BBC Thursday: The Future State of Welfare

Road_Hog

The problem is not with benefits, it is with the job market and pay.

Benefits haven't suddenly become an attractive lifestyle, they haven't massively increased above inflation, so what has changed.

The alternative, the job market and pay rates. There was a time when for a fair day's work you got a fair day's pay. There was a time, that if you wanted to work, you could find work, this is no longer the case.

You have to ask yourself, if we have 2.5 million unemployed and probably a further million unemployed but on a benefit of a different name, so not officially classified as unemployed, why on earth are we continuing to 600K people into the country every year?

And before anyone trots out the phrase, the immigrants are only doing jobs that the British don't want to do. Perhaps you should think to yourself, why can these businesses not find workers and the simple answer is that they're not paying the market rate, they want cheap labour and they want to import it.

Now, it's all very well if you're say Polish and youngish, that you come to Britain to earn more than you can at home and you can claim benefits for your wife and child in Poland, at British rates and have it paid directly. You don't mind hot bunking in a bedsit with three mates, because the money is good, you're young and good benefits are being sent back home courtesy of the British taxpayer.

At the end of a few years, you can go back to Poland and have enough to buy a house/substantial deposit. But McJobs are no good for the indigenous population. You can't live a life like that forever, it is soul destroying with no possible future of home ownership or having a family.

I remember passing an employment agency last year and it had a temp job in the window for labourers paying the minimum wage. If you went back to the '90s, you'd earn more than the (current) minimum wage even back then, but wage deflation has been massive for those at the bottom and it's now going to start hitting those people nearer to the middle.

Sort out the job market and people won't even consider a life on benefits.

ninky_2

Road_Hog wrote: »

The problem is not with benefits, it is with the job market and pay.

well there is a definite interplay. the decline in job pride along with rise in benefits culture has also gone hand in hand with trade union membership numbers and attacks on union powers.

just have a look at this graph.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2010/apr/30/union-membership-data

people don't join unions because they want to be on benefits. they join because they want to be proud of the job they do. union membership generally reflects a strong work ethic and investment in chosen job field. after all, it's not free.

ILW

What does "sort out the jobs market" mean?
Unless you are Gordon Brown and prepared to borrow billions to create jobs that show no financial return (and we now know how that all ends) I cannot understand the concept.

RenovationMan

ILW wrote: »

What does "sort out the jobs market" mean?
Unless you are Gordon Brown and prepared to borrow billions to create jobs that show no financial return (and we now know how that all ends) I cannot understand the concept.

The government can give tax incentives to attract foreign companies into GB, they can carry out infrastructure projects to make the UK more efficient and they can invest in training and education in certain areas so that a trained pool of workers attracts inward investment.

I agree that the creation of non-jobs in the public sector is not the answer. Its a shame that we wasted so much money on this that could have been spent on helping to generate real jobs.

The_White_Horse

the problem is aspiration and expectation to a large extent. i came from a modest background, living in a terraced home. my expectation was that I would go to school and get a job - and that is what i did. I never expected to be on benefits. the same is true of all my friends. none live a life on benefits.

we have an underclass that believe it is ok to live on benefits and that is exactly what they do. until they realise it is not ok, they will continue to do so. these people need to be ashamed of living a life on benefits, if they can work. but they are not ashamed. they don't care. in fact, they actually love it. and why not? If you expectation in life is no higher than living in some council estate (or equivalent) smoking and drinking, then why bother to work? You can get all that quite easily without lifting a finger - especially if you chuck in a few sprogs.

The welfare should last for a set time, and then you get nothing. perhaps it is harsh, but that is the only way.

Look at that 19 yr old single mother that was evicted from her flat this week - having caused a year of misery to her neighbours with late night parties every night (with vuvuzelas!!). So, she has been evicted - but where is she? on the street? no chance. The do good lefties will have just moved her on to cause misery to a new poor unsuspecting person.

Until we get harsher with these people - nothing will change.

