A Question for Tory Supporters

Drawer_full_of_socks

BikingBud wrote: »

Why not use up to date figures as well?

Actual amounts spent rather than forecasts.... But nitpick if you want rather than object to the actual point made, in case you've forgotten in your nitpicking, unemployment benefits make up a tiny proportion of our welfare spending........ Any problem with that?


Pensions, welfare and health services, incl NHS are all separate, so smugly misquoting out of date information really does you no favours:o

The fact that you struggle to understand statistics does not mean they're "misquoted" .


I take it you're not a Labour voter then, seeing as talking about how little is spent on unemployment benefits has gotten you all vexed.


How about this from the OBR

Of the £217 billion spent on welfare payments in 2016-17, around 59 per cent was paid to pensioners, with state pensions the largest single item at £92 billion. Personal tax credits – mostly for families with children – cost £27 billion and housing benefit – three quarters of which is paid to people of working age – cost £23 billion. Together these payments made up around two-thirds of all welfare spending.
Disability and incapacity-related benefits accounted for a further 8 and 7 per cent of welfare spending respectively, followed by child benefit (payable for most children from 0 to 18 years of age) at 5 per cent. Pension credit made up a further 3 per cent of welfare spending.
Despite its relatively high profile, spending on jobseeker’s allowance – paid to those who are unemployed and meet certain criteria – accounted for only £2 billion or a little under 1 per cent of total welfare spending. Equivalent spending on universal credit in parts of the country where jobseeker’s allowance is no longer available amounted to £740 million

Cakeguts

Drawer_full_of_socks wrote: »

And how many people do you think that is?

Do you know that the majority of social security expenditure goes to pensioners?

Pensions £111bn 42%
Incapacity, disability & injury benefits £44bn 16%
Unemployment benefits £2bn 1%
Housing benefits £25bn 10%
Family benefits, income support & tax credits £46bn 18%
Personal social services and other benefits £35bn 13%


The conservatives will never be honest about these statistics as they know the amount lost through uncollected taxation dwarfs the unemployment payments.


https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/governmentpublicsectorandtaxes/publicsectorfinance/articles/howisthewelfarebudgetspent/2016-03-16

And how many of those pensioners paid into the system and paid for the previous generations of pensions? The state pension is £129.20 per week. But to get that you have to have paid contributions.



How many contributions do you have to have paid to receive child benefit?

BikingBud

Drawer_full_of_socks wrote: »

The state pension is the largest single item of welfare spending making up 42 per cent of the total. Is that better? but in case you'd like to argue against the actual facts as produced by the government, here's another link

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/benefit-expenditure-and-caseload-tables-information-and-guidance/benefit-expenditure-and-caseload-tables-information-and-guidance


Over 55% of social security expenditure goes to pensioners.
The government is forecast to spend £121 billion on pensioners and £94 billion on working age people and children this year. In 2017 to 2018 £121 billion was spent on pensioners and £96 billion was spent on working age people and children.

So you can find the link even if the figures are different to the 2019 spending round data on gov.uk

So lets look at this another way that pensioners are getting a pension and we accept that as good?

The bit you didn't quote:

The largest benefit is the State Pension at £96.7 billion in 2018 to 2019, a rise of £1.2 billion in real terms since last year. It is paid to 12.7 million people.

So take out the 96.7 billion from the 121 and we are left with 24 billion and pensioners therefore got about 20% (24/120 [cause we need to add all the normal welfare together again]) of the true like for like welfare budget.

If you then consider that 12.7 million is about 1/5 of the UK population you may see that they consume about a fifth. Looks a little different doesn't it and all in not too bad considering.:T

But we must also remember that 42% like 48% is less than the majority. Some round here are prone to forget that.

BikingBud

Drawer_full_of_socks wrote: »

The fact that you struggle to understand statistics does not mean they're "misquoted" .


I take it you're not a Labour voter then, seeing as talking about how little is spent on unemployment benefits has gotten you all vexed.


How about this from the OBR

In case you haven't got it yet, you said the :

majority of social security expenditure goes to pensioners?

Those first figures:

Pensions £111bn 42%

did not indicate a majority. It is not my perception of statistics but yours. I merely asked you to clarify further information which you duly did but then you will see there that the ratios are roughy similar for welfare splits, ie 20% are pensioners and they consume roughly 20% of the welfare expenditure.

I have not commented on anything political just your reasoning. Being a voter of any particular party does not improve one's mathematical reasoning and logic.

