In-work benefits reform, the way to incentivise employment

[artisan]

They may have surplus stock, but that stock is in the worst areas you can imagine.

if you took one of those houses you would be a fool.

You would have gangs of hooligans outside your house continually, your windows smashed continually, your fences and any improvements you tried to make destroyed hourly.

I would rather live in a tent in someones back garden than live on a council housing estate.

[chem1st]

Yes, and it worked - Hitler took over a bankrupt nation with hyper inflation (100%) and unemployment at 33%.

From this he built up Germany to be one of the leading industrial and most powerful nations on earth.

Had he won WW2 he wouldn't even have bothered to pay back his foreign debts either.

 

Borrowing money is a risky business at times like the present but without doing so, how do you get people off benefits and into work.

 

Cameron's trying to put the cart before the horse.

 

Current unemployment (people claiming out of work benefits - JSA, IS, IB) amongst those of working age in the UK is 13-14%. 14% in Sheffield

 

We have a workless rate of about 30% nationally. About 32% in Sheffield.

 

The workless rate of 16-19 and 20-24 year olds in Sheffield are 47% and 49%, rising to 52% and 56% for men.

 

So I assume the workless rates must take into account students, as only 8% of Sheffield Youth appear to be claiming JSA.

[icon76]

Put 25000% tarrifs on chinese imports.

 

Overnight we suddenly need to make stuff here and thus employ young people productively and if the chinese get arsey about it then cancel all their government bonds thus reducing the deficit to nearly nothing in a stroke.

 

Job done.

[chem1st]

New figures today released by the BBC, show further increases in youth unemployment, particularly long term youth unemployment.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/markeaston/2010/12/young_and_jobless.html

 

In the 3 months since I writ this thread, the figures in the OP have changed.

 

The benefits of the example unemployed Sheffield youth in the OP have risen by £2 (Housing benefit).

 

Whilst the income of the employed youth has risen by £1.40, his housing benefit will have also risen by £2 but £1.30 of that will have been deducted at the same time, providing he has filled in a 40 page form to notify the council of the change. 11% NI would also be due on the £1.40, leading to another deduction from wages, one of 15.4p.

 

Both have experienced an increase in their rent, the unemployed person suffered no loss, the employed person suffered a weekly loss of 5.4p. He is now working for -£0.2027p per hour vs to the equivalent income he would receive on benefits for not working at all.

 

If he did not declare the £1.40 increase in income in October when the minimum wage increased with inflation, he has also committed benefit fraud and would be liable for the penalties that it would incur.

 

 

The work incentive has decreased even further (and it was already a rational financial disincentive in the first place).

 

Come January it shall decrease even further still as NI rises by 1% to 12%.

 

It is a good few years still before IDS plan comes into force that would allow the employed youth to keep 24p in the £1 (£1.50 per national minimum wage hour).

 

Yet even that does not take into account transport costs, which, [ due to the decreasing value of sterling (because of our weak economy) and the subsequent rise in the cost of oil ] will be due to rise even further come January and lower the work incentive even further still.

 

But fear not, for the government have a plan to solve this. They are going to increase the taxation of the youth by 9% (on top of NI of 12% and income tax of 20-40%)via SLC's via tuition fee and associated increases in interest rates the tuition fees follow.

 

I'm not even sure the massive amounts of retiree boomers coming online next month, along with a decrease in the youth demographic, are going to be able reduce youth unemployment, when the work incentives are so dire and job prospects just as bad.