BBC Thursday: The Future State of Welfare

vivatifosi

Looks an interesting programme, so thought I'd start a thread on it.

9pm BBC 2, Thursday

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b016ltsh


....John Humphrys travels the country to talk to the people with the most to lose: people on incapacity benefit; the long-term unemployed; people on housing benefit; lone parents. Are they prepared for the harsher future ahead? He returns to the area where he was born - Splott in Cardiff - to show how attitudes to work and welfare have changed in his lifetime. When he was growing up, a man who didn't work was regarded as a pariah; today, one in four of the working-age population in Splott is on some form of benefit. John also visits America, where 15 years ago they embarked on what has been called a 'welfare revolution'. Is this more punitive model where the UK heading? He looks at specific reforms the Government has in mind or has begun already.

Humphrys concludes that the public don't like what they see as a growing sense of entitlement among some groups claiming benefits, and politicians respond to the public mood. He argues that there is strong consensus across political divides, and that reform would edge the UK back towards the original Beveridge vision of welfare.

OptionARMAGEDDON

Let em starve!

abaxas

Farmed for internal organs and pig feed?

Road_Hog

If governments didn't flood the country with unfettered immigration, causing massive wage deflation amongst the poorest paid, then we probably wouldn't have this problem.

McJobs on minimum wage are not a long term solution.

wotsthat

vivatifosi wrote: »

Humphrys concludes that the public don't like what they see as a growing sense of entitlement among some groups claiming benefits, and politicians respond to the public mood. He argues that there is strong consensus across political divides, and that reform would edge the UK back towards the original Beveridge vision of welfare.

I'd pretty much agree with that conclusion - there is a consensus that covers most of the UK public.

Where there is no consensus though is with regards to the actions that should be taken. That's because the consensus is formed from people who have very different motivations for their dissatisfaction with the benefits system.

There's the let 'em starve brigade - solution to the problem - just stop benefits. Then there's the more moderate who think that over-generous benefits are a disincentive to self-sufficiency and that a workless life leads to poor outcomes for children as well as long term mental and physical health.

Both groups have concerns about benefits but neither would agree on an approach.

What I do think we are going to see though is a gradual decline in benefits and poverty being measured in a more absolute rather than relative way.

RenovationMan

Winston Churchill put it best. You want a ladder, upwards, anyone, no matter what their background, can climb, but a fundamental safety net below which no-one can fall.

While searching for the Churchill quote I found this one that's really appropriate: right now:

"There is always the danger that in our dread of making people dependant [upon the state] we shall cease doing good for fear of doing harm" - Harry Hopkins, 1914.

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drc

They just need to reduce benefits slowly and at the same time increase the tax free threshold so that when people do find work, they get to keep more of their money. For example, if a family is currently reliant on tax credits, rather than just giving it to them for every child they have (and at the moment, the more kids a family have, the more tax credits, so an incentive to have more children), they could slowly reduce tax credits over the years and slowly raise the threshold at which people pay tax. This would encourage people to work and also discourage people to have children if they know they won't get extra income from another birth.

I know of a family that have several kids, the parents haven't worked in years and rely solely on benefits. This family take foreign holidays twice a year (not something we can afford as a working family), buy their kids treats all the time (a kitten was their latest purchase) and are never concerned with shopping around since it is not their money they are spending. They have a council house provided by the state but are considered "poor" and entitled to all sorts of satellite benefits. I worked out that after tax/NI and all the things people in work have to pay for, they are much better of than us, as a working family. I just think it's nuts.

Of course those people who don't have kids and are on benefits are the ones that really are poor since unemployment benefits are so low in the UK. But having kids is a very easy way to increase your income and not something we should be promoting at a time of financial austerity and world population explosion.

John_Pierpoint

The ladder is underneath the safety net, unfortunately. The marginal tax rate is up in the 90% plus range, just like it used to be in the 1970's when the Rolling Stones emigrated; but this time it penalises the working families on low wages..

Part of the problem is feminisation and infantalism of society, coupled with marginalisation of the male.
There are few mothers who will prepare her teenagers for this ultimatum: Here is the key of the door - at the age of 18 you will get this and be required to pay your way and pull your weight. Then on your 21st birthday we have the option of changing the locks.

I think there is an element of lass of status involved in being mistress of an empty nest, that can be exploited by overgrown cuckoos.

MacMickster

vivatifosi wrote: »

Humphrys concludes that the public don't like what they see as a growing sense of entitlement among some groups claiming benefits

This is exactly the problem. Benefits were meant to provide a safety net for those who had either temporarily fallen on hard times, or who, due to incapacity were unable to provide for themselves. Instead they have become a lifestyle choice for those who could provide for themselves but are too lazy to do so, and believe that they are entitled to take from a system into which they have never contributed.

As of August 2010

Population 61,838,154

Children 12,553,000

Working Population
Working Population F/Time 21,124,000

Working Population P/time 7,910,000

Disability Living Allowance 3,204,280

Attendance Allowance 1,791,920

Carers Allowance 1,002,600

Employment Support Allowance 563,980

Incapacity Benefits 1,851,010

Job Seeker Allowance 1,349,710

State Pension 12,561,260

You also need to consider the tax credits, housing benefit etc paid to those who are actually in work.

The working population is simply unable to support all of those currently in receipt of benefits, and we consequently need to find better ways of identifying those most in need of support.

RenovationMan

More interesting quotes (well, interesting to me anyway!):

"We're entering an age when average Americans will live longer and live more productive lives. And these amendments adjust to that progress. The changes in this legislation will allow social security to age as gracefully as all of us hope to do ourselves, without becoming an overwhelming burden on generations still to come. " - Ronald Reagan, 1982.

"The Social Security program.. . represents our commitment as a society to the belief that workers should not live in dread that a disability, death, or old age could leave them or their families destitute." Jimmy Carter, 1977.

"We can never insure one-hundred percent of the population against one-hundred percent of the hazards and vicissitudes of life. But we have tried to frame a law which will give some measure of protection to the average citizen and to his family against the loss of a job and against poverty-ridden old age." - Franklin Roosevelt
, 1935.

LydiaJ

It's puzzling. We are forever hearing of these families living it up on benefits and having all sorts of things that the rest of us can't afford. And yet we witness the financial struggles of our own SingleSue, whose work, looking after those boys, is longer hours and more demanding work than it would be possible (or legal) to get anyone to do as a paid job. I don't understand.