law Standards, ECB's Elderson Says
Europe can foster economic well-being and help increase the euro's global role by adhering to and even strengthening rule of law standards, European Central Bank Executive Board member Frank Elderson said. The European Union is 'a beacon of legal certainty, strong institutions and the protection of fundamental rights,' he said Monday in a speech at the Italian Constitutional Court in Rome, emphasizing that the connection between this principle and a thriving economy is 'well established.'
Yahoo
07-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Wake me up when we're not in a recession — the economy has felt broken for decades
Some top economists are anticipating a recession. And while a certain degree of such economic criticism can be understood as partisan, both on the part of academics and consumers, statements from the Federal Reserve chairman reflect a more cautionary outlook. However, for regular Americans who are politically independent and make around or below median income, the status of the economy is a much less important question than long-running trends of economic well-being. From the perspective of most Americans, either a recession is coming or has already started, because the running consensus for normal people is that the economy is bad —and maybe more importantly, has been bad for a while. Nearly all long-run economic polling data or qualitative study on economic well-being conclude that most Americans exist in a nearly permanent state of economic dissatisfaction, though not always in an outright crisis. For most people, the economy is primarily characterized by some mix of low wages, costly bills and a dwindling supply of good jobs and opportunities. A chorus of survey data consistently reports that Americans view the economy as getting continuously worse, with those findings often extending as far back as the data sets have existed. There is no shortage of alarming statistics to validate those concerns: Wages have been mostly stagnant, the cost of living continues to rise, small businesses are disappearing, medical debt is increasing, the median age of homebuyers continues to rise and higher education now often requires mortgage-level debt. For those without savings, retiring comfortably seems tenuous, with many seniors choosing to work part-time and younger families delaying parenthood due to economic concerns. And this is without any mention of the more recent and specific concerns like the rising gig economy or the effects of technological advancements. While some statistics paint a more optimistic picture — especially when the data is carefully selected and narrowly framed — it is important to centerpiece that most people evaluate the economy in broad, intuitive terms. For many, questions about the economy are much less about the exact statistics that a field expert will focus on, like the year-over-year marginal changes in log-scaled disposable income, and much more about fundamental questions: Is this the life that I hoped for? Am I better off than my forefathers? Can I comfortably afford a home, a family and the dreams of my children? Is the future getting brighter or darker? The well-being of the economy is evaluated holistically and continuously over the life cycle, not quarterly and technical. The economic well-being of ordinary people ought to be a central concern of the economics profession. Yet, despite the importance of this issue, there is no universally accepted metric that fully captures its complexity, and in practice many economists are often much more focused on narrow questions that can infer causation, publish well and advance tenure. While many assume economists are primarily focused on addressing these holistic affordability challenges, the reality is that this area often remains underexplored. Many economists continue to rely on topline macroeconomic indicators, despite privately acknowledging that affordability challenges — such as high rent, expensive child care and rising daily costs —remain central personal concerns. The economy is often assessed at the aggregate level, with statistics like gross domestic product, instead of a distributional focus that characterizes the experience at the low-end or for the broad swath of people in the middle of the income distribution. Though hard to define, economic well-being should at least measure whether individuals of average incomes can afford to live securely, purchase homes, raise families and retire with dignity. The recent interest in recessions, and by extension most contemporary economic evaluations, is informed by some degree of partisanship, but most Americans are somewhat independent and their concerns over affordability are longstanding. For normal people, the prospect of a recession is secondary to questions over personal finance. For most families, the state of the economy is not captured in GDP figures or trade deficit data; it is a more sentimental understanding, more related to the trade-off between rising grocery prices and piano lessons for your kid. It is your wife having to take up a second shift to pay for daycare, the inability of your mother to retire and the degree of stress about the order in which a family pays bills to avoid late charges. Economists and policymakers need to appreciate that most Americans have long concluded that wages are too low, bills are too high and good jobs are too hard to find. Whether there is a recession misses the larger point: The economy is bad.
