If you could vote on the future of benefits, how would you vote?

[Anna B]

You can buy cheap food cheaply, and cheap clothes cheaply. People at the bottom end of the income range just expect too much, and we have a welfare system that encourages them to expect everything for nothing.

 

What nonsense.

 

If you eat and live (or should I say exist) as cheaply as possible and still find it impossible to make ends meet, as do many on benefits, how do you cut still further?

Answer - Buy even less food and go hungry, or beg, steal or borrow and get into debt which makes your position even worse.

[tinfoilhat]

Do people beg in this country ? The odd homeless guy and organised eastern Europeans might but on the whole the fact people aren't begging in the streets shows things are at least managed realitvly well.

 

Edit : didn't read the above properly I thought you were saying people were begging for food in greater numbers.

 

Sorry !

[Jonny5]

What nonsense.

 

If you eat and live (or should I say exist) as cheaply as possible and still find it impossible to make ends meet, as do many on benefits, how do you cut still further?

Answer - Buy even less food and go hungry, or beg, steal or borrow and get into debt which makes your position even worse.

The honest ones yes. But there are plenty of people working the system and living quite well.

 

Personally I think benefits should be higher but the checks on them more stringent. Basically the career benefit users need clamping down.

 

The penalties for false benefit claim, specifically incapacity, should be severe. It's taking advantage of a system put in place to help those that need it most.

[Cyclone]

So what is your solution? Let me guess, raise the minimum wage, putting even more people on benefits?

 

Maybe the minimum wage could be raised, but the tax benefits (WTC, CTC, and all similar things) removed and instead the tax burden for employing people on a low wage could be cut. Raise the point at which employers start paying NIC contributions for example.

So the increase in minimum wage doesn't end up actually costing employers anything, and the overall income of people doesn't change, but it all comes from being employed. The administrative burden on the government is reduced and it seems like the system is more fair.

[Cyclone]

As official figures reveal, a good deal of taxpayers money goes towards top ups, rebates, credits etc for those in work but on very low wages; those saving the tax payer a fortune by shouldering the burden for caring for sick relatives and friends; those raising the next generation; and those who have worked all their lives and now in reciept of pensions.

Do you begrudge all those people a smoke, a drink and a trip to the cinema?

 

As has been explained in the thread several times, no. First of all pensioners were never involved, carers likewise as they get a specific payment, not income support or JSA.

I know it makes it more difficult for you to argue against, but it's about the long term unemployed who are in that situation because they choose not to work.

[Cyclone]

We should abolish council tax and bring back rates in the form of a Land value tax. The proceeds of such a tax should be seen as a 'rent' one pays to the people of nation for depriving them of the land.

 

Everybody should get paid 'benefits' for being a citizen (a part of the nation), there should be no means test.

 

And the magic money tree will pay for it all.

[Rupert_Baehr]

If you look back less than 150 years in the UK, there was little (or nothing) in the way of 'benefits'. Those who had nothing (and no external help) were stuck with whatever the 'Parish Poor' charities provided. - Which wasn't much.

 

In general, however, families tended to look after family members.

 

Parents supported their children (and as the children became teenagers or left home, often had to support their own parents.)

 

It worked pretty well.

 

That doesn't seem to happen in the UK, nowadays.

 

Consider the family who live across the road from me in Bayern:

 

They live in a large rented house. 3 floors and a cellar. The top floor is a 'holiday apartment'

 

Grandma and Grandpa live on the ground floor (Grandma is in a wheelchair, so getting up stairs is a bit difficult.)

 

The parents and their two sons live on the first floor. (The cellar has a laundry room, a play/hobby room for the kids and the boiler room.)

 

That's a fairly normal family setup and it has considerable advantages.

 

If the parents need babysitters, they don't have to go far to find them.

The kids get to see their grandparents often

Living costs are shared.

