If you can work you should... But why?

[Tryingtokeepgoing]

So, Rachel Reeves is of the opinion that if you can work you should. However, there are millions of us in the 50+ bracket who can work, but don't need or want to work. We are financially self sufficent, happily (ish) paying tax and spending money supporting the services economy on which so much of the country depends. Why should we work? Altruistically, I see my choice not to work as creating opportunities for progression for others...

Why should we work?
What is achieved by encouraging us to work?
If there are benefits to us working, how can she incentivise us to do so?

caveat - I am not a fan of the Telegraph, but it is a direct quote

“If you can work, you should work,” she said after official figures showed worklessness in Britain rose to its highest level in more than a decade.

What really annoys me is people who choose not to work and rely solely on benefits, when they are actually physically and mentally able to go to work. I’m not meaning people who have health issues or disabilities, I mean people who pretend and there really are so many families heavily relying on benefits to subsidise their entire lives and lifestyle. A friend of mine lives with her partner (they are engaged to be married), they have lived together for two years but he still has not given up his flat. He doesn’t work and claims benefits and also has a flat that is paid for by benefits. He moved in with my friend and hasn’t even been back to the flat for over a year, but they both say that they get more by claiming separately. And both are fit and able to work, they would be able to do something but neither will. They both separately claim that they are not medically able but I know from all that they do, that both could work in some fields. My friends’s partner for example walks all over as he doesn’t drive, he managed perfectly fine to take the kids to the park and paint fence panels, do the gardening, carry shopping bags, paints and wallpaper’s the house regularly. He claims to have depression. My friend has no visible signs of any medical conditions but tells UC people and doctors that she is constantly tired and has managed to make them think it’s a medical condition that she’s too tired to work. She admits to me that she likes to be with her partner every day watching movies and walking to the supermarket or the park or snuggled up in bed. Both lazy and think it’s ok to claim and live off benefits. With 4 children too, she gets plenty and so does he. This is what needs clamping down on.

I retired at 60 following a rewarding but very stressful career of 39 years. Rather than having a go at us over 60s who’ve worked hard and contributed for many years, the government needs to focus on the 3 million under 25 yr olds not working + the increasing numbers of immigrants, who want to work but aren’t allowed to until their asylum claim is processed, who are sitting around receiving money for doing nothing.

We need a labour shortage to allow prices to rise. I'm all in favour of those who can support themselves retiring early. We don't want a society with a surplus of workers. That drives wages down + Britain really really needs wage growth

That has to be a joke

I wish, for once, they would treat us like grown ups and understand that the structural problems in our economy are largely government-created, and sort them out.

Under-remuneration for skilled roles in the public sector, plus the understaffing and resultant stress and/or bullying has made many job untenable. Teaching and medicine for starters. When you combine that with a chronically broken housing market and reduction in living standards, I think you have a generation of people who are pressing the "fuck it" button.

There used to be an aspiration to live in a nice house with a garden. Most of my parents generation would move into their "forever home" in their 50s. They'd be tied into mortgages until retirement. I think now, more people are settling for whatever they've got. We're burnt out and exhausted, leading to a rejection of the rat race.

The various blows to the middle class - tuition fees, high housing costs, high cost of living, mean many of them are now the "squeezed middle", wondering what the point is. At the same time, huge unearned housing wealth plays another part here - making people wealthy on paper and less concerned about long term financial security.

I think as a nation, after years and years of deteriorating living standards, we've just given up. There is no aspiration, no prospect of a better life. After Brexit, there isn't even the prospect of moving abroad for a better life. We're stuck in this dump, with all its inequality, and threadbare public services.

I'm normally a positive and grateful person, but this one really annoyed me. Public servants have had enough. Give us back some respect and the capability to do the jobs we once loved without a 75 hour week!

Presumably it's the higher earners that RR needs to keep in work longer in order for the system to work ?

Other people, (like me), work just as hard as higher earners and do full time hours, but pay less tax due to low wage rates. We can't retire early, but we also don't pay that much in- and many people like me have to claim benefits despite working full time so may take out of the system as well as putting in.

Higher earners can often afford to retire earlier than lower earners. That's perfectly understandable. So does the focus need to be on higher earners not retiring early?

To be clear, I'm not suggesting anyone shouldn't retire whenever suits them- I'm just thinking about how the system works (or does not work).