National Post
31-05-2025
- Business
- National Post
Bell: Danielle Smith and Alberta give Mark Carney an offer he shouldn't refuse
It is a letter. A five-page letter. Article content You could call it THE letter. Whatever happens with this letter will play a big, big part in Alberta's place in Canada going forward. Article content It is dated May 16, signed by Alberta Premier Danielle Smith and addressed to Prime Minister Mark Carney. Article content On Monday, June 2, this letter will be on the table when Carney sits down with the premiers in Saskatoon. Article content Article content Before Smith gets around to making her offer, she begins her letter to Carney talking about how what Alberta wants will 'address serious issues plaguing Canada's economic well-being and the very real sense of alienation felt across the West.' Article content Article content This is serious stuff. Alberta has had more than enough. Article content She says Asian customers in Japan and South Korea have told her they believe Canada needs to 'accelerate market access of our oil, LNG, ammonia and critical minerals faster.' Article content 'We must build on what TMX delivered by creating another pipeline that delivers similar economic uplift, jobs, opportunities for reconciliation and Canadian security.' Article content Article content The premier says an oil pipeline has to be on Carney's list of nation-building projects to be fast-tracked. Article content It will also … and read between these lines … 'send an unwelcome signal to Albertans concerned about Ottawa's commitment to national unity.'
The Australian
23-05-2025
- Business
- The Australian
Coming of age in time of leadership decline
US President Donald Trump. Free-ish trade, amid so much else, won't survive a major war or even sustained, long-term rearmament, so others must try to meet the challenges long left to the US for a modicum of peace to last. Picture: AFP You can now listen to The Australian's articles. Give us your feedback. You can now listen to The Australian's articles. There's no doubt that freer trade maximises economic wellbeing, as demonstrated by the world in 2020. After the best part of seven decades of globalisation – but pre-pandemic, pre-Ukraine, pre-October 7, pre the intensifying contest with China and pre-Trump 2.0 – the world was more free, more fair, more rich and more safe for more people than ever before in history. This was the product of modernisation, globalisation and the long Pax Americana. Technology advanced, nearly every country gained access to it, and there was no war between major nations. Globalisation accelerated after the break-up of the old Soviet bloc and the admission of what then seemed a liberalising China into the World Trade Organisation at president Bill Clinton's instigation. But globalisation also has meant equalisation. Rich countries have continued to grow somewhat richer but poor countries, many of them at least, have grown very much less poor as people, goods, technology and ideas have moved more freely around the globe. In China, for instance, half a billion people have moved from the Third World to the middle class in scarcely a generation. India, Indonesia and Vietnam are not that far behind in their economic takeoff. South Korea and Taiwan, at least in GDP per capita terms, are on par with the countries of western Europe, while Singapore and the Gulf states have far surpassed them. In just two decades China has become the factory of the world. It's now leading the world with the tallest buildings, the fastest trains, the biggest shipyards, the adoption of robotics and the development of artificial intelligence. And while American consumers have gained access to ever-cheaper consumer goods, robot vacuum cleaners, delivery drones and cars networked into a control centre in Beijing, the US is at risk of de-industrialising and on the verge of losing its traditional hi-tech pre-eminence. If you're in Bangladesh or Thailand, striving to have more, for more of your people, this is nearly all good. But if you're in the US, or even Europe, navigating a rocky transition from manufacturing to services with an economically, socially and psychically impoverished rust belt while still trying to be the world's policeman, it looks like you're paying for other people's success. America still may be the source of most of the best ideas, but more and more of them end up taking form somewhere else. The US, plus the West more generally, hasn't been helped by the politics of climate and identity, and the long, morale-sapping march of the left through the institutions. But the brutal truth is that the weaponry for the US to maintain the military edge on which the Pax Americana has rested often now relies on components from its chief military rival. While the US has largely played by market rules, China has stolen technology, subsidised national champions and manipulated markets in its drive for dominance. For Beijing, trade is just geo-strategy by other means. It was no commitment to economic freedom that had China embrace markets – just ruthless pragmatism, 'biding and hiding' its way to being, as its leaders have often declared, the world's No.1 power within 25 years and, meanwhile, to dominate East Asia. In just two decades China has become the factory of the world. Employees work at a factory that produces car parts for export in Lianyungang. Picture: AFP As the world's one-time Middle Kingdom, with a fifth of global population, that's not an unreasonable aim – except that a world dominated by China will more closely resemble China itself: where 'east and west, north and south, the party leads all', as opposed to the broad benevolence that has characterised the long Anglo-American ascendancy. In hindsight, the West should never have thought that maximising wealth was the overriding policy objective. Freedom, justice and the ability to maintain independence matter, too: everything we strove for before the fall of the Berlin Wall beguiled us into thinking that American political scientist Francis Fukuyama was right and that history had ended with the