Drawer_full_of_socks

BikingBud wrote: »

So you can find the link even if the figures are different to the 2019 spending round data on gov.uk

So lets look at this another way that pensioners are getting a pension and we accept that as good?

The bit you didn't quote:


So take out the 96.7 billion from the 121 and we are left with 24 billion and pensioners therefore got about 20% (24/120 [cause we need to add all the normal welfare together again]) of the true like for like welfare budget.

If you then consider that 12.7 million is about 1/5 of the UK population you may see that they consume about a fifth. Looks a little different doesn't it and all in not too bad considering.:T

But we must also remember that 42% like 48% is less than the majority. Some round here are prone to forget that.

You're clearly at pensionable age so I'll keep this simple, like "Brexit means Brexit".


Does spending 1% of the welfare budget on unemployment benefits backup Cakeguts statement that "the benefit system is a safety net for if something goes wrong. However there are people who view it as a way of life."


I suggest that the figures don't really back up his statement.;)

Drawer_full_of_socks

BikingBud wrote: »

"SNIP" the ratios are roughy similar for welfare splits, ie 20% are pensioners and they consume roughly 20% of the welfare expenditure.
.

The point being made is that the average voters perception of welfare spending is grossly inaccurate, nobody has argued that too much is spent on pensioners. Maybe you'd like to discuss the actual topic of debate?


I can virtually guarantee that you're nearer 70 years of age than you are 30, and you definitely voted Brexit and Conservative. But that's irrelevant, a bit like your last 5 posts.

Cakeguts

Drawer_full_of_socks wrote: »

You're clearly at pensionable age so I'll keep this simple, like "Brexit means Brexit".


Does spending 1% of the welfare budget on unemployment benefits backup Cakeguts statement that "the benefit system is a safety net for if something goes wrong. However there are people who view it as a way of life."


I suggest that the figures don't really back up his statement.;)

Yes they do because if you are a pensioner now you will probably have paid into the pension system whereas if you are not a pensioner you can claim benefits from a system that you have not paid anything into. Child benefit for example. You can claim that without having paid any tax at all. So where is the money for that coming from? You can also claim housing benefit without having paid any money in tax.


What is more you can claim high levels of housing benefit because you want to live in an area that you can't afford to live in. People who own their houses who fall on hard times don't get housing benefit they have to sell up and move so why don't people who rent who fall on hard times have to move to a cheaper area?

BikingBud

Drawer_full_of_socks wrote: »

You're clearly at pensionable age so I'll keep this simple, like "Brexit means Brexit".


Does spending 1% of the welfare budget on unemployment benefits backup Cakeguts statement that "the benefit system is a safety net for if something goes wrong. However there are people who view it as a way of life."


I suggest that the figures don't really back up his statement.;)

Why are you looking simply at UB, a historic term the no longer applies?

If you look at Table 2b on the link you provided you will see that:

Total expenditure directed at working age

was 61.158 billion pounds, the figure quoted on the other link you provided gives £96 billion. I am sure you will agree that these are a little way from 1% of the welfare budget for UB that you only wish to consider.

Shall we shuffle some across from the figures that you quote of Personal Tax Credits of £27 and Housing Benefit of £23? Which bizarrely enough tend to be paid to the same people. It's only playing shops!

Drawer_full_of_socks

Cakeguts wrote: »

And how many of those pensioners paid into the system and paid for the previous generations of pensions? The state pension is £129.20 per week. But to get that you have to have paid contributions.

How many contributions do you have to have paid to receive child benefit?

Is 1% of the welfare budget spent on unemployment benefits indicative of a significant number of people living a benefit lifestyle? Simple question......



Child Benefit = £13p/w for additional children, I'd hardly say people having multiple children are raking it in.

Me and the wife are professionals working full time, thankfully neither of us have ever needed to claim a benefit, but we don't begrudge supporting others who have fallen on hard times or simply haven't had the ability or opportunity to attain secure full time work.

I imagine this probably comes down to each individuals background, it's a shame that the majority have become so cynical.

Drawer_full_of_socks

BikingBud wrote: »

Why are you looking simply at UB, a historic term the no longer applies?

I thought that bit was obvious , I focused on UB as Cakguts argument was that statistically significant number of people "view benefits as a way of life".


Are you suggesting that hard working people receiving a poor rate of poor who rely on Tax credit's etc are playing the system in some way? Or is it because the majority of large employers pay people less than they need to live?

This shouldn't be difficult.