BBC Thursday: The Future State of Welfare

Mary_Hartnell

de1amo wrote: »

we invited the eastern europeans in due to a shortage of 'youth' who would do the less 'desirable' work! the British youth were too comfy on benefits. İf they have settled and are having children they must have built a lifestyle to do so(ie paid into the welfare state). Britain is all about migration through the centuries and without new blood it will die!--the birthrate is about all that will save us!

İ live in Turkey and couldn't give a monkeys whether uk plc survives.
Turkey is envied by most of the 'European super powers' because it has lots of young well educated people. it is attractive to investors and companies because of this 'pool'. -its a tough place to live and the young have to study 'hard' to get a decent job/future.

Personally I would have allowed Turkey into the "Common Market" 20 something years ago. But the Greeks would never agree.
Has the opportunity passed - I think so.

Given the Turkish rate of increase and the size of the Turkish diaspora, I doubt the EU could deal with the influx now; and there has been a nasty swing away from the ideals of Ataturk.
Time for the prostitutes to wear a veil again I think.

We have a family friend married to an ambitious Turkish waiter and a lovely little family they make too.

http://www.populstat.info/Asia/turkeyc.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkish_population
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mustafa_Kemal_Atat%C3%BCrk

Mary_Hartnell

Ilya_Ilyich wrote: »

That's an interesting piece of information, thank you. Had a wee google and this seems to suggest the level has remained roughly stable over the last decade. If we suspect financial support given to parents is one of the main drivers of this we'd expect to see other EU countries providing less support to parents; is there evidence of this too? Is there evidence to show that increasing support over time leads to more children in workless households (or conversely that decreasing support leads to fewer)?

Is it just possible that UK has more migrant households, unable to speak the local language and with the attitudes of their motherland?

Is it possible that UK benefit claimants have a lower educational attainment than the European average of wealthy EU countries?

We are not talking about Bulgaria, where £1 an hour is a reasonable minimum wage.

A._Badger

Mary_Hartnell wrote: »

I thought we were the only nation (perhaps Ireland too?) that agreed to open borders from day one?

We were and you have Tony Bliar to thank for that. But the fact remains that it was as the direct result of EU policy, as so often 'gold plated' by our political class.

zagfles

Ilya_Ilyich wrote: »

That's an interesting piece of information, thank you. Had a wee google and this seems to suggest the level has remained roughly stable over the last decade. If we suspect financial support given to parents is one of the main drivers of this we'd expect to see other EU countries providing less support to parents; is there evidence of this too? Is there evidence to show that increasing support over time leads to more children in workless households (or conversely that decreasing support leads to fewer)?

You need to be careful to distinguish support for children/families via the tax system and support via benefits.

Countries like France and Spain mainly support families via the tax system which means you have to work and pay taxes to benefit from that support. In France a family with 4 children would get 3 tax allowances and the tax bands would be 3 times as wide as for a single person, to reflect the family income is supporting 4 people.

Such support won't encourage those out of work to have children, because they won't benefit from it. The UK has no support at all for families/children in the tax system (except childcare vouchers), it's all via payable benefits (inc tax credits).

This report from the CPAG is telling - despite the last govt's policies the UK is stilll right near the bottom (24th out of 26) in terms of "material wellbeing" of children.

http://www.cpag.org.uk/info/ChildWellbeingandChildPoverty.pdf

Yet predictably they still maintain "CPAG does not use these findings to argue against the broad direction of recent policy." because they were always in support of them, despite their own report showing them to be a miserable failure!

Mary_Hartnell

A._Badger wrote: »

We were and you have Tony Bliar to thank for that. But the fact remains that it was as the direct result of EU policy, as so often 'gold plated' by our political class.

I believe we got 10 times the number of migrants the civil servants expected?

ukcarper

I had a quick look to see what people get for children and it is about £80 a week for the first then about £63 each extra this is made up of child benefit and child tax credit.

You would also get an increase in your LHA depending on ages and sex of children.

I would have thought £200 a week would be more than enough to clothe and feed 3 children.

de1amo

İf Turkey joined the EU it would be one big plus --whereas Greece-'nuf said!

A lot of the Turks that want to leave Turkey are the Kurdish and not even the 'turks' like them!!-the majority in london are kurds and they have formed a !!!!!
-Turks work hard and get little in the way of government support if they dont! so their culture is not to claim benefits. They are ambitious wherever they go but evetually want to return home. They go where the work is -germany dislikes them because they stayed after Germany was rebuilt but the Turks who have made their life in Germany arent liked back in Turkey because they are no longer regarded as true turkish but migrants!
European powers have missed their chance with Turkey--the turks see europe as a failing society and are turning their attentions to the arab nations--turks and arabs dislike each other but can get along when mutually agreeable.Turkey wont be joining europe and europe wont be getting an endless supply of well educated young people!

Jimmy_31

Ilya_Ilyich wrote: »

Why are you so desperate to compare poor people to dogs?

e: Can someone post some actual evidence that providing financial support for those with children on low incomes has had a significant effect on fertility rates? Because currently it's just being taken as a given and used to argue for something that could have pretty terrible consequences.

Im not comparing people to dogs.

Its just the same principle.

You do not have a child if you cant afford to feed it.

You do not get a dog if you cant afford feed it.

In this country if you want to breed dogs you will need to apply for a licence.

If you want to breed little babies you go right ahead and breed and the government forces the working population to pay for a baby whos parents cannot afford to put food in its mouth.

Thats great britain for you.

Going4TheDream

Following on from Thursday's programme Panorama will be screening Britain on the Fiddle Thursday @ 20.00pm

They say

'it is estimated that £22billion of taxpayers' money is effectively stolen or lost every year through fraud and error - more than the government's planned spending cuts each year. And the cost of fraud has risen by a third during this recession, money that could end up being taken out of genuine claimants' pockets.

In this Panorama Special, Richard Bilton uses undercover cameras to expose people on benefits sailing yachts and driving Bentleys. And he follows fraud investigators as they tackle the rising tide of benefits cheats using fake identities to steal millions.'

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b016lty2


Cutting the fraud and dealing with those that commit it may go someway into minimizing the cuts that need to be made ?

lostinrates

Going4TheDream wrote: »

Cutting the fraud and dealing with those that commit it may go someway into minimizing the cuts that need to be made ?

Possibly. I wonder how much would be countered by those not claiming their full entitlements or tax deductables?