Work For The Dole

CLAPTON

michaels wrote: »

I know someone who is on a 15 hour minimum wage contract, that being what the employer offers all new employees (gives them a nice flexible work force and no employers NI). If he gets extra hours he loses 75% of the money in benfits cuts so works for effectively 1.50 per hour. If his hours go up to 23 he will also have to pay NI on the additonal earnings so an extra 12% (Total 87%) and for hours over 28 hours/week it may be close to (over?) 100% - what is the incentive there to try and get off benefits?

indeed true and an inevitable consequence of means tested benefits.

one either has flat rate benefits (outrage that 'rich' people are getting benefits) but then the poor don't suffer high marginal deduction rates

or you have means tested benefits with outrage due to high marginal deduction rates.


although one can change the rates and cutoffs the essential intractability of the problem remains

sabretoothtigger

dktreesea wrote: »

- restrict jsa to those who h ave paid into the system and limit the number of months you can get it, to, say, 6 months;

That was the USA system but I believe its beyond 99 weeks now.

It doesnt really solve anything. Back when there was unemployment pay, there was also no income tax. Now every thing even heating is taxed people expect not to starve to death

They are related because the tax system discourages work as said above. Smartest move gov did this round was raise allowances to 10k and that was a Lib policy I think.
The flat tax is ideal as it stops people turning down work as its all the same.

In Qatar they pay all people 20k a year, thats your ideal tax system. They could do it here, reverse the council tax to payout similar to unemployment per household owned (thats not radical as it sounds, some people already pay zero council tax) You'd get a massive boost to banks indirectly from no one wanting to default.
Fund via QE, nonsense in a way but equal on all and I believe far more productive then QE now, as many will now work to add on top instead either/or
The min wage would need to be eliminated as this takes that place, again its far more productive this way as some will sit in a Taxi office, etc waiting on work for a quid an hour. That sounds bad but cheap labour is actually a benefit to the country so in turn helps everyone.

It could even help avoid imigration problems, as people have to own a legally 'standardised house' to take part they are in a way paying into the system or at least helping liquidity, etc

Loughton_Monkey

chewmylegoff wrote: »

I thought it was very noticeable when I went to Scotland earlier this year. Edinburgh in particular had roads like a provincial third world town (I will leave others to argue about whether it is, indeed a provincial third world town ). It wasn't just the sheer volume of roadworks (seemed far worse than London to me) but the fact that in the few places where there weren't ongoing roadworks, there was an enormous pothole every three yards. Basically you had to decide which pothole looked the shallowest and drive through that one.

Probably the extreme weather up there. Freeze-ups are fatal for roads. At least they're doing something about it. But maybe you should've gone to Aberdeen. Hamish will be along in a minute to explain that their roads make a billiard table look like a cobbled street...

Today, he's probably popped along to celebrate the Battle of Culloden courtesy of National Trust for Scotland and the Gaelic Society. I thought we won that one. But I'm no historian...

grizzly1911

Loughton_Monkey wrote: »

But maybe you should've gone to Aberdeen. Hamish will be along in a minute to explain that their roads make a billiard table look like a cobbled street...

I was up in the Outer Hebrisies last year and there were indeed stretches of F1, billard smooth racetrack, twin track roads. Bizzarely they were often in between single track road 15 miles from virtually nowhere to nowhere. They did have little EU signs to suggest money had been wisely spent. Tidying up the single track may have been money better utilised.

Loughton_Monkey

grizzly1911 wrote: »

I was up in the Outer Hebrisies last year and there were indeed stretches of F1, billard smooth racetrack, twin track roads. Bizzarely they were often in between single track road 15 miles from virtually nowhere to nowhere. They did have little EU signs to suggest money had been wisely spent. Tidying up the single track may have been money better utilised.

Possibly true, but I suspect they prefer the entertainment of two drunken Scotsmen beating the sh*t out of each other to decide which one backs up...

John1993_2

Loughton_Monkey wrote: »

Probably the extreme weather up there. Freeze-ups are fatal for roads. At least they're doing something about it. But maybe you should've gone to Aberdeen. Hamish will be along in a minute to explain that their roads make a billiard table look like a cobbled street...

