Is your household contributing net tax ?

@Neveralonewithaclone Do you have an issue with admin workers? 😁

Without administrators, nothing would ever get finished.

Food wouldn't be bought from the wholesalers or arrive when needed in the shops
Patients would never receive notification of appointments
999 calls would never be answered.
Children would never be admitted to schools or be vaccinated against disease.
No-one would ever travel, preventing trade.
The internet wouldn't work, leaving us all much the poorer.
There would be no money in cashpoints and the payments system would collapse in seconds.

Maybe rethink your disdain for the humble administrator !

Yes, I would take state pensions away from rich people who are retired.

@qwertyqwertyqwertyqwerty that's an interesting point about the removal of universal CB. I wonder how much that has genuinely saved once you take account of the extra cost to administrate the new system.

I do want a good welfare society. I want good social care, MH services, support for young families, the elderly, etc, and I am happy to pay my taxes to have this. My household pays roughly £35k per year in taxes (incl Council tax) on a household income of £125k.

I am a net contributor as far as I can tell.

Long-term single mum from a free school meals family
Salary - £60k ish
Child in independent school (with scholarship)
Paid higher rate tax for 30 years
One birth, one other op, treatment for BC.
Never been on benefits
Only been to A&E twice I can remember
I have a degree from a poly.
Started work at 13
Have always worked full time,
Have 43 years NI paid.

I don't begrudge a penny to the disabled, to the NHS, to primary/secondary education. I'm probably the 'squeezed middle' but I don't mind. I don't want children going hungry or pensioners dying of cold. Contribution is an essential part of a decent society.

I do mind those claiming 'anxiety' is an illness. Do they imagine being made redundant 7 times (in 38 years) with no safety net wasn't anxiety-inducing? Being made redundant again at 58 (covid) and fighting for months to get back into a decent job wasn't a struggle? Being diagnosed with BC as a lone mum didn't make me ill with worry? Keeping working while undergoing chemo didn't cause me issues?

I don't respect people who give up so easily. Who feel they are entitled to live off others. Of the people who waste hundreds every month and then say they can't afford a deposit. Who get drunk, fall down stairs and then complain about the wait in A&E. Who take drugs and then wonder why they have mental health issues.

Personal responsibility is also essential for a decent society and a lot of people seem to forget that.

What is the point of this post exactly?

We're Net contributors, paid shit loads in, recieved absolutely nothing, so we're leaving the UK for a country that gives you very little, if anything, but takes less in tax and NI.

Yes in my friend circle this is becoming more popular also people in their early 50s saying they have had enough.

They all say the same it's about fairness, I had a next door neighbour once that was on long term sickness benefit ( one of the ones that always said find him a job that paid 30k a year and he will start work ). He complained one day when I came home from work asking if I could make less noise defrosting my car in a morning. Bloody cheek.

There have been a few of these threads this week.

I think the criticisms of the benefits system paying out an equivalent of a £30,40,50k salary are misunderstood. It’s not about people seeing others as scrounging or undeserving.

Its about two things IMO:

• the ability of individuals to earn this kind of money themselves
• the cost of paying benefits at this level to the state

This is not the individuals fault - they are merely claiming what is available to them. But it’s a huge question re: what the state is doing, that they have created a structure in which working doesn’t leave you much better off than working part-time plus claiming benefits.

Most people on here seem to be struggling to some extent. Their housing costs are going up. Their childcare costs are crippling them. Having a second child off the cards. Food is increasingly expensive. Holidays unaffordable etc.

But they are also working 40+ hours a week (80+ hours for a couple) and sacrificing a lot of time / energy to try and do so. To know an alternative is doing 16 hours plus a raft of state support does raise the question, ‘what is the point?’.

So much of this, IMO comes down to the ridiculous cost of housing yourself. The state can’t avoid paying this - but has sold huge amounts of social housing an isn’t building more. It has to house people - but it’s ultimately crazy they might need to pay eg £1,400 (I think the figure on that thread) when for a working couple to pay that, it would basically be an entire salary.

I don’t think it’s about moralising - it’s about having a functional economy in which we support the poor but also actually have some additional lifestyle benefits as a result of working.

People with over a certain amount of income or assets should not receive state pension. They all say they've worked so hard but really they simply profited from the property boom. Those who genuinely worked very hard (coal miners) will be poor and die young from broken health.

I've met a lot of rich humans who preen about 'having worked so hard and got nothing back' they are admin workers, like most people. And they never fail to poor bash.

I wonder if you have ever met any humans!?

If you had been told for 50 years that you would pay NI to earn an entitlement to a pension, how would you respond to having that cut?

We're Net contributors, paid shit loads in, recieved absolutely nothing, so we're leaving the UK for a country that gives you very little, if anything, but takes less in tax and NI.

We're Net contributors, paid shit loads in, recieved absolutely nothing, so we're leaving the UK for a country that gives you very little, if anything, but takes less in tax and NI.

OK, I take your point. I'm not good at economics. It's the attitude of entitlement and superiority that makes people with so much be so so nasty to those in need.

Because the system they contributed to throughout their working life was based upon that.

They paid for the pensions of those older than them, someone else pays theirs.

If you want to tax wealth, make a sensible proposal.

Universal benefits are part of the welfare ecosystem. You will have seen that support for benefits in general has declined since CB became income-dependent. That was done deliberately - once you means test things they lose support - as the current government wanted to undermine the welfare state in general. Also cost more to administer.

Do you want good welfare or not? If so, don't progress further down the dismantling route.

Why does a banker earn more than a GP?

What kind of person takes something when they already have SO MUCH? How can they sit there and receive their £10 Christmas bonus from the DWP. What scroungers!