BBC Thursday: The Future State of Welfare

The_White_Horse

the solution is very simple and the consequences as per your final paragraph are totally acceptable. remember, 90% of this scum class wouldn't even exist if it wasn't for the benefits they receive.

drc

Another crazy thing that is going to happen next year is that instead of cutting tax credits across the board, child tax credits will be cut for people earning £25k or more and there will be a cut in working tax credits so people who go out and work but need to put their child in nursery will be worse off and for some it won't be worth working any more if they have to pay more for childcare.

They are actually increasing tax credits for people who don't work and have children. This seems like a perverse incentive to a) give up work and b) have more kids. Most of the benefit cuts are targeted at the middle and lower middle classes who generally work. They will see cuts in tax credits and child benefit from 2013 whilst they will have more tax and NI contributions to pay. Those families not working and on benefits with children will actually see an increase in their benefits since child tax credits are going to go up for the foreseeable future.

The_White_Horse

its like the child benefit debacle. one family with one earner on 36k - get nothing. Another family with two earners on 35k each - will keep getting it.

madness.

ILW

RenovationMan wrote: »

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.

Trouble is that the same people that say that we need to fix the jobs market, pay higher wages etc, are the same ones that say that companies should be paying more tax. They fail to see that the two aims pull in opposite directions.

Caveat_Mortgagor

John_Pierpoint wrote: »

. The marginal tax rate is up in the 90% plus range,

I am amazed when people say this. Its because we have a generous benefits system that coming off benefits means giving up a lot of benefits.

The flip side is to have very few benefits - that way the marginal rate would be lower - but moves the safety net lower.

Imagine 2 people work for £17k a year.

Person 1 loses their job and claims benefits. When they get their next job (lets say it is £17k again), should they keep some of their benefits and be better off than the person who has worked consistently?

Ilya_Ilyich

ILW wrote: »

Trouble is that the same people that say that we need to fix the jobs market, pay higher wages etc, are the same ones that say that companies should be paying more tax. They fail to see that the two aims pull in opposite directions.

They're all ways of reducing the net flow of wealth towards capital and away from labour. In what way is this contradictory?

Going4TheDream

vivatifosi wrote: »

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.

His article was in the mail on Monday, goes into a bit more detail about some of those he meets and speaks to, it will be interesting to see how balanced the programme is

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2052749/Our-Shameless-society-How-welfare-state-created-age-entitlement.html

Graham_Devon

Road_Hog wrote: »

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.

Not often I choose to hightlight a post to say this, but...

Excellent post.

lvader

What gets me is that I have to pay high rate tax, presumably because I earn a lot, yet some people on benefits live in a house bigger and better than mine and don't pay a penny for it. :mad:

Jimmy_31

The_White_Horse wrote: »

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.

I can vouch for them loving it, plenty around here laugh about how much they get for doing absolutely nothing.

We have ended up with a new type of class due to the useless governments, The pyjama class. most of the girls around here who spit out the benefit babies dont even get dressed anymore, pyjamas and a pair of ugg boots is normal daily wear to dump the kids at school and go to the co-op for tonights ale. Friday, saturday, and sunday nights are the exception because its pi55 up around town time:beer::beer::beer:

I dont know how long the government thinks the working population will put up with paying out for evil little slappers to get knocked up by pathetic excuses for men, but i cant see it lasting much longer myself.

Our government encourages unwanted children.