Moral Hazard & Fairness - Housing

Malcolm.

Moral Hazard, benefits and behaviour.

The more children those on benefits have, the bigger house they get. (I know someone with 8 children living in a five bedroom house paid for by the taxpayer)

The more children working people have the smaller house they can afford.

Question 1) Does this act as an insentivise for those on benefits to have more more children, whilst disincentivising those who work for a living?

Question 2) Will the Government ever get to grips with moral hazard?

Wookster

Yes it does provide an incentive to some people, and unfortunately that problem is growing exponentially as the children born to such people are unlikely to ever have the ambition to improve their life.

I would argue that anyone under the age of 21 who has children should be living with their parents.

It is very difficult to see what the government can do without making the problem worse - only investment in education/ individual care is likely to help. While it seems like the easy option, simply withdrawing benefits is unlikely to address the problem.

leveller2911

Malcolm. wrote: »

Moral Hazard, benefits and behaviour.





LEVELLER :Question 1) Does this act as an insentivise for those on benefits to have more more children, whilst disincentivising those who work for a living?

LEVELLER: ANSWER:YES

Question 2) Will the Government ever get to grips with moral hazard?

ANSWER:NO

Not unless the Government rips up the "Human Rights" act.........Its their right to have a 5 bedroom house paid for by the tax payer don't you know...

Said it before and I'll say it again.Unless a person is badly disabled all benefits should be linked to your NI contributions....Be interesting to see what IDS comes up with.

Radiantsoul

I am not sure if people necessarily have kids simply to have more bedrooms. If nothing else you can't actually use the extra bedrooms as they will be inhabited by said kids...

Malcolm.

Radiantsoul wrote: »

I am not sure if people necessarily have kids simply to have more bedrooms. If nothing else you can't actually use the extra bedrooms as they will be inhabited by said kids...

Not extra bedrooms alone, a bigger house, council home priority. e.t.c.

silvercar

Max LHA is now for a 4 bed (or it will be soon). So once you've popped out 5, you may as well stop. Actually only 3 kids if you keep a granny installed. 4bed houses tend to have bigger downstairs than 2 bed, so you do get more rooms for [STRIKE]your[/STRIKE] our money.

The thing that I can never understand is that you will get the rent paid for the house, you will get income support or equivalent, but surely its a struggle to bring up kids on benefit. The actual living costs of these kids needs to covered by benefits and they are not generous. I'm not comparing the housing costs, I'm not looking at middle income earners with CTC and WTC, I'm just talking about real money. Sure housing costs are sorted, but does money-in-your-pocket benefit pay enough to provide a decent income to bring up kids?

michaels

Well you probably aren't scrimping and saving to pay for the piano and language lessons...plus name brands are cheaper when picked up from the back of a lorry or 'car boot sale' and iceland food is not the most expensive...

And your income does not need to stretch to school meals, school trips, prescriptions, council tax etc.

Edit: I forgot about replacing the boiler and other household repairs

michaels

I thought the first five minutes of a movie 'Ideocracy' had a great premise that is too easily dismissed by the libereral intelligentsia consensus.

Wookster wrote: »

Yes it does provide an incentive to some people, and unfortunately that problem is growing exponentially as the children born to such people are unlikely to ever have the ambition to improve their life.

I would argue that anyone under the age of 21 who has children should be living with their parents.

It is very difficult to see what the government can do without making the problem worse - only investment in education/ individual care is likely to help. While it seems like the easy option, simply withdrawing benefits is unlikely to address the problem.

Radiantsoul

The idea that a lower class threatens the nations economic, moral or social health has been around since the Romans.
I don't think any society has really collapsed because of this.

michaels

Remind me again what shape the Roman empire is in these days...or the British one for that matter?

Radiantsoul wrote: »

The idea that a lower class threatens the nations economic, moral or social health has been around since the Romans.
I don't think any society has really collapsed because of this.

michaels

Look out for the 'case study' - http://www.livevideo.com/video/1EFA01743AB2491F99D063C46158820B/idiocracy-intro.aspx