The Benefits System

seven-day-weekend

We are retired, but may soon need to generate extra income so we are going to see if we can be accepted onto an agency for house/pet sitters. This would not be enough to live on however, if we had no other income.

I think the time is here when people have to look at more than one job if they are going to live without Benefits, as many jobs are only eight, ten or even zero hours these days. However I know a young man who has been unemployed for a year, he is always applying for jobs and getting interviews, but has not managed to secure a job as yet (he does plenty of volunteer work though).

It's not always easy to get jobs.

kabayiri

Going4TheDream wrote: »

Maybe if they were to pay more then they wouldnt be so competitive in business and would have to cut staff? I was astounded when I found out that people earning up to £60k could qualify for tax credits, ok they may not have got a lot but if you are earning £60K you should not be getting government support surely?

It really makes you wonder what the real 'adjusted wage' is, when you account for all the tax credits.

It is also clear that a lot of the pressure on allowing economic migration came from business.

It makes you wonder if business is really competitive.

A._Badger

kabayiri wrote: »

It really makes you wonder what the real 'adjusted wage' is, when you account for all the tax credits.

It is also clear that a lot of the pressure on allowing economic migration came from business.

It makes you wonder if business is really competitive.

Business will always act in its own interests - particularly large and multinational concerns. That's why the CBI and the 'captains of industry' shouldn't have been listened to on either the EU or immigration policy.

Graham_Devon

prqdef...what is your proposal?

I ask, as it appears you just want the taxpayer to pay money to people who simply do not want to work.

Is this correct? As everything that is bought up, you find a way against however desperate, which leads me to believe you simply want a certain section of society to simply do as they please and take money from everyone else in society for doing absolutely nothing.

snookey

The best way to stop people who can work from getting benefits is to give them a job that pays decent wages. Also provide free childcare. Those that wont work and have children ,send the children to a boarding school and leave the parents to fend for themselves ie no state help.
Disabled people proper help and long term support to work and those that can not to receive a benefit thats in par with a decent wage.

pqrdef

kabayiri wrote: »

It makes you wonder if business is really competitive.

Britain went through a period of having too much money and not enough labour. In the 19th century, an unskilled manual labourer could earn enough to rent a slum, marry a non-working wife and raise 11 kids.

Since then, we've somehow maintained the faith that a proper wage for any full-time job should be the sort of money that a man can raise a family on.

We've forgotten that the situation was aberrant in the first place. In a normal economy, a lot of labour will be hired at wages that support only a single person. Anybody who want to take on greater commitments expects to have to get a bit higher on the pay ladder first.

Businesses can afford to pay family-sized wages, because those that can't will go to the wall or never be set up in the first place. The survivors will import parts or outsource work to take advantage of foreign economies as far as possible. Many opportunities are sacrificed.

Unfortunately, we don't have any answer to the problem of a more flexible labour market - how to stop people having kids they can't afford.

Perhaps the answer is to create a rational housing market, and then do away with all housing subsidies and make people live in what they can afford. Overcrowding tends to inhibit the urge to procreate.

jimimi

I went onto entitled to earlier just out of interest to see what I would get if I was on my own and not working. It worked out at about £210 a week with my rent and Council Tax paid! So £840 cash in the bank every month? How is that right or fair? And they wouldn't make me go back to work until my daughter is 7 if I've understood it right. I would honestly be financially better off to kick the OH out and give up my job, this country has gone mad.

A._Badger

[QUOTE=pqrdef;47373791__Overcrowding_tends_to_inhibit_the_urge_to_procreate.[/QUOTE]


I take it you've never travelled in the Far East?

pqrdef

I was misinformed.

pqrdef

jimimi wrote: »

I would honestly be financially better off to kick the OH out and give up my job, this country has gone mad.

£210 a week = £910 a month. And if your OH left and you lost your job and couldn't get another, you'd need it.