The EU: IN or OUT?

treemachine

AnotherJoe wrote: »

Its not safe at all to say that. Can you back that up with statistics? Why are they a "drain on the tax payer" ? They are healthy young people so they arent using the NHS, they wont in the main have kids so they arent sending their kids to local schools. Where's the subsidy ?

because you need to earn circa £30k a year before you contribute more in tax than you take from the taxpayer....

Ballard

treemachine wrote: »

because you need to earn circa £30k a year before you contribute more in tax than you take from the taxpayer....

The average salary is around £27k so it would seem that on average we are all a drain then. Doesn't bode well for the future.

talexuser

treemachine wrote: »

If we reduced migrant labour some supermarket prices are likely to rise. However we'd also be paying less tax as we wouldn't need to subsidise the labour that farmers use.

The first is a certainty, the second about as improbable as 350 mil a week for the NHS.

bigadaj

treemachine wrote: »

because you need to earn circa £30k a year before you contribute more in tax than you take from the taxpayer....

Might be worth stating where you got that number from as it doesn't look realistic.

In terms of taking from the taxpayer then the majority of health costs, which form a large percentage of benefits, are incurred in the final two years of life. So it would be cost effective to euthanise people at a particular level of health; those people are by definition an absolute costs as they are almost wholly not working at that age.

bigadaj

talexuser wrote: »

The first is a certainty, the second about as improbable as 350 mil a week for the NHS.

The £350 million a week will form an important part of the exit negotiations.

Many people, including those within the Brussels bubble, like to make a big thing about free movement of people. However the uk contribution to the eu is large, second only to Germany, and no one, including Germany want to pick up the tab when the uk leaves. It's been raised as an issue by German politicians far more than free movement, and merkel is a pragmatist. The negotiations will be very interesting, given trade issues with Germany and the Netherlands in particular.

AnotherJoe

treemachine wrote: »

because you need to earn circa £30k a year before you contribute more in tax than you take from the taxpayer....

Thats a ridiculous abuse of statistics. That figure will include babies, children, the elderly, parets with children at school etc, as well as workers, eg across the whole population.

Not fit young people who almost by definition are the farm workers. How specifically do you think a (say) a 23 year old Polish fruit picker sharing a 6-bed dorm in East Anglia for the summer will be subsidised by "the taxpayer"?

savings_my_hobby

bigadaj wrote: »

It's a combination of these issues.

Pre 2004 then much of the agricultural work was being done by Eastern Europeans, they were just he on six month visas over the summer and returned home in winter.

Not sure where your £18 an hour figure comes from, I know hard and productive workers can certainly earn well above the minimum wage.

It's not logical or even oractical to import large quantities of foreign labour with a large percentage of the native population either comically inactive or under active. If this foreign labour ceases then you need to determined is the gap is filled or whether the work simply doesn't get done in the uk.

The answers are likely to en complicated and multi faceted. The inflated price of housing in the uk is an issue, if it needs to fall it should do so, to keep paying housing benefit in huge amounts is unsustainable. Getting rid of zero hours contracts for many people is an answer, to ensure they aren't kept in limbo between not earning because they're not given enough hours and can't claim benefits.

Receiving benefits for an extended period is too easy, after a set period then a workfare system should be put in place, handing money over for nothing obviously makes work unattractive so at least address that part of the problem. There are costs in doing so but the knocks effects should be beneficial.

the £18p/h figure was reference to 2.5 times the NLW (£7.20 x 2.5) Polish workers enjoy. For British workers to go abroad and earn x2.5 they would need to be paid 18 p/h.

before 2004 the land work was being done by anyone who wanted to earn a few extra quid, there were always foreign students, gypsies, pensioners, even teenagers on school holidays, although they could not do it now. No doubt there were seasonal workers from Europe but I never came across any personally so I'm not sure weather that statement that much of the work was being done by Eastern Europeans is strictly true.

The house prices can be explained by the principles of supply and demand, some people blame Thatcher, some blame immigration/population, some blame BTL. All have had an impact.

savings_my_hobby

Ballard wrote: »

There was a documentary (either BBC or c4 I think) five or so years ago based in Peterborough. It started by interviewing some unemployed youngsters and asking if they'd seen any suitable work. None of them had.

What were they looking for? 'Absolutely anything'.
How much money did they want? 'I'd be happy with £x per hour'

It then showed the advert for fruit picking and some migrants getting the job. It paid £x per hour.

The following week/fortnight the cameras returned and interviewed the same youngsters.

Anything out there? 'No. There's absolutely no work whatsoever'

There were still fruit picking jobs being advertised and this was shown to the lads. The reply was effectively that fruit picking was below them.

This has stayed with me and makes me think that a great many number of unemployed don't have any interest in this sort of work.

The whole 'we survived the war' argument is nonsensical. Those were different times and bear no relation to our modern country. Pol Pot thought that Cambodia could be self sufficient and that wasn't exactly a roaring success. That's about as relevant comparison to modern Britain as the 1940s.

I remember that documentary, I also remember the BBC was heavily criticised for picking people who belong on the Jeremy Kyle show. Those people were an embarrassment to themselves and you will likely find their parents never worked either.
There were always plenty of people to do that type of work, I should know I live in the area.

If we stopped giving them benefits and made crime a non option the unemployed people would be grateful for that type of work.
Although I do believe that you should be paid slightly more than the person to works on a till in Next or wherever because that work is clearly more demanding.

savings_my_hobby

talexuser wrote: »

And possibly the stuff in the supermarket would then cost twice as much. This is the problem and we go round the circular argument again. But there surely has to be an end to unlimited immigration.

Whatever the politicians say, the results speak for themselves. Big business (who pay for them) want the cheap labour, and politicians probably too as a means of upping the stats for "growth". Neither of them living in their gated communities have to live with the consequences forced on the majority of the rest of the country and I do wonder if they even care.

Supermarkets squeeze their suppliers too hard, they really do have them by the short and curlys.

Perhaps they could absorb some of the cost themselves? wishful thinking I know.

savings_my_hobby

Ballard wrote: »

The average salary is around £27k so it would seem that on average we are all a drain then. Doesn't bode well for the future.

No it does not bode well at all.
The shareholders are doing ok though.