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  • EADD Moderators: Pissed_and_messed | Shinji Ikari

The UK benefits system

Sex, may I call you Sex?, I'll concede you have a point (probably because I want sex with you) when it comes to HOSTELS that the unemployed get forced into. Sometimes (ie sometimes I'll concede that's true). However, more generally, I don't think any street sleeper would rather stay sleeping rough than have their own cozy one bedroom flat roof over their head. There's a lot of difference between a hostel/B&B and a proper council/HA flat.
 
parttime crackhead said:
I think before we start talking about benefits we should have a big discussion, in this thread obviously, about tax.

I'll start. I would happily pay more tax to live in a better society. I would pay more tax if it meant no-one was sleeping on the street. Thoughts?
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Totally agree. I even put that into practice. When I do work I choose to pay the higher tax rate (40% last time I worked - yes that was a while ago ;)). Admittedly part of that is confusion over the tax system cos I know nowt but I don't object anyway. I know I take more than I could ever hope to put in short of a miracle so it seems reasonable to me. As long as I have enough to live on and provide occasional treats I'm happy. That was feasible back when I last worked. Wages haven't risen by more than about a quid an hour since then though which would make it impossible to do nowadays. Again, wages are the problem not scrounging. If the people at the top end of the wage scale weren't so obscenely avaricious we wouldn't have this problem at all.
 
sexNcandy said:
Governments have little say in wages. They can try to alter them or even foot the bill themselves, but it usually has disastrous consequences and is counter productive as far as product output goes. It's the market who determines the wages. The benefits can be high or low relative to the wages. The concept of relatively here is central to understanding the problem. The wages are determined by a whole set of economical factors - but also in great part by the productivity of the worker. It is what it is and it's hard to change in the short run.

You believe benefits are already too low - and they are, in a sense. However a good number of people are comfortable enough with them that they won't put in work to get a few quid more. Thus, they need to be lower and force people to get off their ass, even if that comes with costs.

Bottom of the barrel stuff? Maybe, but you can always climb. The world is full of stories of high executives and CEOs who started out scrubbing the floor. You can climb through being good at what you do (like a good sales assistant who is always observing the manager, learns everything and is eventually promoted) or by saving the extra money you get an investing in specialization and education. It's not easy by any means, and it's a long hard road to climb, but it's entirely possible. You might not become the ceo of shell, but it's not that hard to substantially increase your income with enough hard work.
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I didn't say governments did get a say in wages... they do in minimum wage though and that's barely changed in years. It's not even close to keeping up with inflation. If it was it would be over a tenner an hour by now - quite a bit over a tenner an hour at that. Are big bizniz struggling horribly? Are executives and CEOs and shareholders on the breadline? No. They're grubbing away money in tax havens whilst the rest of us have to rely on food banks. If we even qualify for those. You don't even qualify for a food bank around here unless you get literally nothing from any source. That's a common enough situation given all the benefits sanctions that they have to take priority and even those people are on a waiting list. That's for food and bog roll not luxuries. And all the time they are getting worse and worse off cos the bills don't go away when your income is suddenly cut off for no good reason.

Blaming those who have no real say or control over there situation is the wrong road to go down. We have nothing so taking it away only means we will have to take it directly from others or literally starve to death on the street. People don't do that cos there's that survival instinct thing - it overcomes morals eventually and that applies to everybody. There's nothing left to squeeze from the poor - the pips are long gone - the rich get away (literally sometimes) with murder. The very least they could do is pay their fair share same as everybody on low wages do. It's not those on minimum wage who are spending fortunes to save fortunes to add to existing fortunes.

The whole idea of "work hard enough and you'll get there in the end" is utter bollocks. Of course some do. Most don't. There's only so many well-paid jobs to go around and not everybody has the entrepreneurial spark required to start their own bizniz. And even if they did somebody still has to be their customers. Dead end jobs are called that for a reason. The very least we could do is ensure those people at least have enough to pay the bills, buy the groceries, and maybe have a lil something extra once in a blue moon. That is not the situation and it is has nothing to do with benefits.

sexNcandy said:
A lot of people prefer to live in the street than in any kind of government housing. Everyone could hand over all their finances to the government and it wouldn't change that.
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Definitely. Sleeping rough in midwinter and freezing to death in a shop doorway is a dream for some of us <3
 
I think your "jobseekers" should be linked to your time in work - that would at least make it more liveable. If you've worked 20 years you get more than if you've done 1 year. Merely a suggestion.
 
Superb post up there, Shambles <3

I think we should just plain give £100 per week to every single person in the country earning less than £200 per week, no questions asked, do what you want with the dosh. If you can survive on £100 a week, good on ya, if not, find some way of earning a little more. Shut every job centre & free pople to find their own work. Claiming Jobseekers Allowance now is a full time job trying to convince them that you really are looking for work, time that would be better spent errrr acually looking for work...
 
^ Income based and contributions based JSA differ - you do get more if you have paid more tax. Not as much as you'd like I'm sure. I sort of agree but in practice how much extra should somebody get and at what point are they getting so much they don't need to bother working? Theoretically JSA is enough to live on. That's why it's set that way - enough to live on, not enough to live comfortably on cos supposedly this encourages work. Which it would if work paid which it doesn't.

