Fraser Stewart: What my job in a UK job centre told me about today's benefits system

The OP was about Job Centre sanctions.

Also relevant I think is the appalling JobMatch website that claimants are required to use. Log on and try it. I have never seen such a useless piece of crap before. Word limits on uploading covering letters, CVs and activity history. 'Job matches' that suggest you apply for a job as a dentist or orthopaedic surgeon when you have no such qualifications. A table of options for 'why didn't you apply for this job' that doesn't allow for you to say 'because I'm not actually an orthopaedic surgeon', just stuff that makes you sound a bit fussy or indolent.

STIDW ..... sorry, but are you trying to say our benefit/welfare bill went up more than all the other countries mentioned as the UK from 2000 as all of a sudden we an older population than the rest of the countries mentioned - or that under Labour State Pensions were soooooooooo much better than the likes of Italy, France, Germany - did they have a spending splurge after the 72p State Pension rise 'showered' on pensioners around 2000?

So nothing to do with;

Tax Credits other countries didn't have(?) going from a cost of £1 billion to £30 billion?

Housing Benefits rocketing due to rents rocketing, as home prices during a financial/credit bubble rocketed, as our population rocketed - and home building under 13-years of Labour plummeted to (on average) around half those built by the previous Conservative administration?

Etc etc etc.

Isitmebut wrote;

Welfare spending in Britain has increased faster than almost any other country in Europe since 2000, new figures show."

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/10574376/Graphic-Britain-outstrips-Europe-on-welfare-spending.html

..... life expectancy has been steadily increasing for the past half century, which for DWP accountants means that state pensions are being claimed for longer.

According to a Departmental analysis, a man reaching retirement age (65) in 1961 could on average expect to live for another 12.2 years, while a woman of the same age would live for 16.3 year more.

In 2011, newly-retired men and women could expect to enjoy another 21.6 and 24.1 years of life respectively.

In fact, when taken as a share of GDP, the sums spent on working age benefits have changed very little. The DWP expenditure tables calculate that in 2011/12, working age benefits cost 3.5% of GDP, approximately the same proportion that was being spent in 1982/83, and actually a smaller share than was being spent throughout most of the 1990s, where it hit 4.6% of GDP at one point.

Conclusion

Nick Clegg is correct that the welfare budget has grown approximately seven times over during the past half century, although the rise could be as little as six fold or as large as eight depending upon which data is used.

However this doesn’t necessarily mean that the benefits bill has risen as a result of government policy, ^or that the ‘tough decisions’ taken by the Lib Dems in Government will necessarily reverse this. The largest increases in recent decades have been in spending directed at pensioners – and on the state pension in particular – as life expectancies have increased.

fullfact.org/factchecks/welfare_spending_economy_Lib_dem_conference-28294

Isitme once again forgetting that the national debt was caused by the banking sector.

While the entire country and generations to come are working hard to fill the pockets of aforementioned banking sector, actual lives are being actually lost and destroyed, money pouring somehow magically into the pockets of the Oxbridge Westminster 10% payrise top 1% being taken directly from the lower 1/3 of Britains population.

Do you need a graph to remind you?

So this 'expert' was only happy in his Job Centre job, while he could hand out money like confetti and left soon after 2010, when the Coalition was STILL handing out money - despite having inherited a £153 billion annual UK government budget deficit (overspend) and £1 trillion of National Debt -accumulating annually by the 'overspend' plus interest.

"Welfare spending in Britain has increased faster than almost any other country in Europe since 2000, new figures show."
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/10574376/Graphic-Britain-outstrips-Europe-on-welfare-spending.html

"The cost of unemployment benefits, housing support and pensions as share of the economy has increased by more than a quarter over the past thirteen years – growing at a faster rate than in most of the developed world."

"In the developed world, only the United States and the stricken eurozone states of Ireland, Portugal and Spain - which are blighted by high unemployment - have increased spending quicker than Britain."

"And in Britain since 2010, when the Coalition came to power, spending on welfare as share of GDP has barely moved – falling by just a quarter of one per cent over three years, according to OECD data."

"By contrast, more than a third of developed nations have cut their welfare bills steeply in that period......"

"Despite Mr Osborne’s promise to get welfare under control, the benefits bill is due to increase rapidly in cash terms, from £180bn this year to £203bn in 2018-19.”

Your Mr Stewart and others would have huge credibility in challenging the REDUCTION in UK welfare & Benefits if;

a) If they had not increased so much in percentage terms from 2000, not matched by any another economy growing strongly with record employment boasting of having "ended boom and busts".

b) If by 2010 there had not been a £153 billion UK overspend, the largest in our peacetime history and far higher than country in Europe, possibly higher than the accumulated annual deficits of the EU 'bail out' P.I.G.S.

c) Any other Labour plans in place to reduce government spending and/or inspire a great recession shell shocked private sector, back to sustainable growth, investment & private sector JOB CREATION.

In 2010 NOTHING was in place by those sitting on their hands, waiting for something to turn up as our national debt was going to rocket from £1 trillion, by our annual overspends - thinking that 'growf' from huge government spending would 'filter down' to the masses who many saw their jobs go, or earnings eroded by inflation since 2008, with taxes going UP to help them e.g. National Insurance.

“Labour's planned National Insurance increase will cost jobs, Alistair Darling admits”
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/labour/7539343/Labours-planned-National-Insurance-increase-will-cost-jobs-Alistair-Darling-admits.html

Think how busier Mr Stewart would have been under a Labour government, with increased unemployment, until one day due to the weight of national debt, more welfare/benefits taps had to be turned off than had to be under the Conservatives?