Goodbye Spongers!

Well, quite, but no govt is brave enough to tell business to take a hike.

And, chibi, perhaps the country you come from doesn't have a housing market that is so overinflated it eats over 50% of many people's earnings?

good point chibi the taxpayer is forced to top up low wages via tax credits so that large businesses can get away with paying low wages while creaming off huge profits

Raise the minimum wage SUBSTANTIALLY and you could also slash the benefit bill

Poorhouses, that's the way. And make the bastards build them themselves.
Or perhaps send them round to every higher-rate taxpayer to do odd jobs and cleaning.

Or maybe, OP, the unemployed should just go straight to prison, where they will now apparently be 'incentivised' into minimum-wage jobs.

here

This is something that I have been stewing about for a while

I come from a different country, and I was shocked by how many employed people are in receipt of some benefit or another (beyond cb)

It seems to me that something is seriously wrong when working full time is not enough to be able to make ends meet without receiving topups to help cover rent compensate for tax, help meet the cost of childcare

I don't mean this in a grr slash benefits way but a what is it about the way our society is structured that makes it all but inevitable that many people need benefits to keep the wolf from the door way

The only thing that pleases me about this is that I can be absolutely ruthless in culling a couple of people I know from my thoughts.
The benefits system isn't ideal, anyone will admit that.

Crowing about knowingly moving people into long-term poverty, enjoying it even, is pretty evil (have always thought so and am saddened by it).

'Personally I'd like to see more people starting their own small businesses if they can't find employment.'

mumblechum I think you live in a fantasy world in which cause and effect are apparently divorced from each other.

Totally agree with your point about house prices rantyknickers. A movement away from the idea that it's good to have large amounts of (fantasy) equity tied up in the housing market would be good news for a lot of people.

Actually, the entire housing benefit scandal is a direct result of the Tory policy of giving people the right to buy their council homes.

People bought their council homes, sold them at a profit to a private landlord, who now leases them back the state at market rates through housing benefits.

If we still had anything approaching social housing in this country there would be very little need for housing benefit.

ShakesPear, don't forget, it was the council that failed to find cheaper accommodation for that family. And of what political persuasion was that council? Yes, that's right. Tory.

'Personally I'd like to see more people starting their own small businesses if they can't find employment.'

Would love to, mumble! There'a post office and shop for sale in a nearby village as the owner wishes to retire.

But we don't qualify for a loan. No property, no collateral to use.

Bet there will be plenty of money from the taxpayer next year when the banks need more to keep going.

But none left for education, health services and police.

The 5 million on benefits are also people who work.

I have friends who are both haematologists working in London hospitals and providing a vital service. They claim benefits.

I think it's great that we take steps to avoid "the cradle to grave approach" to benefits.

I don't think that anyone who is able to work has the right to expect their lifestyle to be funded by other people - and it is PEOPLE & FAMILIES who fund this through their taxes, not the mythical being that is "the government"

When I see how much of my hard earned money disappears in tax I do want to know that this is going to people who REALLY need it. The mentally ill & disabled/less abled, for example, IMO need more help than they currently get.

Should people have the right to expect other families to support them long term ? I think it should be a saftey net to support those who find themselves temporarily in trouble - or those who cannot physically work. We should not have a system that allows people to NEVER work. I don't want to financially support these people.

I'd rather give more to the most needy and give a higher amount to temporarily help out those through redundancy or serious illness. I'd rather see "top-up" payments for low earners than pay for someone who simply doesn't want to work....

Bagofholly, I often wonder that to, where are all these jobs going to come from,esp in communities where jobs are few and far between at the best of times.

Bagofholly, those are my thoughts exactly.

Hearing them say last week that those who have spent a lifetime on benefits will no longer be tolerated - what are they proposing happens. None of it is thought through.

There is massive unemployment in this country at the moment with qualified, experienced people desperate to find work. What chance do these 'scroungers' have of ever finding a job in this job market? And if they can't, what are they going to eat?

If this policy was backed up by a programme of training schemes, eduation and apprenticeships then maybe they would have a point.

Likewise, it's all very well to cut housing benefit (as it is a massive cost), but added to this the Government's policy of propping up house prices and supporting the buy to let investor means that without this benefit, large numbers of people can't afford the soaring house costs in this county.

Let houseprices and rent come down 30%, and then we won't need the housing benefit.

But I assume the Daily Mail won't like that.

Love the fact that people think that housing benefit means million dollar mansions for people not working.

I've heard that most people on HB do actually work.

The five million on benefits aren't all unemployed as such, though, are they? Some will be on disability or carers' benefits. I think the unemployment total is less than two million, but I may be wrong.

Personally I'd like to see more people starting their own small businesses if they can't find employment.

BagohHolly they are screwed. 800,000 vacancies available according to this morning's figures.

I believe the theory is that if they dissolve much of the welfare state then the private secotr will leap into the void creating lots of jobs and cash. Easy as that.

I've been wondering the same BagofHolly. They are telling people everyone must work at the same time they are axing public sector jobs left, right and center and seemingly doing their best to drive small business into the ground

Can someone explain to me how this will work? The govt's own figs show 5 million people on benefits, but only 1 million jobs available. So what happens to the people who absolutely cannot find a job?

I'm missing something. Please help.

Absolutely - I'm THRILLED that cardboard city will soon be back and i'll be tripping over people sleeping in doorways again - how refreshing that we should make families sleep on the streets because they can't afford their rent, after all it's all their own fault isn't it?

And the reson that you (and I) are OK is because we're just so darn hard working and all round wonderful, luck just hasn't come into it at all.

There but for the grace of God go I.

please don't use such inflammatory language

it doesn't help AT ALL

And while you are up on there on your high horse try to remeber that we are all just one redundancy/bad investment away from being that family having our bills and rent paid 'paid by the tax payer'.

yy the poor are ruining this country.

I am pleased that a family will no longer be able to pay the morgate/rent and face losing their home? Not really, no.