Pandemics are not cheap.
You have the loss of lives, productivity, jobs, and the economic impact of lock downs, add in some government furlough money, and increased benefits, and it all adds up to billions of pounds, in this case, the UK government debt is now at £2.2 trillion!
Yes, trillion!
When all is said and done the Covid pandemic could cost the government £400 billion.
And to try and estimate this is nearly impossible as how do you account for loan defaults, lost interest, and all the bits and bobs.
It is safe to say, we will be living with this debt for some time to come. But how to pay the debt back???
The government will reduce or cut the additional benefits some received with Universal Credit. Those recipients were given and extra £20 a week during the lock downs, this is believed to be ending in September.
The furlough schemes are being tapered back and soon to end.
This will slow the hemorrhaging of money the government has been losing, but you still need to pay it back. And there will be ongoing costs that will never cease, such as the NHS will need additional funds to support the ongoing and possible annual jabs for Covid.
Unfortunately the payback will fall on the tax payers, us, we will need to payback this money spent during the pandemic, and one way to do this is through higher taxes.
And it is not just higher taxes we will pay, but higher everything.
The airlines need to make-up for lost revenue, so flights and holidays could cost more.
Since no one could travel abroad for a while, staycations soared and so did their prices.
Supply and demand = prices.
The sad truth is that all of us in some way will financially bear the brunt of this pandemic.