Hard working people on welfare

Loughton_Monkey

purch wrote: »

Per Mertesacker ?

I didn't know you were a season ticket holder at the Emirates

I admit to having had to look this one up. You appear to be referring to a so-called 'footballer'. The last time I went to a football match, I gained entry for (if I recall rightly) 3 shillings and six pence.

I suspect the entry fee may have gone up slightly since then so I will not be sponsoring this particular donkey. My understanding is that I could sponsor at least 11 asses at the Boleyn ground for the same money.

Cyberman60

MS1950 wrote: »

While it is true that much of the UK's recent 'employment miracle' includes full time workers on low pay forced to rely on tax credits and housing benefit it is also true that many large retailers - Tesco in particular who are apparently "the biggest private sector employer in Britain" - have been deliberately restructuring their labour force to take advantage of the fact that they can avoid paying Employers NI contributions on part time staff - as revealed by Channel 4 Dispatches in 'Low Pay Britain' on 18 Jan 2015:

"A snapshot of all customer assistant jobs being advertised on the Tesco website on one day showed 96% of the 785 posts were part time, sometimes just a few hours a week and earning contracted hours amounting to as little as £200 a month, Channel 4 Dispatches estimates that Tesco could save up to £100m a year in National Insurance contributions if staff worked their contracted hours only.

"The former HR director of Morrisons, Norman Pickavance says, “It’s a huge amount of money for every person that they have on this kind of contract – you are talking about a reduction in the order of 14% per worker so it is a huge benefit.”

http://www.channel4.com/info/press/news/low-pay-britain-channel-4-dispatches

It won't just be employers NI but a raft of other 'socialist' taxes that have put up the cost of employment, (eg: holiday pay, sick pay, maternity leave, pensions, tribunals). Successive governments have created this situation, especially leftie ones !!!

Marktheshark

In work benefits are next cuts to be made.
Even those with very simple maths skills can work out that the proposed cuts can only be made from the in work benefits section.
You read it here first.
People that joined in the shouting down of "benefit scroungers" whilst pocketing tax credits to top up wages are about to see the finger pointed at them next .

Moby

Loughton_Monkey wrote: »

For those people who passionately believe that people who wasted their education, made choices about having children and living in their own house should be heavily subsidised, then they should give generously to a charity of their choice. A charity that will pay such people extra money.

I 'sponsor' a donkey at a local animal rescue shelter. The plight of that poor donkey was not his fault. I am happy to subsidise a basic comfortable standard of living. Others, if they choose, can subsidise a poor family.

You talk so simplistically about personal choice being the capitalist 'god' that should define the 'market rate'. Life is not as simple as that however. People suffer misfortunes that are often no fault of their own, (illness abuse, mental health issues etc). Also think of children raised on sink estates, surrounded by abuse and drugs, how can you talk about personal choice and the market in this context. What chance do they have, are they to blame for their situation more than your donkey analogy above? I know from working with individuals who have been raised in such an environment, change is not easy and is often not possible for them. They remain trapped in their 'learned behaviour' as adults. Thankfully we have generally moved on from the Victorian 'poor law' mentality you seem to be defending. Also a point that continually gets overlooked by our more judgemental posters is that failing to address these social issues, stores up trouble for the whole of society in the future.
Even if you can only think in a self interested way because that's the sort of person you are surely you can relate to this?;)

NorthFin

fordcapri2000 wrote: »

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-32272817

Supermarket workers have to claim £11bn benefits, charity says


................................


This is why the UK is broken.

Any man or woman that is willing to get up at 7am every morning, do a 40 hour plus week deserves to be earning a wage that pays for their housing, food, fuel with a little left over for some small comforts God willing and with a little luck.

They should not be in a position where they need to be claiming charity

Its all about house prices and rents too high.

If house prices and rents came down to normal levels then that number would almost disapear.

CLAPTON

Moby wrote: »

You talk so simplistically about personal choice being the capitalist 'god' that should define the 'market rate'. Life is not as simple as that however. People suffer misfortunes that are often no fault of their own, (illness abuse, mental health issues etc). Also think of children raised on sink estates, surrounded by abuse and drugs, how can you talk about personal choice and the market in this context. What chance do they have, are they to blame for their situation more than your donkey analogy above? I know from working with individuals who have been raised in such an environment, change is not easy and is often not possible for them. They remain trapped in their 'learned behaviour' as adults. Thankfully we have generally moved on from the Victorian 'poor law' mentality you seem to be defending. Also a point that continually gets overlooked by our more judgemental posters is that failing to address these social issues, stores up trouble for the whole of society in the future.
Even if you can only think in a self interested way because that's the sort of person you are surely you can relate to this?;)

this is a very good argument for major change:
we have encouraged the use of drugs, lacked moral codes and judgmental thinking, allowed people to become career beenfit claimant, subsidised grossly over weight people, subsidised large families
we need a society where working pays and not working doesn't, there is a strong work ethic, moral judgements are a central plank in the benefits system.

kaya

fordcapri2000 wrote: »

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-32272817

Supermarket workers have to claim £11bn benefits, charity says


................................


This is why the UK is broken.

Any man or woman that is willing to get up at 7am every morning, do a 40 hour plus week deserves to be earning a wage that pays for their housing, food, fuel with a little left over for some small comforts God willing and with a little luck.

They should not be in a position where they need to be claiming charity

It's simple really, big corporations pay minimum wage as set by the government , both the corporations and the government know that this is not a living wage and that the employees will be dependent on some sort of benefits, this allows the corporations to make huge profits which they are only able to make because the taxpayer is funding the wages of the employees, so the corporations are the drain on the benefits system which is proping up their business, if the government made them pay a real wage their profits would drop, the employees would pay more in tax to the government and the government would pay out less in benefits , so the country would be in a better financial state. The question is why do the government allow big corporations to pay below the living wage and then blame the people on benefits for all the issues we have

princeofpounds

Tesco and Sainsbury have profit margins of about 4%. These are not exactly rapacious (although technically they could be a touch ~20% lower whilst still allowing the companies to earn an economic return on their invested capital).


If the food retail sector is competitive, then these benefits effectively get passed onto the consumer.


I happen to think the UK food retail sector is somewhat competitive (given the background behind the numbers mentioned above), more so with the recent arrival of the discounters. So only some of it will leak into profits.


Obviously this is a highly inefficient way to go about things, but it's not as damaging as people think as we all, thankfully, need to eat.


So it's actually a slightly 'progressive' hidden benefit towards poor consumers more than anything else, paid for out of taxation (which is paid mostly by higher earners).


The damage done by distorting working practices is probably bigger than the cost of the subsidy itself, on a net basis.


Anyone who thinks this goes straight into fat cat pockets doesn't understand much economics.

Moby

CLAPTON wrote: »

this is a very good argument for major change:
we have encouraged the use of drugs, lacked moral codes and judgmental thinking, allowed people to become career beenfit claimant, subsidised grossly over weight people, subsidised large families
we need a society where working pays and not working doesn't, there is a strong work ethic, moral judgements are a central plank in the benefits system.

Totally agree the problem is we live in a world where ethics and moral judgement is subsumed by the interests of the free market. The profit motive drives Govmt policy and corporate identity too often to the exclusion of the general good imo.

CLAPTON

Moby wrote: »

Totally agree the problem is we live in a world where ethics and moral judgement is subsumed by the interests of the free market. The profit motive drives Govmt policy and corporate identity too often to the exclusion of the general good imo.

I'm not sure what idleness, the benefit culture and the appalling damage it has done to poorer people has to do with the ethics of the free markets: indeed one would think it is the exact opposite.