Or, cynically do they focus on leaving the very high earners alone and focus on the middle wage earners? Middle earners earn enough to be comfortable, and pay relatively high NI and Tax, but maybe not enough to retire early. Exacerbated by crazy house prices so that plenty of people can't afford to retire as they have big mortgages left. Or (even more cynically), the very well off people buy homes to rent to the rest of us, at rent rates higher than paying an actual mortgage- we never own a home, and again can't retire.

Are landlords part of the problem, hoarding housing which in turn keeps house prices high? They could bring in the Robin Hood tax and they could tax wealth instead of income. As I mentioned earlier, UBI would help get rid of the majority of benefits and means testing.

I think you're right and some of my previous post was a more clumsy way of expressing some similar thoughts (I began my post before yours was posed, so didn't see it).

I also think that a knock on effect of Covid for some people was a reevaluation of what really matters to them and what is realistically achievable.

They also paused long enough to assess the cost vs benefit of the sacrifices created by stressful jobs which affect physical and mental health , jobs which allow little time for family or social life, jobs which take up so much mental load that they struggle to switch off, sleep, feel peace or joy or anything positive, jobs where despite giving it their absolute all, blood, sweat and tears they are not valued or motivated.

Many understandably threw the "fuck it" card as @anon666 said.

It may partly be the algorithms that social media has for me but I feel these days there is less focus on the big, flashy, expensive trappings of life and more focus on managing on less, making the best of what we've got, finding joy in nature, simplicity and peace. I wholeheartedly support this approach for many reasons including the benefit to the environment, plus TBH I'm not in a financial position to have expensive habits. It's not an approach that lends itself aspiring to paying higher tax rates and working into old age though. That could only be the case if work wasn't so bloody demotivating, thankless and unfulfilling for some people.

I agree about COVID - it gave some of us the opportunity to reflect and wonder what life would be like on the "other side" if we stepped off the treadmill.

Zero hours contracts, the gig economy and the new "precariat" have eroded away the remuneration of lower earners.

I think the reduction in working is a rebellion by those that can find an alternative way to survive. And there is no morality of employers these days - it's any means to justify the end.

If we could bring back the dignity of work, instead of assuming a relentless treadmill as standard, I think we'd be part way there!

I’m well past retirement age and haven’t worked for 14 years, and never will again - but I still pay tax.

Personally I think house hoarding and high rents are a part of the problem. I hesitate to blame landlords directly as TBF I can't blame someone for working the system to their advantage.

Rents are extortionate. In general tenants in private rentals pay more rent PCM than they would pay on a mortgage for the property that they are renting. But they can't get on the ladder due to salary multiples and / or being unable to save a deposit. They are skint and stuck. This is a problem for couples who work full time and earn a decent wage, never mind single people, or full time workers on a lower wage or zero hours contract.

For people with wealth, putting that wealth into property is a reliably good call for long term investment. Plus they can rent it out which offers a healthy income stream in most cases.

Home ownership is so unachievable that it disincentivises people who is the past could have afforded a home if they worked full time and worked hard. These days a depressing amount of people work extremely hard, do their absolute best and are can barely keep afloat.

" If we could bring back the dignity of work, instead of assuming a relentless treadmill as standard, I think we'd be part way there!".

I think that is absolutely correct. However, in so very many cases it is a relentless treadmill. Made more relentless by also having all the "life work" of keeping a home, parenting etc to do. This still falls disproportionately to women, but even where it is shared equally it can be really tough.

I am absolutely not advocating that women don't work. Not for a second. Or men for that matter. But when a partnership doesn't have someone who has time to sort cooking, shopping, cleaning, parenting etc then both parents still have all that to deal with on-top of work. Not to mention single parents doing it all.

The current system is unsustainable, too many people on benefits and not enough paying enough taxes and as you say the higher tax paying ones all retiring early because they can !

@Wishitwasstraightforward
I agree with all that you posted a couple of posts back at 20:49

Reeves might want to ponder why only the UK has seen a rise in the numbers of people in the 50s not working, across Europe, its the opposite.

I stopped work at 58, started at 16, 14 unofficially, in recent years, treated like shit, no pay rises, expected to work in the evenings for free, then there was the casual ageism.. no thankyou.

