If you rely on state support , you should have a great quality of life, not the breadline

Trouble is there are loads of people working who doesn’t have a great quality of life. Taxing them more will just be robbing Peter to pay Paul.

Personally, I feel the social contract has broken down in some respects. The idea is that you pay into the system when you can and take out of it when you need. I know many people who don't pay into it (perhaps by not declaring income or simply not working) but take every penny they can out of it (perhaps their undeclared income makes them eligible for UC for example). People are very much of the mindset that "I am entitled to this support" but very few seem to think "I'm out of the worst now so I'll happily pay my share of tax." You simply can't have it both ways and have the system that can be economically viable. So yes, in principle someone's standard of living should be perfectly adequate on state support for sure... but, severe disability aside, there should be a healthy amount of give AND take.

Edited as used the incorrect word 🤦🏼‍♀️

Is this going to be yet another of those threads where a poster makes a controversial comment, guaranteed to get everyone arguing amongst themselves and never comes back. There have been quite a few lately and it gets a bit tedious.

There's no chat to be had @confidenceboost , healthy or otherwise. Your musings are idealistic claptrap.

Living a 'great' life isn't a human right. Most people don't get to live a great life, for a plethora of reasons. When you're fighting the battles life inevitably throws at you (and we most often don't even know the battles those around us are fighting), do gooders preaching about how we can all do better by each other is of nothing more than nuisance value.

Raising everyones taxes is the obvious answer, i don't know enough about government finances and schemes to know if there's even other ways to provide that kind of care.

All government spending is funded by taxation, there is no other money (not in this country anyway, some countries have sovereign wealth funds but we don't). Furthermore, all taxes are paid by individuals. You can tax a business but that essentially takes money away from the business owner / shareholders or it increases prices for consumers.

I don't know how we've reached a point as a society where people think your value is based on your workplace contribution. People matter because we are people. Everyone deserves to have their basic needs met- a clean, safe, warm place to live, food, etc. I also think it's a sad reflection of society that some believe poor people shouldn't have any nice things or entertainment, like a TV. Also everyone should be able to access the internet for free imo.

Everyone who works should be able to buy a property, not struggle with bills, and comfortably raise a family. No one working should need to rely on benefits or food banks. People on benefits should be provided for, but wages for working people should be significantly higher. Can you really blame people for not wanting to work when it will be for pittance more and their live will barely improve anyway?

As for people who can work but don't (a minority, who cost us far less than the rich hoarding money offshore), we need to discuss how to support as a society. The poverty cycle and very poor education is a societal problem. It's all well and good telling people to go and get a job...who is going to hire someone who has two teeth because they can't afford dental care, cannot afford a suit for interviews, and who has no GCSE's to their name, when even university graduates can't get a job in the current system??? Do we propose these people just starve?

I also feel the huge reduction in trade jobs has impacted the workforce significantly.

I’ve always felt that benefits should not exceed a living wage salary.
The idea is to encourage people into work. I suspect that your idea wouldn’t help in this respect.
Those who cannot work at all should in an ideal world have enhanced benefits. Unfortunately the UK is far from ideal and the public purse just can’t cover everyone’s wants and needs.

I think the big issue is that many working people also live on the breadline. Working people having to rely on top ups and those just over threshold ending up worse off…

tbh as a start I’d like to see the government tax businesses properly and without loop holes because I think that would massively help with long term change.

Excellent idea. Then everyone struggling on lower wages can just give up working and rely on your brilliant benefits package and have a higher quality of life.
Genius.

@confidenceboost - China, Russia and North Korea have their system founded on this basis. Do look into the living standards and let us know when you're moving to your utopia.

On points from more sensible posters above, I agree lifelong disability benefits should have additional payments to cover holidays and some luxuries. I do not think unemployment, sick pay nor short-term disability benefits should cover that, because it discourages work.

OP I think your proposed model is sort of communism, where there is equality of income, despite differences in work contribution.

In theory it sounds great, but there are fundamental problems. If you make a relaxed easy lifestyle just as lucrative as a tough grafting one, where is the motivation to work?

I once went on a cycling trip in Cuba many years ago. Our cycle guide was a lovely man - he spent the week cycling with us, stayed in hotels with us, had fun, drank, ate, laughed - it was a pretty easy job for him really, requiring no qualifications at all, other than an ability to ride a bike and chat to people. His wife was a consultant gynaecologist. He earned more in tips (not his actual wages, just the tips from us) from a week’s cycling than she earned in a month. I talked to him about it. He had a young daughter and he was torn between pushing her towards academic achievement, and just working in hospitality. After all, why would anyone spend all those years studying, when you could earn more by chatting to tourists?

I’m not saying benefit claimants should live in poverty, but we need to ensure that life on benefits is not seen as an appealing lifestyle choice, because sadly we know that it would be exploited.

But “the government” doesn’t pay for benefits , WE the taxpayers do and I don’t want to. I work hard to provide for my family why should my standard of living decrease due to a higher tax burden so that people who don’t work benefit?

