Tax credits and universal credit

antrobus

TruckerT wrote: »

They will either be self-employed (and therefore outside of the loop, as now), or they will be claiming benefits (as now)....

So you're not going to "provide a subsistence allowance to all", but only to those people who have a job. I think that means that all you want to do is increase the minimum wage.

TruckerT

antrobus wrote: »

So you're not going to "provide a subsistence allowance to all", but only to those people who have a job. I think that means that all you want to do is increase the minimum wage.

My earlier post was confused - the jobless and the self-employed would be treated in the same way as employed people.

All would be guaranteed a subsistence allowance, but those who choose to work would benefit accordingly.

Everyone would be better off by working.

TruckerT

chewmylegoff

Denmark have such a system I think? It would be fine if it could be achieved without any additional cost.

At the moment the benefits bill is about £200 billion a year so roughly £4,500 for every adult in the country. Doesn't seem like it would be enough. Would probably need to double it so looking at adding £200 billion to public expenditure although you would get about 1/3 of that back in income tax receipts.

TruckerT

chewmylegoff wrote: »

Denmark have such a system I think? It would be fine if it could be achieved without any additional cost.

At the moment the benefits bill is about £200 billion a year so roughly £4,500 for every adult in the country. Doesn't seem like it would be enough. Would probably need to double it so looking at adding £200 billion to public expenditure although you would get about 1/3 of that back in income tax receipts.

I haven't noticed any civil unrest in Denmark recently!

TruckerT

antrobus

chewmylegoff wrote: »

... It would be fine if it could be achieved without any additional cost.....

The arithmetic works this way - in the UK we have about 41 million adults of working age; 30 million in work, 5 million on benefits and 6 million on neither. No matter how you try and juggle numbers, providing any kind of income guarantee means that the 30 million will have to bear the cost of paying the 6 million. So it means tax increases.

thor

drc wrote: »

The only people it will affect are those with savings

but didn't IDS come out with a cast iron guarantee that NO ONE who was claiming tax credits would be worse off under UC when he was selling the new benefit? No wonder politicians have such a bad rep as liars.

SolidShot

thor wrote: »

but didn't IDS come out with a cast iron guarantee that NO ONE who was claiming tax credits would be worse off under UC when he was selling the new benefit? No wonder politicians have such a bad rep as liars.

So what is the latest? How much will the cuts affect the average family? What will be the knock on effect to the wider economy?

TruckerT

antrobus wrote: »

The arithmetic works this way - in the UK we have about 41 million adults of working age; 30 million in work, 5 million on benefits and 6 million on neither. No matter how you try and juggle numbers, providing any kind of income guarantee means that the 30 million will have to bear the cost of paying the 6 million. So it means tax increases.

Modern capitalism claims to accept that it has some kind of responsibility towards the lower echelons of society.

So it seems reasonable that, as capitalism goes through a bad patch, the hardship should be shared just as (in theory) the gains are shared during the good times.

TruckerT

SolidShot

Were there any major changes to UC announced lately?