Too posh for dosh !!

Pete111

No interest in state money whatsoever

The wife told me some years ago that if I was ever out of work, she would think badly of me for accepting dole money. I agreed. We are fortunate in that we both have highly paid jobs and have no dependants (which might change things) but as a general principal I'm 100% with Bendix on this.

Seeing tax money squandered so relentlessly however (benefits bill bigger than the income tax take - !!!!!!!?!?)....now that really gets my back up.

lostinrates

Generali wrote: »

£5,500/head/year.

Ruddy hell. Seems ...so much smaller like that. Almost.....reasonable.

Generali

lostinrates wrote: »

Ruddy hell. Seems ...so much smaller like that. Almost.....reasonable.

Really? That's about 11 grand per household so what's the average household income in the UK. £35,000? So about 30% of the average household's money goes in welfare payments (including, bizarely, welfare payments to themselves).

michaels

Thanks

Ideally I thin we should exclude health (not advocating private insurance provision in this thread) and am not sure about pensions - I think non-serps pension money only but I would like to include all housing type benefit spending for which as you say the figures are harder to come by.

Say the final number per head was around the 4.5k you calculate - would it be reasonable to expect one person to live on this, a couple on twice as much etc? I guess a trip over to debt free wannabee would be the place to start to see how much you need to live on.

However making a guess - rent a room 300 pcm inc bills, food 100 pcm already seems to take all the money available - I wonder if cheaper accommodation plus food arrangements would be forthcoming if govt funding was limited, and of course any earnings would not reduce benefits so there would be plenty of scope to babysit or clean for a few hours a week to boost incomes.


Another thought - if the per person payment was taxable then the amount available per head would obviously be much higher so it might just work?

Generali wrote: »

It depends how you define the welfare state of course. Take your pick from the departments below:

Benefits spending (incl state pension and pension credits) : £125,300,000,000
Dept of Health (incl NHS, excl NHS Pensions) : £92,800,000,000
Improving social housing: £6,900,000,000
Welsh Health and Social Services: £5,500,000,000
Scottish health: £9,800,000,000
NI Health and social services: £3,800,000,000
Child benefit: £10,600,000,000
Tax credits: £19,500,000,000

Total = £274,200,000,000
UK population = 60,000,000(?)
Welfare spending = £4570/head/year.

If you include education and universities as welfare spending the total rises to about £330,000,000,000 or £5,500/head/year.

On top of that there are other transfer payments and subsidies which I can't calculate as easily like council tax benefit, spending on social housing (beyond direct grants to improve it), farm subsidies, business subsidies (a sort of welfare), bank bailouts(ditto?), cultural spending, indirect subsidies caused by Government providing services below cost (a practice which is being slowly eradicated by the current Government and rightly so IMO), transport subsidies (incl spending on trunk roads and motorways) and so on.

Spending by dept

lostinrates

Generali wrote: »

Really? That's about 11 grand per household so what's the average household income in the UK. £35,000? So about 30% of the average household's money goes in welfare payments (including, bizarely, welfare payments to themselves).

the inclutions to themselves are quite importantto many though, arne't they.

If we paid £11k tax I'd feel very happy. Which makes me feel we should feel an awful lot richer than we do. But we don't

michaels

Another idea worth a post of its own.

Rather than the complex nightmare that is tax credits why not just have transferable tax allowances for all dependants - simple to administer and a real incentive to work rather than be on benefits as a much larger chunk of low incomes would be tax free?

Lifeisbutadream

The_White_Horse wrote: »

Ok, so lets take off 1500GBP a month for the mortgage (that you don't pay). Then lets take off 180GBP for council tax, (which you don't pay). Lets take off 100GBP for gas and elec and another 30 for water. Lets take off 20 for house insurance, Lets take off another 150 for general household bills and repairs. Lets take off 150 train fare to get to work - so far, 854 left a month - or 213 (and there are loads of things I have probably forgotten. So, you have 64.30 a week for yourself and this person may have 213 for maybe 4 people. I think you have it quite well for someone who does nothing, compared to than this person who works every day to support his family

Brilliant post..

mitchaa

I claim my £80 child benefit every 4wks yes please. Admittedly, i dont need it and it goes straight into my little 1's saving account so i guess that's what D.C is getting at.

However, between the both of us, our IT and NIC is around £24k pa so £1k back in the form of child benefit I see as a tax rebate rather than a benefit as such.

Im proud not to claim 'benefits' as such but i'd be silly not to claim the £20pw CB. I suspect even the Beckhams accountants will be claiming for their 3 aswell, otherwise if not, they need the boot for not maximising their income.

littlemermaid_2

The_White_Horse wrote: »

Ok, so lets take off 1500GBP a month for the mortgage (that you don't pay). Then lets take off 180GBP for council tax, (which you don't pay). Lets take off 100GBP for gas and elec and another 30 for water. Lets take off 20 for house insurance, Lets take off another 150 for general household bills and repairs. Lets take off 150 train fare to get to work - so far, 854 left a month - or 213 (and there are loads of things I have probably forgotten. So, you have 64.30 a week for yourself and this person may have 213 for maybe 4 people. I think you have it quite well for someone who does nothing, compared to than this person who works every day to support his family

So... Until earlier in the year, when I was made redundant, I was working and paying plenty of tax/NI myself! Once I have a job, myself and my OH are planning on buying a house (which we had to put on hold) and had been working out our affordability based on our joint income. We're expecting to have to pay for everything out of the money we earn, as we won't get anything back from the government full stop. Actually when you take into account the money I pay for my rent contribution costs and my contribution to our food bills etc, I'm currently in significant minus each month and will probably have to dip into the savings I've been saving for a house deposit. Everybody's circumstances vary, the original point is that if people are fortunate enough to earn nearly £3000 per month after tax why should they be expecting government handouts when people on significantly less receive very little? (i.e. single people on low incomes who don't have children but have all the usual costs of living you mentioned?) Also, my jobseeker's allowance only applies for six months because it's NI contribution based. Unlike the CB/WTC/CTC currently given to people on high incomes.

Trust me, £64.30 to myself wouldn't be so bad, but as I have some savings (money I saved, rather than spending, out of my earnings, towards a house) I could argue I don't need it! Equally, I would argue that people on £50000 should really be able to fund their lives themselves.

(As for "someone who does nothing" - it's job seeker's because you receive it while you are looking for a job! )

lostinrates

Generali wrote: »

How do you tell a communist? Well, it's someone who reads Marx and Lenin. And how do you tell an anti-Communist? It's someone who understands Marx and Lenin.

Ronald Reagan

your quote reminded me to metnion the recently litle flurry of deaths in the world of sociologists. Made me wonder: most are left of centre it seems. I'm surprised noone noted this before me, here.