Dean Young, Liverpool Socialist Students

As a recent graduate attempting to find a reliable job, I took an interest in one of the hidden headlines in Labour’s Budget – graduates are being ‘stealth taxed’ £7.4 billion.

What is a ‘stealth tax’? The government is freezing the salary threshold at which graduates begin paying back their student loans.

This means, as wages rise with inflation, you are forced to pay back more of your student loan. The threshold was already kept low by the Tories, meaning more and more low-paid workers were forced to cough up.

Just like Labour’s income tax threshold freeze, once again, it’s an attack on low earners, working-class people, a political choice instead of going after tax-avoiding multinationals and big business.

This is little surprise. Labour is a party and government of big business and for big business. Certainly not for workers.

By the time the student loan thresholds are reviewed again in 2030, the Office for Budget Responsibility says the minimum wage for a full-time worker will be £28,995 a year. This is just £400 below the repayment threshold, meaning basically every single graduate in the country will be paying student loans back much quicker out of their pay packet. Masters and doctoral graduates repay 6% on earnings above just £21,000.

It is a bleak situation. It is hard enough to get a job when you graduate. Recently, there were 1.2 million graduate job applications for just 17,000 graduate jobs – 70 applicants per role.

It is little wonder increasing numbers of young people are desperately searching for a more radical solution to the crises of the capitalist economy. Labour has not delivered positive change. They’ve made things worse. Stealth taxes and increasing tuition fees being some of the ‘highlights’.

Capitalism cannot deliver the goods. It offers stagnation, squeezing of wages, and growing unemployment. Even after you spend years of hard work, doing things ‘by the book’.

We need socialist change to nationalise the commanding heights of the economy under democratic workers’ control, so it can be planned democratically, putting our skills and knowledge to good use.

A mass workers’ party, with the trade unions at its heart, armed with a socialist programme, is desperately needed to spearhead the fight for that. If you agree, please join Socialist Students in fighting for this.

• Socialist Students conference 2026 takes place Saturday 14 February at the University of Manchester