All a person has to do is wave the MH card at the job centre and like my partners 27 yo son, who has never had a job and has no diagnosed MH condition, the JC just let him claim as he wishes, i asked him recently if they ever put any pressure on him to get a job and he said "no, it would affect my anxiety" as he drew deeply on his joint, the drugs paid for by other peoples taxes.

Well, they can because the Govt allowed people to claim their pensions at 55, what on earth did they expect?

@iwishihadknownmore
It's hard to blame your neighbour's son for working the system- it shouldn't be that easy to work should it 🤷🏻‍♀️

@Wishitwasstraightforward

How true. I think a lot of women are realising in midlife that their husband is never going to step up, and rather than continue fighting it, they just resign themselves to being the domestic wife person, amd step back from full time paid work.

I fought like a trouper for equality my whole working life as a feminist. When an opportunity came up to step off the treadmill, via a boss who was a psychopathic bully, I took it. I'm now the wrong side of 50 and despite being phenomenally capable, hard-working, qualified and experienced, I can't get back into a permanent job. I don't even get interviews, it's bizarre.

I am working my way DOWN the ladder with each successive job, and I can't help but feel there is a lot of sexism at work. I get fantastic references and feedback, and I see very mediocre, even laughably incompetent, men throwing jobs between themselves. We women are INVISIBLE over 50.

If RR wants to know why we're voting out, she needs to look at the ingrained prejudices and attitudes of the men in positions of power. Once we're not "hot totty", they simply don't see us. 🙄

@BlackShuck3 The JC know that getting a MH diagnosis can take years, treatments even longer, so if a claimant says "i cannot use public transport due to my anxiety and i'm physically sick" who are they to say otherwise?

Fwiw i had a work ethic at his age & i wanted money!! as did everyone else i knew, now a days, that seems far less likely.

@anon666 Sexism yes and ageism too, the only jobs i ever got anywhere near was care and driving ones, despite have worked in IT at a high level, skills i thought would be in demand, yes if i was 20 years younger.

I don't think she is your friend if you seem to hate her this much.
Just report her and be done with it. But doing so wont mean you get money.

It always makes me sad how women turn on each other on Mumsnet so easily. I would like you to clarify exactly where in my post I said I ‘hated’ my friend? Clearly you don’t understand what I have said to make such a stupid comment.

I agree, but I do think that it is less likely that people these days have that type of worth ethic for understandable reasons including:

They could work extremely hard in a stressful job, full time, and not earn enough to keep their head above water or to meet any aspirations that they may have in terms of lifestyle, home ownership etc.. So they aren't financially any better off working than they would be on benefits. To be clear my own opinion is that this is not because benefits are remotely generous, but because the wages of the majority are so low and the cost of living and home ownership is so high.

They may be conscious that there is a stigma attached to living on benefits, but the alternative doesn't bring a sense of pride anyway- because people who earn a low wage on full time hours, doing their best, working hard, meeting targets etc.. too often face an unfair judgement that they are somehow lazy, or that it's their fault that they earn a low wage. I am sick of hearing high earners explain their privilege by emphasising that they have "worked incredibly hard" so deserve it- as if people many people who are struggling financially don't also work incredibly hard, long hours etc.

They see little in terms of behaviour to aspire to from decision makers, big business owners, politicians, people in powerful positions etc.. They see how many of these people are "in it for themselves" , lack morals, cheat the system, lie, break the law and get away with it in a way that the rest of us can't. They don't respect them, or want to work for them,, or make money for them, or have any part in their world. Correspondingly, rejecting the world of work doesn't feel like a moral failing like it did decades ago but to some people it is part of rejecting a system that they feel is unfair.

Would you tell your friend that she is (in your view) claiming fraudulently? If not, why not? Would you also tell her that people like her and her partner should have their benefits clamped down on?

@XenoBitch - the above was meant for yourself, sorry I should have put your username. I don’t hate my friend, and would never report someone. I simply stated someone I know is claiming benefits when there is nothing wrong with her or her partner, and there are many like this. I am however a bit confused by your comment that ‘I’ won’t get any money for reporting someone. I have a very good and well-paid job, as does my Husband, so I’m not sure why you’d make such a comment. It seems like you don’t like what I have had to say about someone I know, when I was only speaking the truth. Seems strange that you’d be erked by my post.