No one will do the job

ukcarper

JWF wrote: »

There is no doubt that the WTC system has some perverse effects, and the example above is a real indication of how perverse it actually can be in the real world.

By my reckoning, the extra 16 hours/week at NMW earns you a princely 26p per hour. Smashing. Where do I sign up? Or do I go for a 24hr job and sell a bit of tat on EBay as a sideline!

I believe WTC was introduced to make you better off in work but as you say the benefit is small and could easily be lost in travel expenses.


The benefit system is a mess which is show by the fact that a single person doing 24hrs on minimum wages gets no benefits whereas if you are married with a couple of kid you get almost £16k a year.

ukcarper

StevieJ wrote: »

Increase the minimum wage, bring in free child care, and stop wage subsidies.

Although I know it won't be popular here I would add build more council houses.

CLAPTON

ukcarper wrote: »

The way I see it is we carry on subsidising wages and all pay through taxes or stop the subsidy and we pay through higher prices.

I don't see those as the alternatives because the benefits system produces perverse incentives.


HB has the effect of increasing the price of rentals and hence encourages more landlords to buy property to rent.
This has both the unwelcome effect of increasing both rentals house prices but also diverts investment money from more productive areas of business.


Cheap labour discourages businesses from investing in improving productivity.
The benefits system encourages people not to work or get promoted or work fulltime etc.


etc : so in my view the situation is more complicated and reforming the system would be a win for the UK generally and most people on low wages

ukcarper

CLAPTON wrote: »

I don't see those as the alternatives because the benefits system produces perverse incentives.


HB has the effect of increasing the price of rentals and hence encourages more landlords to buy property to rent.
This has both the unwelcome effect of increasing both rentals house prices but also diverts investment money from more productive areas of business.


Cheap labour discourages businesses from investing in improving productivity.
The benefits system encourages people not to work or get promoted or work fulltime etc.


etc : so in my view the situation is more complicated and reforming the system would be a win for the UK generally and most people on low wages

It is more complicated than that but the fact remains that on present wages people can't afford to live without benefits so untangling the present situation is very difficult.

TickersPlaysPop

It's very refreshing to see most people here agreeing on a topic!

The figures I quoted i.e. 27k inc wage and benefits was the net after tax in pocket money before any costs. So... Rent, council tax, everything would have to come out of the 27k to live.

Note, the benefits include council tax discount, child benefit, working tax credit, child tax credit, housing benefit.

TickersPlaysPop

By the way I heard on radio 4 that it's been reported that 4% of the benefits dished out are currently claimed by EU migrants, total claimants was around 130000 ( don't quote me on that as I can't remember the exact number) people and half of them are claiming job seekers.

So I'm not sure how this was all calculated, or if this is a reasonable figure. Is that high?!

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

TickersPlaysPop wrote: »

So I'm not sure how this was all calculated, or if this is a reasonable figure. Is that high?!

European immigrants to the UK have paid more in taxes than they received in benefits, helping to relieve the fiscal burden on UK-born workers and contributing to the financing of public services – according to research at University College London.

European immigrants who arrived in the UK since 2000 have contributed more than £20bn to UK public finances between 2001 and 2011.

Moreover, they have endowed the country with productive human capital that would have cost the UK £6.8bn in spending on education.

Over the period from 2001 to 2011, European immigrants from the EU-15 countries contributed 64% more in taxes than they received in benefits.

Immigrants from the Central and East European ‘accession’ countries (the ‘A10’) contributed 12% more than they received.

· EU Immigrants who arrived since 2000 were 43% less likely than natives to receive state benefits or tax credits. They were also 7% less likely to live in social housing.

· European immigrants who arrived since 2000 are on average better educated than natives (in 2011, 25% of immigrants from A10 countries and 62% of those from EU-15 countries had a university degree, while the comparable share is 24% among UK natives) and have higher employment rates.


http://www.res.org.uk/details/mediabrief/6909811/POSITIVE-ECONOMIC-IMPACT-OF-UK-IMMIGRATION-FROM-THE-EUROPEAN-UNION-New-evidence.html

CLAPTON

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

European immigrants to the UK have paid more in taxes than they received in benefits, helping to relieve the fiscal burden on UK-born workers and contributing to the financing of public services – according to research at University College London.

European immigrants who arrived in the UK since 2000 have contributed more than £20bn to UK public finances between 2001 and 2011.

Moreover, they have endowed the country with productive human capital that would have cost the UK £6.8bn in spending on education.

Over the period from 2001 to 2011, European immigrants from the EU-15 countries contributed 64% more in taxes than they received in benefits.

Immigrants from the Central and East European ‘accession’ countries (the ‘A10’) contributed 12% more than they received.
http://www.res.org.uk/details/mediabrief/6909811/POSITIVE-ECONOMIC-IMPACT-OF-UK-IMMIGRATION-FROM-THE-EUROPEAN-UNION-New-evidence.html

indeed so if you ignore all the other costs and carefully select the time frames
obviously this ignores the possibility that EU citizens will have children or grow old:

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

CLAPTON wrote: »

indeed so if you ignore all the other costs and carefully select the time frames
obviously this ignores the possibility that EU citizens will have children or grow old:

Nope, wrong again.....

They contribute more than natives even when you include all the costs, and will continue to have done so even when they grow old.

‘When we additionally consider that immigrants bring their own educational qualifications whose costs are borne by other countries and that they contribute to financing fixed public services such as defence, these contributions are even larger.

‘European immigrants, particularly, both from the new accession countries and the rest of the European Union, make the most substantial contributions. This is mainly down to their higher average labour market participation compared with natives and their lower receipt of welfare benefits.’

As for having children, here's hoping they do.

We're missing millions of young people, thanks to decades of below replacement rate births, we need some more breeding young folk.

CLAPTON

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

Nope, wrong again.....

They contribute more than natives even when you include all the costs, and will continue to have done so even when they grow old.

‘When we additionally consider that immigrants bring their own educational qualifications whose costs are borne by other countries and that they contribute to financing fixed public services such as defence, these contributions are even larger.

‘European immigrants, particularly, both from the new accession countries and the rest of the European Union, make the most substantial contributions. This is mainly down to their higher average labour market participation compared with natives and their lower receipt of welfare benefits.’

As for having children, here's hoping they do.

We're missing millions of young people, thanks to decades of below replacement rate births, we need some more breeding young folk.

the 'research that provides these limited and arbitrary figures was funded by the EU. He who pays the piper calls the tune.


the figures exclude


-the effects of the level of essential imports (fuel, food etc ) and hence the problems of the balance of payments and the required level of long term foreign borrowing and the exchange rate
-the cost of the extra infrastructure required to service the increase in population due to immigration
-the huge impact on the price of housing in London and the SE due to the increase in population (over 36% of London are foreign born) and the massive reduction in housing standards of the people in theses areas (obviously a Hamish in Aberdeen sees no problem with this.
-the high real costs of the increase in traffic jams and journey times that directly reduces the (un-quantified) but very real standard of living of the people.
-the massive over crowding on our public transport systems system requiring massive spending




and a few more


what it proves is that if you exclude massive real costs then you can 'prove' almost anything you want.


Hamish doesn't live in the SE and neither knows nor cares about the problems and costs caused by the increase in population there.