I almost agree, Si. I do think I may well have been persuaded that the Basic Income (it had a far snazzier name on the site I last looked into it on) concept makes far more sense than continuing with the pisspoor wages that are so bad the rest have to top them up system. If we need to subsidise the lives of some cos there is enough to go around but some don't want to play nice then it seems the fairest way of doing that. Work is more or less a choice anyway - not a good choice for many cos they just get screwed by stupidly high rents, utility bills and general living costs if they do choose it - why not make that policy? Most people still want more than the absolute bare minimum and those that don't aren't doing anything different either way. Everybody gets to get by, there's some level of dignity cos nobody needs to be begging for scraps and handouts on top of the what they get cos everybody gets the same basic handout. I actually think it more likely to encourage work cos you are basically working for treats and goodies rather than working to not even cover the cost of having nothing which is the way it is now. That disincentives working.
 
Si Ingwe said:
Superb post up there, Shambles <3

I think we should just plain give £100 per week to every single person in the country earning less than £200 per week, no questions asked, do what you want with the dosh. If you can survive on £100 a week, good on ya, if not, find some way of earning a little more. Shut every job centre & free pople to find their own work. Claiming Jobseekers Allowance now is a full time job trying to convince them that you really are looking for work, time that would be better spent errrr acually looking for work...
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Wonderful idea from a fully paid up member of the Bluelight Loony Left. Yes, that's right, let's hand out SIX BILLION POUNDS a week to everyone in the country. Why didn't we think of that before?!

Not only that, but there's no concern for the hundreds of millions to outsource development of an IT system to deliver such a solution. No thought to what effect such a "solution" would have on inflation. No thought for what that would do for criminal opportunity with everyone suddenly walking round with a hundred smacker note in their pockets on a specific day of the month.

Even, if you managed to deliver this effectively, reliably and for cheap, you still have the problem that the feckless will spend their money on cigarettes and drugs, once again needing state support by the end of the month. The Daily Mail has countless number of unofficial surveys which state that the more money the feckless receive, the lesser they become. Surveys like 'Benefit cheats more liable to disease', 'ATOS passed unemployed still don't exercise' and '94% of verbal crime committed by poor' - google them and see just what getting free money does for you as a person.

This is the reason why the lefty elite on these forums and beyond are ignored by anyone who understands the first thing about finance. Your solution to everything is "free shit" having barely lifted a finger all your lives, choosing instead to live off the taxes of the strivers who have single handedly brought this country out of financial disaster that you and your Labour chums brought us. It is time to stop this nonsense once and for all. On Thursday, I'm voting UKIP, maybe then will someone have the balls to tackle the immigrants, the feckless and the disabled.

PS: I would support some sort of poor person olympics. A mass brawl (which seems to be the main sport you lot are good at anyway) til the death. You could have it in stadiums around the country as a spectator sport, driving the local economy, and the reduction in benefit claimants through attrition reduces expenditure also. The personal determination shown by the winner would no doubt land them some work experience somewhere too.
 
RLP: I know you go in for comedy uberTory stuff but I truly hope I'm seeing sarcasm and pisstaking in all the right places there, RLP. Had to check cos you really are good at that stuff but suspect you mostly are. You are a lil rascal and a tinker, Squirrelish One. Perhaps also an uberTory but we can't all be perfect ;)
 
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RLP said:
This is the reason why the lefty elite on these forums and beyond are ignored by anyone who understands the first thing about finance. Your solution to everything is "free shit" having barely lifted a finger all your lives, choosing instead to live off the taxes of the strivers who have single handedly brought this country out of financial disaster that you and your Labour chums brought us. It is time to stop this nonsense once and for all. On Thursday, I'm voting UKIP, maybe then will someone have the balls to tackle the immigrants, the feckless and the disabled.

PS: I would support some sort of poor person olympics. A mass brawl (which seems to be the main sport you lot are good at anyway) til the death. You could have it in stadiums around the country as a spectator sport, driving the local economy, and the reduction in benefit claimants through attrition reduces expenditure also. The personal determination shown by the winner would no doubt land them some work experience somewhere too.
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Lol!

... & errrr... lefty elite..? =D

My health has not improved much since I was on the sick but now I work & I only take what I need from the system. I have no savings, no home, no car, I don't smoke & I barely drink, weed is my only luxury. I resent the accussation of "having barely lifted a finger all our lives" you cheeky peasant, my feet ache like fuck every day I come home from work!

Bear with me, you'd save a fortune in rents on buildings & wages to folk who work in the job seeking system. Money that could be given to people in need. People find their own jobs most of the time anyway & the enormous beurocracy you fear in my hypothetical regime already exists to pander to the fears of loaded, paraniod right wing types who already have everything they'll ever need & a thouand times more by forcing jobseekers to jump through so many hoops they have no time left to seek work.

Tax those who have more than one home more. Tax those who travel more, those who drive more, those who smoke & drink more. All these people could be dissuaded from drinking, smoking, driving & flying if it werent so inexpensive. & their health & ours might improve, costing NHS less in the longer run.

Our entire system outside of the stingy, miserly & inadequately funded benefit system, is skewed towards the rich as it is, with the gap between the rich & poor growing in almost every country on earth. But hey, I'm the left wing nut, don't listen to me, read the Economist, that's where I read it.
 
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