Unemployment Doesn't Look So Bad On a Graph

Generali

kennyboy66 wrote: »

The "unaddressing" bit cuts to the crux of the problem.

Politicians only ever seem to look at this when fiscal needs mean they have to. Sadly this coincides with unemployment skyrocketing. Maybe a bit more effort was required a few years ago rather than importing huge amounts of labour.

My feeling has been for some time that the welfare state is going to be looked at very closely in the next couple of years.

If spending has to be cut, it is so clearly the biggest target. The 'idiot right wing' point to things like the overseas aid budget but that's a tiny drop in the ocean - GBP9,100,000,000 in 2011 I think is pencilled in. The welfare state (including the NHS but excluding state education) is about GBP800,000,000,000 I think (I don't have the numbers to hand).

Graham_Devon

In my mind, it's pointless looking at any graphs over the past 30 years.

Things have changed so much in different governments. Take for instance crime statistics. Labour will tell you crime has fallen. But what they won't tell you is that they don't record certain crimes anymore.

So if your card was stolen in the 80's, you would be a figure on the graph, if your car radio was stolen in the 80's, you would have been a figure on the graph. So one card and one radio stolen = 2 more for the graph figures.

Step forward to now, and a car radio stolen = an insurance problem, a stolen credit card or indeed any type of fraud is a bank / credit card company problem.

So while one decade had all crime figures lumped into one, another decade will proclaim lower crime figures compaed to the other decade. Which isn't really a surprise, considering less crime is being recorded.

Same with benefits. They say lower unemployment, but what they don't tell you is people on the sick is higher than it's ever been, and there is no reason for everyone to be sick considering the pumping of money into the NHS, better technology and MUCH less jobs that will injure people. Put those 3 factors together and you would think sickness has gone down, but it hasn't it's gone up.

It's all political wars, and fudging figures to show you what they want to show you. They will then campaign on these figures and lie to every single person in the country.

So basically, what I'm saying is, you have to take "facts" and figures with a pinch of salt, especially anything comparing a torie run government with a labour run government.

What would be better is total people on any type of benefit in the 80's and total people on any type of benefit in the last 10 years. The graph then would be on a steep upwards direction as without benefits now, people simply find it too hard to live. Considering even without recording certain crimes, crime figures have not gone down that much, I would miagine crime is going up too.

kennyboy66_2

Generali wrote: »

My feeling has been for some time that the welfare state is going to be looked at very closely in the next couple of years.

If spending has to be cut, it is so clearly the biggest target. The 'idiot right wing' point to things like the overseas aid budget but that's a tiny drop in the ocean - GBP9,100,000,000 in 2011 I think is pencilled in. The welfare state (including the NHS but excluding state education) is about GBP800,000,000,000 I think (I don't have the numbers to hand).

I think the way we will go is;

1) More "co-payments" for health care or similar system to Australia.

2) Tough times for all benefit claimants, the difficult group being state pensioners, who are a big group & tend to vote more than any other group. Besides, everyone loves a granny or a nurse!

Generali

kennyboy66 wrote: »

I think the way we will go is;

1) More "co-payments" for health care or similar system to Australia.

2) Tough times for all benefit claimants, the difficult group being state pensioners, who are a big group & tend to vote more than any other group. Besides, everyone loves a granny or a nurse!

Charging for stuff is definitely part of the answer - give a disincentive to consume. The NHS was never meant to cover ingrown toenails and so on. At the moment, the only disincentive to use the NHS is the hassle and wait.

I suspect that benefit claimants are in for a harder time in the future (possible in the Tough Love US Republican mould).

chucky

Graham_Devon wrote: »

...you have to take "facts" and figures with a pinch of salt...

these numbers always lack depth, they are what they are.

the more important aspect of the number of these people that are unemployed is; how many of these people were the main earners in the household? etc... etc...

mitchaa

We have had a level of unemployment at around 1.6m for years now, it fluctuates ever so slightly but not by much.

I would assume, the majority of this 1.6m are the scroungers of the country, the i will not work brigade, the alcoholics, junkies etc that are happy enough signing on.

We now have unemployment up at 1.92m, so an increase of 320k or so from the longterm norm.

Sorry, but that is not much.

Out of the 1.92m, you can assume that around 25% of this figure are genuinely looking for work with the rest being down to the countries wasters.

Yes it is rising and yes it will break through 2m when decembers figures are taken into account but i think people need to remember that 1.5m or so of the figures are happily plodding along being unemployed.

janey_uk

Generali wrote: »

Charging for stuff is definitely part of the answer - give a disincentive to consume. The NHS was never meant to cover ingrown toenails and so on. At the moment, the only disincentive to use the NHS is the hassle and wait.

It's a fair assumption to make, but in actual fact it is the people who need it least who are accessing the NHS the most. There is mountains of research on healthcare inequalities and it is part of the remit of the Health Observatories around the UK to study this. Those who are poorest, with the worst general health, least educated and literate etc are far less likely to access services, so much so that all Trusts and PCTs have to demonstrate how they are trying to reach them. This ultimately costs the taxpayer even more money as inequality means the most vulnerable people are referred later than average, requireing more intervention and ultimately taking up more bed space for longer.

The 'squeaky wheel gets oiled' - i.e. the comparatively rich educated people write to MPs, badger medical secretaries, complain etc and get their voices heard (or simply pay for private consultation and then jump the NHS queue), and those without a voice get stuck, getting sicker in the process.

janey_uk

wigglebeena wrote: »

So the figures only look good because households can't survive on one wage anymore, women go out to work and it pumps up the employment statistics...? Is there a graph for economically inactive households?

There will certainly be these graphs, but people like to know who is contributing and household classification distorts the picture as it needs to assume a standard familial model which is no longer realistic in the UK. It also doesn't demonstrate who contributes what or who gets what. For example, household models conceal inter-household economics, whereby you can have one person earning and three others (frequently partners and children) who technically live in poverty because actual income distribution is not equal. That makes it less useful for the purposes of identifying the national workforce, and also less useful for identifying who is on what benefits and why.

I find the interest in benefits claimants ironic given that the redundancy forums on this same site are full of people shocked at just how hard it actually is to obtain these benefits and how paltry they are. It's unlikely anyone with an average mortgage would be able to cover the bills on even the max benefits. Sure there are benefits cheats, but for the many people who genuinely depend on them it adds insult to the injury of poverty that they are all lumped together.

Even more confusing is that the dire economic crisis we are all worried about was caused by the greed of the very richest, not the poorest.

janey_uk

mitchaa wrote: »

I would assume, the majority of this 1.6m are the scroungers of the country, the i will not work brigade, the alcoholics, junkies etc that are happy enough signing on.

Out of the 1.92m, you can assume that around 25% of this figure are genuinely looking for work with the rest being down to the countries wasters.

I wouldn't assume this at all - could you link to some figures or research to back this up?

mitchaa

janey_uk wrote: »

I wouldn't assume this at all - could you link to some figures or research to back this up?

What do you need backing up? The normal unemployment rate for this country over the last 5yrs or so?

There are a good proportion of this number happy to be unemployed, do not be naive.

Edited to add...If you are after some evidence of unemployment figures, have a look here.

http://www.statistics.gov.uk/elmr/05_08/downloads/ELMR_May08_Clegg.pdf

Page 2 (Fig 1) will show you that the unemployment line has been happily hovering around the 1.5m mark since around the year 2000.

Now why would it sustain itself there if it didn't include a big number of the ''I will not work'' category?

I suspect the reason for the big fall that you see before 2000 is where they all crossed over to IB.