I look forward to your proposal as to how this should be funded

The OPs suggestion would remove the incentive to work for me and many others I think. At 63, I still work full time in a stressful job and have to live frugally with scant heating and no foreign holidays, little free time, health affected badly by work environment etc. The only way this would work is if benefits were only for the very disabled and their carers and then they will suffer a lifestyle shock when they hit pension age

YABVU. Why should those who can’t work , or won’t work, be paid to live a high standard that a lot of people who do work don’t get?

Why should those that work be forced to live a ‘poorer’ life to support those who can’t/wont work through taxes etc, as that’s how you would have to fund your desire for those on benefits to have this higher standard

Define your terms … breadline? High, highest quality of life?

No idea of what you mean about any of this. I suggest you do some research before you start with this silly debate you are trying to have.

Reducing the cost of housing would probably cause the biggest improvements in people's lifestyles.

Except of course for those who are paying a mortgage taken out to buy a property at current market rates.

Plus older homeowners who own a property that's 'worth' huge amounts of money will be pissed off as they will lose that wealth.

I think it depends. I don't think we should leave people in poverty, but I also don't think we should encourage people to not work by making their lives as financially "easy" as someone who works full time.

However- In the case of unpaid carers then yes, I think we should be compensated more fairly because we save the government a lot of money. We only get paid £377 a month in carers allowance for the privilege of providing over 35 hours a week of care to someone. And if we can manage to work on top of that, we lose our carers allowance, despite still providing the same 35+ hours of care a week on top of working. If carers claim UC it's also deducted pound for pound.

I think unpaid carers should get the equivalent of NLM. It feels massively unfair that it would cost the government roughly £1300 a week (source: Lincolnshire county council) to house my child and pay someone to give the care and therapies I give every day. And it would cost even more to house someone with complex medical needs. Yet we're only seen as worthy of £377 a month and that money is conditional. Even if carers were paid NLM for 35 hours a week of work, each carer would still save the government over £40,000 a year.

I'm not one to really discuss benefits but it does feel like unpaid carers get a really unfair deal.

The problem is that many people who are working can only afford to live on (or below) the breadline, so you can't keep taking more and more from those working to pay for those who are not working to have a better life than the workers.

For many workers the extreme pinch is relatively short lived, and the longer term benefits will eventually materialise. But virtually everyone I know who has 2 children in nursery and a mortgage to pay lives day to day on far less than the overall benefit package level despite both parents working full time in "well paid" jobs and earning well above the threshold for benefits. Obviously, once nursery fees end and mortgages are paid off there's longer term benefits plus career progression and pension provision etc. But in the moment, when they can't afford to put their heating on or are having to use the food bank to feed their children, to expect them to hand yet more money over in taxes so that people that don't work who already have more disposable income that them can be given yet more for a more comfortable life really stings.

I don't really know how we fix things. In an ideal world, everyone should have a good, comfortable life. But many tax paying workers do not. That's what I would prioritise fixing, rather than making benefit claimants' lives more comfortable. If wages (all, just not minimum wage) were raised as if they had kept in line with inflation, and people could afford to live their own lives comfortably, they'd be more happy to pay the taxes required to support those out of work to a better standard.

Exactly. Here we go again and MNHQ gives not a shit.

I think that if benefits enable a good lifestyle, the vast majority would NOT feel demeaned by being on benefits. Indeed, the vast majority of people would move to this. How would this be funded?

Where is the money coming from?

Money that is paid to people needs to come from somewhere. That somewhere is taxpayers.

We need to get away from the idea of "government money". It doesn't reflect the reality of the situation, which is that the money is really "money that other people have paid in tax".

And obviously the issue is sorting those who genuinely need to rely on benefits and those who are claiming fraudulently. There is shit loads of benefit fraud - ranging from the anecdotes of a cousin's friend on the take to the organised gangs like the one that was convicted last year of stealing over £50 million in benefits. Even if you say the stories about cousin's friend type situations are all shite, the £50 million isn't shite.

I would support those who are genuinely disabled having a much better quality of life and more benefits. However, there are entire families who have "bad backs" which the doctor has no way of verifying.

Very, very difficult situation.

I have a loooong history as both a benefits claimant and a benefits advisor.
If I was stranded on a desert island I would choose to bring the CPAG benefits handbook. Benefits are my life.

I more or less agree with you OP. But with a couple of caveats.

Firstly: I agree with PP that the economy is messed up. We keep reinflating that property bubble and as a result rents and house prices are too high.

This puts far too many people in the position of having to rely on top up benefits.
Which has further distorting effects down the line.

For example: anywhere that predominantly employs working class mums (Supermarkets are a good example) feels very little pressure to increase wages as many employees wages are topped up.

Secondly: I don't think people enjoy being on benefits. It feels demeaning. And it attracts resentment from friends and neighbours. I'm personally shameless. Because I understand that no-one is truly independent and we all rely on other members of society to some extent.

But I think there's something about receiving help in the form of benefits that really throws that sense of dependency in your face.

If we were all paying £400 a month for council housing. And another £150 for state subsidised child care, we'd be patting ourselves on the back for being so independent and full of work ethic. But we'd be subsidised to the same extent or more. It would just feel fairer.

That’s great. Communism exists in some parts of the world should you decide to move there instead.