Today, he's probably popped along to celebrate the Battle of Culloden courtesy of National Trust for Scotland and the Gaelic Society. I thought we won that one. But I'm no historian...

But today was the 500th anniversary of Flodden, where we sorted things out properly.

N1AK

michaels wrote: »

I know someone who is on a 15 hour minimum wage contract, that being what the employer offers all new employees (gives them a nice flexible work force and no employers NI). If he gets extra hours he loses 75% of the money in benfits cuts so works for effectively 1.50 per hour. If his hours go up to 23 he will also have to pay NI on the additonal earnings so an extra 12% (Total 87%) and for hours over 28 hours/week it may be close to (over?) 100% - what is the incentive there to try and get off benefits?

You're right to highlight the issue, the problem is that coming up with a system that helps those in need but doesn't have this side effect is quite difficult, especially if someone is entitled to a lot of benefits.

National insurance is outdated and should be combined into income tax for starters. The cut-off for free dentistry, school meals etc should be vastly increased (so you always get it if you could be getting benefits) or abolished.

Ultimately someone who works more is going to lose some benefit, we're not simply going to keep giving them full benefits while they work 40 hours a week as well personally I think ensuring that someone is always better off if they earn more is a good start. If we could manage to design the system such that any extra income always results in 25%+ net income then that's probably enough to encourage more people to earn more if work is available.

N1AK

CLAPTON wrote: »

one either has flat rate benefits (outrage that 'rich' people are getting benefits) but then the poor don't suffer high marginal deduction rates

I like the idea of universal benefits for most things. I actually like the idea of a truly universal benefit (effectively everyone receiving a wage from government, and tax being higher to pay it). The problem with that solution is two fold:
1/ If you can earn nearly £4,000 just for being in the UK it would likely encourage abusive immigration.
2/ Given the economic awareness of most voters it would provide a dangerous incentive to screw the country in the long term by voting yourself a short term 'pay rise'.

dktreesea

grizzly1911 wrote: »

I was up in the Outer Hebrisies last year and there were indeed stretches of F1, billard smooth racetrack, twin track roads. Bizzarely they were often in between single track road 15 miles from virtually nowhere to nowhere. They did have little EU signs to suggest money had been wisely spent. Tidying up the single track may have been money better utilised.

Single track? I've got a single track road the government can fix. Preferably immediately. The single track A1 running through the northern part of Northumberland and the southern part of Scotland. Newcastle is meant to be a 2 hour journey from Edinburgh. more like 3 hours. thousands of productive hours wasted every day.

In fact, while they are at it, how about three lanes each way like you get through North Yorkshire? What's so special about the M6/M74 that runs at least two lanes each way, and usually three through one of the most unpopulated parts of Britain (Cumbria/Dumfries and Galloway) when the poor old A1 can't even manage two lanes each way along it's length? And there's money for trams in Edinburgh?? :mad:

Yes, there is plenty of infrastructure work to go around. While the roadbuilders are up there, maybe they could pop into Morpeth and finish off their flood defences? And then they can pop over to Glasgow and turn the "M"77 carpark into a proper motorway!

dktreesea

N1AK wrote: »

I like the idea of universal benefits for most things. I actually like the idea of a truly universal benefit (effectively everyone receiving a wage from government, and tax being higher to pay it). The problem with that solution is two fold:
1/ If you can earn nearly £4,000 just for being in the UK it would likely encourage abusive immigration.
2/ Given the economic awareness of most voters it would provide a dangerous incentive to screw the country in the long term by voting yourself a short term 'pay rise'.

If it was only £4k, maybe it would discourage the kind of abusive immigration we have now. At the moment you can get over £20k a year unearned just for turning up. Well...you do have to come via the EU, and have stayed there at least a year....especially important if you are a returning Brit wanting to take advantage of our handouts.

I quite like the idea of limiting the maximum benefit - across all benefits - to £15k a year per household, and reducing the top rate of individual tax to the corporate rate of tax.