Income tax cut to cost the treasury £1 billion

Nick Clegg is currently pushing a "workers bonus" that will raise the income tax threshold from £10,000 to £10,500 (total earnings per annum). Calculations done by people much cleverer than me state that this cut will be worth approximately one hundred pounds a year to lower income earners, but will have a minimum effect on higher income earners. This move will cost the treasury around £ 1 billion. So the question must be asked: Is this a good decision when our economy is already under strain?

At first glance I immediately wanted to vilify the decision, but after reading into it further I found that the current yearly earnings for someone on minimum wage is £12620 (assuming a 40 hour week for fifty weeks a year). This means that even with this "workers bonus" a minimum wage earner will still have to pay income tax, which to me hardly seems fair. Nevertheless I also can't help but feel that a decision like this shouldn't be made unless there is some way of balancing it out.

This proposal will come into affect in April 2015, just before the elections.