Extra £4bn welfare cut

misskool

bendix wrote: »

Nobody wants education to be cut (although I personally would like to see fewer university places available, to make degrees truly worthwhile and reverse the dumbing down of higher education over the last twenty years), but what is the alternative.

This budget deficit has to be tackled. Not everything can be ringfenced.

Rather than blaming the government who has to do the hard and unpopular things to rectify the mess, how about focusing your resentment towards the fiscal mismanagement of the last ten years that created it?

I think what I would like is for the government to decide that they can't have it all. Education is NOT free, it is NOT cheap, it is NOT for all. If you aren't planning on raising taxes, then tuition fees have to rise. If you don't plan on raising fees then you have to decide where you're going to get the money from (ie taxation, or other methods) to pay for education.

Either follow the American model of education where people pay and understand they have to pay (with the options of scholarships etc) or the Nordic countries where everyone is taxed heavily to pay for quality of life.

ILW

IveSeenTheLight wrote: »

I once made a suggestion that a percentage of your income must be put aside (say 10%) into a fund account to be used whenever you ar emade unemployed.
So you have to dip into it in the bad times.
Upon retirement, any money left in the slush fund would be used towards a pension.

I certainly think it would go a long way to sorting out the problems we have today with pensions and the welfare system

I think it is and is called national insurance.

Graham_Devon

Shakethedisease wrote: »

I repeatedly used the words JSA claimants. And there are nearly 3 million of them currently in the UK.

It's gone from 7million to 3million.

I was calling 7 million sensationalist.

Shakethedisease

At the risk of being pedantic, but stuff it..

I didn't say 7 million JSA claimants. I was quoting someone else's figures..in a post before mine. There's also a 'sensationalist' whole thread on it too I believe !! In which I presume you'll be repeatedly pointing how 'sensationalist' the dm article is ?

* off for a read *

olly300

Shakethedisease wrote: »

I repeatedly used the words JSA claimants. And there are nearly 3 million of them currently in the UK.

If you want to call that 'sensationalist' then your a bit behind the times mate.

Folks here are calling for people to work for their benefits. By it's very definition Job Seekers Allowance defines that person as fit, heathly and available for work ?

Or are you now back-tracking to say that only 'some' JSA claimants should work for their benefits ? How would you qualify that ?

Easy - if you have been on JSA for a year.

While there are now 3 million claimants, only a certain percentage of the claimants are on JSA long term. Different people come on and off JSA meaning that while the figure is 3 million it's not the same 3 million people.

Shakethedisease wrote: »

By your arguement, if all JSA claimants have to do some sort of work in return for the benefit.. then that's nearly 3 million people currently entering the labour market in some form.

I was simply pointing out that the above would be very detrimental to the exsiting workforce as it stands.

I don't actually believe it'll ever happen ( there are too many pitfalls ).. but was trying highlight a number of flaws in these constant calls for getting JSA claimants to work in return for their basic living allowances. The most important one being, that it will put many other's out of work and put a number of small businesses at great risk because they cannot compete financially. You can't magic up 'work' up for a few million people out of thin air.

If you are on JSA for a year and you aren't near retirement, then there is seriously something wrong with your job hunting skills and you need a kick up the backside to do something.

If you were on JSA that long and were told you either had to take part in a community scheme for 16 hours a week, or made to sit in a centre not doing very much every morning at 9 for 3 hours 5 days a week unless you had an interview, wouldn't you go and get a job or make sure you became a full-time student so you didn't have to?

The idea is to put people off claiming benefits long term.

And while you would argue it penalises older people, the older people I've met and know who have been made redundant rarely sit on their backsides doing nothing.

olly300

ILW wrote: »

I think it is and is called national insurance.

Yep it is.

You can't have your own pot because the pot is shared amongst everyone.

The first lot of pensioners who got pensions got them out of all the people who were and are workings NI contributions. If the system wasn't set up that way then it wouldn't have worked.

The issue at the moment is the percentage of people who think being long term unemployed is a lifestyle choice because it's easier then working.

Shakethedisease

Different people come on and off JSA meaning that while the figure is 3 million it's not the same 3 million people.

But it's still 3 million ?