permanent triumph of liberal capitalism. The notion that freer trade is always and everywhere to be sought must now be revised. There are some capabilities that every country would be wise to maintain regardless of the operation of free markets, such as the ability to repair vehicles, ships, planes and machine tools; the capability to make steel and aluminium, with a sufficient industrial base to produce items at need from munitions to medicine; plus stockpiles of essential goods for periods of global disruption. As a general rule, freer trade still makes sense between strategically like-minded countries under the rule of law, with comparable standards of living, because that increases competition between more businesses on largely level playing fields. That's a tick for the trade deals Australia did with Japan and South Korea (while I was prime minister), and for the deal Australia did with Britain (while I was on the British Board of Trade). Freer trade between like-minded countries under the rule of law but with quite different standards of living makes sense if there's no real issue when more labour-intensive industries migrate abroad. That's a tick for the trade deal Australia did with India when I was special trade representative. An employee walks past newly made US flags at a factory in China's eastern Anhui province. America still may be the source of most of the best ideas, but more and more of them end up taking form somewhere else. Picture: AFP But freer trade between strategic competitors just gives an aggressor more economic leverage to achieve a political objective. In 2020, China weaponised trade against Australia, for instance – boycotting some $20bn of our coal, barley, wine and seafood exports – as punishment for our call for an independent inquiry into the origins of the Wuhan virus. In total disregard of the 2015 trade deal, done when I was PM, when it was still realistic to expect China to keep liberalising. Even so, there's no problem trading with China provided it adds as much to our economic strength as to theirs. The mistake all our businesses should avoid is having China enmeshed in critical supply chains that could be turned off like a tap if it suits the commissars in Beijing to make trouble. To his credit, Donald Trump was the first US president really to appreciate that the China challenge was economic as much as strategic. Yet so far on the global stage the 47th President has been at least as disruptive as constructive. In 100 days, Domestic Trump has controlled immigration, clarified that there are only two genders, started to 'drill, baby, drill' and tried to make government more efficient; that's a big tick all around. But Foreign Trump is a mixed bag: a big tick for getting Europe to do more in its own defence, even if that means rudely ruffling diplomatic feathers; but not for repeatedly insulting Canada as the 51st state, threatening to annex Greenland and hitting allies with tariffs ranging from 10 per cent to 25 per cent. Then there are the 'on yesterday, off today, who knows tomorrow' tariffs – not revenue-raising but trade-destroying – on China that the President's boosters say are all a cunning plan to force free trade on the democratic world while economically isolating China, and restoring America's military-industrial base. Maybe unsettling everyone is the 'art of the deal' – but the process risks trashing America's brand. What is, indeed, insufficiently acknowledged is how the US has made the modern world, and all the blood and treasure it has expended to keep it safe. But even America's critics have usually conceded its goodwill. In the words attributed to Alexis de Tocqueville, 'America is great because America is good and if America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.' That's what 'putting America first' risks forfeiting in the current tariff wars: America's reputation for high-mindedness and its unique standing as the benevolent hegemon. Trump's America can do great things when it chooses to – like defuse, it seems, a potential nuclear confrontation on the subcontinent and possibly stop Syria from being a failed state. But it's hard to know where Trump's America really stands and whose side it's really on. In the current tariff wars, 'putting America first' risks forfeiting its reputation for high-mindedness and its unique standing as the benevolent hegemon. Picture: AFP In the meantime, the world's problems are not going away: the Russian army is inching towards Kyiv; Beijing is rehearsing the blockade of Taiwan; and Tehran is still seeking the means to annihilate Israel. Free-ish trade, amid so much else, won't survive a major war or even sustained, long-term rearmament, so others must try to meet the challenges long left to the US for a modicum of peace to last. Why shouldn't Britain and France step up to provide the security guarantee that Ukraine must have after any ceasefire? Why shouldn't Israel take its own steps to deny Iran the nuclear weapons it would almost certainly use? Why shouldn't Japan consider what's needed to secure Taiwan? Why shouldn't Australia pick up the burdens a capricious America has laid down in the Pacific? Why shouldn't South Korea sub in for what's currently Chinese in the wider world's supply chains? Why wouldn't India, the other democratic superpower, consider what steps it might take to buttress freedom and democracy in the wider world, given that it has been such an exemplar of both? Why wouldn't Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand swiftly conclude a comprehensive free-trade deal, given that the CANZUK countries are already in the Trans-Pacific Partnership; plus a new security deal given that they're all Five Eyes partners? We can't look to the US for the leadership it's in no mood to give. Yet there'll be no less need for leadership should American leadership decline. That just means other countries will have to be more adult about their global responsibilities. Tony Abbott was prime minister from 2013 to 2015. This piece is based on a speech he delivered to the Asian Leadership Conference in Seoul.