 

I'd hate to have had to live with parents for an extended period in a 'normal' house. (My wife and I lived with her parents for a month or two when we first moved to Albuquerque in 1988.) They had a very large (by British standards) house and there was adequate space for the two of them the two of us and 2 year old son and the dog, but there was no real 'private' space (apart from our [very large] bedroom.)

 

I lived in Germany between 2004 and 2007 in a house with a purpose-designed 'granny flat'. My Mother-in-law lived with us and she had her own apartment, with a living room (kitchen space if necessary - but we cooked for her) a shower bath and loo, a bedroom and her own entrance. She spent most of her time with us - but she had her own space. (As did we.)

 

The German government offered 'tax advantages [hefty tax advantages] to people who built houses which included 'granny flats'. The tax system requires taxpayers to pay a tax which goes towards old age care (pays the fees in a care home) but - perhaps unsurprisingly - the government would prefer that older people lived with their families for as long as possible.

 

It's not quite like that in the UK: If you build a house in the UK with a granny flat which has its own amenities and a private entrance, your will be 'dicked' for additional council tax on the 'separate dwelling house'. Most people find that expensive and it's hardly surprising that many old people have to go into care - but the government is then surprised that there is a cost!

 

Perhaps the government might consider helping those who look after their parents and encouraging multi-generation occupancy of larger houses?

 

It could reduce the costs to the state considerably.

[Supertramp]

If you look back less than 150 years in the UK, there was little (or nothing) in the way of 'benefits'. Those who had nothing (and no external help) were stuck with whatever the 'Parish Poor' charities provided. - Which wasn't much.

 

In general, however, families tended to look after family members.

 

Parents supported their children (and as the children became teenagers or left home, often had to support their own parents.)

 

It worked pretty well.

 

That doesn't seem to happen in the UK, nowadays.

 

Consider the family who live across the road from me in Bayern:

 

They live in a large rented house. 3 floors and a cellar. The top floor is a 'holiday apartment'

 

Grandma and Grandpa live on the ground floor (Grandma is in a wheelchair, so getting up stairs is a bit difficult.)

 

The parents and their two sons live on the first floor. (The cellar has a laundry room, a play/hobby room for the kids and the boiler room.)

 

That's a fairly normal family setup and it has considerable advantages.

 

If the parents need babysitters, they don't have to go far to find them.

The kids get to see their grandparents often

Living costs are shared.

 

I'd hate to have had to live with parents for an extended period in a 'normal' house. (My wife and I lived with her parents for a month or two when we first moved to Albuquerque in 1988.) They had a very large (by British standards) house and there was adequate space for the two of them the two of us and 2 year old son and the dog, but there was no real 'private' space (apart from our [very large] bedroom.)

 

I lived in Germany between 2004 and 2007 in a house with a purpose-designed 'granny flat'. My Mother-in-law lived with us and she had her own apartment, with a living room (kitchen space if necessary - but we cooked for her) a shower bath and loo, a bedroom and her own entrance. She spent most of her time with us - but she had her own space. (As did we.)

 

The German government offered 'tax advantages [hefty tax advantages] to people who built houses which included 'granny flats'. The tax system requires taxpayers to pay a tax which goes towards old age care (pays the fees in a care home) but - perhaps unsurprisingly - the government would prefer that older people lived with their families for as long as possible.

 

It's not quite like that in the UK: If you build a house in the UK with a granny flat which has its own amenities and a private entrance, your will be 'dicked' for additional council tax on the 'separate dwelling house'. Most people find that expensive and it's hardly surprising that many old people have to go into care - but the government is then surprised that there is a cost!

 

Perhaps the government might consider helping those who look after their parents and encouraging multi-generation occupancy of larger houses?

 

It could reduce the costs to the state considerably.

 

Great post as usual.

[Cyclone]

Was it really necessary to quote the entire thing to say that?

[Dude111]

For cash payments to be replaced by food and utility vouchers.

Sadly I do think this is the best way..