Until you start putting 'conditions' in like yours.. ie ' on JSA for over 12 months', or 'has a child aged 9 and one aged 6 and can't find childcare for placement hours', or 'no buses to community placement as they only run twice a day' or 'has family member recently hospitalised due to heart attack and due for release' blah blah..

Then it starts to get rather more complicated doesn't it ? There will be an awful lot of 'exceptions'.

You'd never enforce it properly in order to make sure the genuinely 'work-shy' are made to get up to sit for 16 hours a week at the local 'commy'. Even that'd be pointless anyway.. what good would that do on anyone's cv ? And you're not actually helping them with anything productive.

IveSeenTheLight

ILW wrote: »

I think it is and is called national insurance.

I'm referring to having a private system rather than a social system

National insurance is for: -

contribution-based Jobseeker's Allowance (Class 1 National Insurance contributions only)
Incapacity Benefit (if you can't work for long periods due to illness or injury)
contribution-based Employment and Support Allowance (ESA)
State Pension
additional State Pension (Class 1 National Insurance contributions only)
Widowed Parents' Allowance
Bereavement Allowance
Bereavement Payment

If I was choosing which options to pay for, I wouldn't choose the Berevement allowance or bereavement payment, my suggestion does away with JSA as well, as a fund is there to dip into and it;s up to you to manage.
We all know that the state pension is simply not enough either.

Why, because your contributions is going to subsidise all those that don't contribute to the National Insurance

Why should the national insurance be a percentage of your income when you don;t see a pro-rata return for the amount paid?

I am not advocating a National Insurance Scheme, I'm advocating that the money you pay can be better utilised elsewhere in a private scheme which in turn would incenticise those that currently choose to rely on welfare when they could easily go out an earn their keep.

olly300

Shakethedisease wrote: »

But it's still 3 million ?

Yep.

Why do you think the numbers are static?

I personally know people who have been made redundant, claimed for a few months and then have found jobs but not at the same time.

Shakethedisease wrote: »

Until you start putting 'conditions' in like yours.. ie ' on JSA for over 12 months', or 'has a child aged 9 and one aged 6 and can't find childcare for placement hours', or 'no buses to community placement as they only run twice a day' or 'has family member recently hospitalised due to heart attack and due for release' blah blah..


Then it starts to get rather more complicated doesn't it ? There will be an awful lot of 'exceptions'.

The benefits rules are complex anyway.

For example single parents with young children aren't expected to do exactly the same job seeking activities as someone who doesn't have young children.

How many employers give time off for you to help relatives out in hospital without you having to take holiday or make the time up? Very few and that includes NHS trusts. NHS trusts employ lots of women if they started giving them all time off which they didn't have to make up then they would never have any staff on duty.

Also if people can get themselves to the Job centre to ensure they can get their money, then they can get themselves to the local community centre.

Shakethedisease wrote: »

You'd never enforce it properly in order to make sure the genuinely 'work-shy' are made to get up to sit for 16 hours a week at the local 'commy'. Even that'd be pointless anyway.. what good would that do on anyone's cv ? And you're not actually helping them with anything productive.

That's the point.

If they are going to waste our money by not doing the activities they are suppose to be doing i.e. job seeking with the aim of getting a job, then we should waste their time. They will then spend the rest of the day ensuring we can't do it any longer.

I actually knew 2 young people who were claiming JSA but not actually job seeking properly until their parents threatened to kick them out. Odd how they were able to find work in 2 months. There as someone else who didn't have their parents to live with was working in pubs until they found the job they wanted.

olly300

IveSeenTheLight wrote: »

If I was choosing which options to pay for, I wouldn't choose the Berevement allowance or bereavement payment, my suggestion does away with JSA as well, as a fund is there to dip into and it;s up to you to manage.

Well you are lucky for not knowing people who have been made widows or widowers.

IveSeenTheLight wrote: »

I am not advocating a National Insurance Scheme, I'm advocating that the money you pay can be better utilised elsewhere in a private scheme which in turn would incenticise those that currently choose to rely on welfare when they could easily go out an earn their keep.

Private companies run schemes for profit. Therefore a fat percentage of the scheme would go into their pockets whether you claimed for it or not.

As lots of the money is used to pay present day pensioners pensions , would you like to never claim and find out when you retired, that some company has taken 20% of all the money you "saved"?