Increasing scope—decreasing pay?

In a time and place where everyone appears to be sold on the idea of borrowing money to live—mortgages, car loans, credit cards, and even financing for kitchen appliances—I prefer to use the money I work so hard for and actually earn my keep. This means that while it feels like everyone is always asking, why rent when you can own?; I find myself asking, why own when you can rent?

One of the reasons for this is simple, yet may not be immediately obvious. When we crunch numbers in terms of our expenses and income, inflation must be taken into account. The numbers by themselves don't mean much. This is why although I am renting an apartment, I live in a city with a rent cap, and my rent goes up much slower than inflation—meaning, my rent essentially goes down over time.

Now the media recently widely reported a pay rise for NHS staff in a rather celebratory tone. Of course a pay rise should be exciting—particularly after the coalition government's pay freeze, followed by years of a 1% pay cap stemming from a certain £22 billion efficiency savings target announced in the 2011 Health and Social Care Bill after a white paper that claimed to be ‘Liberating the NHS.’ However, a 6.5% pay rise over 3 years (which is performance-based), when the inflation rate is expected to reach 9.6% is not a pay rise—but a (‘real-terms’) pay cut dressed up. And to add insult to injury, this comes after the initial (and thankfully now scrapped) proposal for a pay rise only if you give up a day of your annual leave.