Readers respond to an article by John Harris on how the budget has left middle-income families anxious and angry

John Harris’s stimulating article on the “squeezed middle” missed one area of concern for those of us trapped in it ( The ‘squeezed middle’ is back – and this time it could be Labour’s undoing, 30 November ). We knew that even if we’d paid our cheap mortgages off (lucky us), we would either have to downsize or have taken out our own pensions. We knew the state pension would never be enough.

So we did. And if we were lucky, it covered the cracks. Except that when we retired, we were taxed again on our pensions, having already been taxed on the funds we used to take them out in the first place.

Readers respond to an article by John Harris on how the budget has left middle-income families anxious and angry

John Harris’s stimulating article on the “squeezed middle” missed one area of concern for those of us trapped in it ( The ‘squeezed middle’ is back – and this time it could be Labour’s undoing, 30 November ). We knew that even if we’d paid our cheap mortgages off (lucky us), we would either have to downsize or have taken out our own pensions. We knew the state pension would never be enough.

So we did. And if we were lucky, it covered the cracks. Except that when we retired, we were taxed again on our pensions, having already been taxed on the funds we used to take them out in the first place.

Readers respond to an article by John Harris on how the budget has left middle-income families anxious and angry

John Harris’s stimulating article on the “squeezed middle” missed one area of concern for those of us trapped in it ( The ‘squeezed middle’ is back – and this time it could be Labour’s undoing, 30 November ). We knew that even if we’d paid our cheap mortgages off (lucky us), we would either have to downsize or have taken out our own pensions. We knew the state pension would never be enough.

So we did. And if we were lucky, it covered the cracks. Except that when we retired, we were taxed again on our pensions, having already been taxed on the funds we used to take them out in the first place.