Something DRASTIC needs to occur - because for all the "cuts" this govt have made, borrowing has gone up yet again. It is completely unsustainable.

Bring back work houses. Bring back debtor's prisons.

AliceJenkins

O god no, not another "poor people who can't be bothered to work" tv show argggggggg

OptionARMAGEDDON

If we got rid of state old age benefits (winter fuel, pension cut in half etc) as well as axeing state benefits in total, we could eliminate thedeficit AND cut taxes. Yes, life expectancy will drop (who wants to be a senile 90 year old anyhow) , but I would much prefer a return to the old ways of families looking after their folks and lower taxation.

RenovationMan

OptionARMAGEDDON wrote: »

If we got rid of state old age benefits (winter fuel, pension cut in half etc) as well as axeing state benefits in total, we could eliminate thedeficit AND cut taxes. Yes, life expectancy will drop (who wants to be a senile 90 year old anyhow) , but I would much prefer a return to the old ways of families looking after their folks and lower taxation.

Out of interest, how are you going to provide for your retirement?

Badger_Lady

It's a reflection of the development of our society. A perfectly natural development that anyone could have forseen.

Early in this century there was no NHS or benefit system (at least in a form recognisable today). People had to look after themselves and their own in order to survive.

We recognised that some people weren't able to look after themselves and didn't have anyone to look after them so we restructured our society to take care of them through a tax and national insurance system that would rescue our poorest and sickest and take them under the nation's wing.

Citizens at that time had expectations of self-sufficiency, and pride in their independence. They would only accept national help if they had exhausted their other options (and perhaps even refuse it then). It wasn't about what the rules 'entitled' them to, just about what they felt they needed.

Of course as generations have been and gone since then, fundamental evolution has occurred:

- The stigma of 'accepting charity' has become less and less (at least within certain social groups - very few of those claiming feel that they're doing anything wrong because they are absolutely acting within the rules).

- Children have been born into families that didn't or couldn't work, and grew up following in their parents' footsteps. A perfectly natural thing - you imagine your lifestyle broadly reflecting the one you were born into. A few will see other opportunities but others, despite being more able-bodied or better educated, will aspire to that same level. And if each set of parents has several children, this starts to spread out.

- As an outcome to these things, people no longer look to what they need but to what they can have. We all check on these forums or on government websites to see what we can claim. Because after all, if it's available to us why wouldn't we claim? We pay our taxes like anyone else, why would we miss out? Why should they get it and not me?

- As much as we may have an increase now of people who are genuinely unable to look after themselves, we also have larger and larger groups of people with low ambitions and expectations, who do nothing wrong and don't see any alternatives. And this has become part of our societal structure.

The problem that we have dug ourselves into now is that a huge number of people are dependent on benefits. However they ended up needing them in the first place, they do need them now and whipping the carpet out from under them won't suddenly change that. We would be reversing everything we did in the beginning - throwing people onto the streets instead of rescuing them from them. Leaving children and adults to starve and die. Abandoning the elderly and disabled who have no-one to turn to. And yes, abandoning able-bodied young people who just don't know how else to live. A proportion would eventually find their feet or find other people to lean on; a proportion would become ill and die; a proportion would turn to crime and to taking 'what they need' or 'what they deserve'.

The solution is not as simple as it might look...

michaels

I think housing costs are important in this issue. Although they may only have increased marginally as a proportion of median income the income distribution has widened as returns to certain skills have increased and those to more manually skilled have decreased.

This has increased the proportion for whom housing costs are a considerable proportion of their income and housing is no longer provided as part of employment whereas previously it was. The provision of free housing for those who can't afford it has therefore created many of the barriers to employment and in employment poverty that now need solving.

My explanation for this is not the social housing issue but the suspension of the normal rules of supply and demand resulting from the planning system - in any other market the final product price would be the cost price (agricultural land plus build costs plus profit) but for housing this is not the case hence the huge value attached to land with planning permission. If this rent was removed from the equation then housing costs to wages would be back to sensible levels and suddenly their wouldn't be the same disincentive to work for benefits recipients.