To think that if you will not even look look at this pie chart regarding the welfare spend from last year you have no right to comment?

[MadameDefarge]

THE FACTS

I will now try and find a breakdown of figures of those on long term benefit JSA/IB etc.

Then perhaps we could all have a reasonable discussion.

The thing is society cant disincentivise people having children, as we need children to keep society going. the lower birthrate is the reason why we have such a topheavy non earning pension burden.

But many people are disincentivised from having children - for many couples it simply isn't possible to buy a house and have kids - houses are hideously expensive and childcare costs are some of the highest in the world. The rich and those living off benefits are fine, but frequently those on the middle have fewer or no children as society makes it unaffordable.

Anyone remember a year or two ago, we were told "everyone will have to make sacrifices", "We're all in it together", etc, as The Deficit demanded cutbacks all round.

Meanwhile (yes, that same year) the people on the Rich List, i.e. the extremely wealthy, saw their wealth INCREASE by 30% !

And here we are, mums, OAPs, disabled people, unemployed people, fighting each other for the scraps!

Let's try and think of a better way.

The thing is society cant disincentivise people having children, as we need children to keep society going. the lower birthrate is the reason why we have such a topheavy non earning pension burden.

There's no danger of a world shortage of people, not even educated English-speaking ones. We don't need to subsidise production!

Bambalam, who are you talking about. Stealing jobs, are you talking about the 1960's when we needed people to come to this country.

chris481 has the typical mindset of the classic Tory voter, hence the crowd-pleasing festival of benefit cutting that we are now seeing. It boils down to: I don't get this benefit, so no one else should either.

In fact, what we should be concentrating our thoughts on the billions of pounds lost to the HMRC by perfectly leal tax avoidance.

FWIW I don't know a single benefit "scrounger", but virtually everyone I know tweaks their tax bill.

All those "leaching" OAPs worked all those years paying into this, raising kids and working while not having any access to CTC free nursery hours, WTC and all kinds of thing that the "young" have now, they worked and paid for babysitters or day care centres. Maybe the Leaching working young should try raising there kids without any of the benefits they have access to. Then they can feel entitled when they are older.
My own mother is comfortable, not rich, she raised us as a single parent with no money and no help or benefits, we went hungry and never asked for anything, she worked two jobs to keep us clothed and fed the best she could and the house was very cold in winter as we couldn't afford heat. She paid her dues, and lived on the bread line so she deserves to be comfortable in her old age.

hedgefund do take a look at the more comprehensive link provided by zwisch. That might slake your thirst for more information.

steph, I think that bam was being sarcastic.

Let not forget where the property wealth goes when passed, on to their less well off offspring, taking people out of benefits. Swings and roundabouts.

Big fan of feudalism, stephrick? Most OAPs and baby boomers had the opportunity to work and aspire to buy a house, what you might call a meritocracy. When inheritance is the only route to home ownership for the majority of the young, what incentive is there for them to work hard and aspire to better themselves?

I'm sure most of us know or know of young 20 somethings who sponge off their parents and don't bother to apply themselves, and quite frankly, when all they can aspire to is renting a flat to line a landlords pocket and make meagre contributions to a pension that won't amount to much. When that's all you've got to look forward to may as well take it easy and wait for mum and dad to croak and inherit a few £100ks.

Social mobility has fallen off a cliff in this country.

chris481 has the typical mindset of the classic Tory voter, hence the crowd-pleasing festival of benefit cutting that we are now seeing

I explicitly said that I don't particularly care about the size of the benefits bill.

I'm an idealist who cares about good system design. When I see a flawed system that produces unintended consequences, it offends me aesthetically.

I'm still not sure what you're trying to prove with this. Pensioners should make up well over half of the welfare budget.

God willing, we will all be pensioners one day. Benefits that benefit everyone are not a bad thing.

All your second link proves is that we spend too much on child tax credits, too much on housing benefit, and not enough on disability and carer benefits.

We can probably all agree that people with disabilities and their carers deserve more than they currently get, and we can probably all agree that the cost of housing is too high. So that leave child tax credits, which in my opinion, should be scrapped all together so that people are no longer actively encouraged to have children they can't afford.

Thank you Madame, it wasn't wasted on you

In fact, what we should be concentrating our thoughts on the billions of pounds lost to the HMRC by perfectly legal tax avoidance.

Completely bogus argument (that's repeated in every benefits thread.) Our ability to think about tax avoidance is in no way constrained by the time we spend thinking about other things.

I have stated several times what I am trying to prove. That the majority of the welfare budget does not go on benefit scroungers.

I think it would be great in MN did an MN Academy in Critical Thinking.

God willing, we will all be pensioners one day. Benefits that benefit everyone are not a bad thing.

Youngsters supporting the current setup of OAP benefits are akin to skinny malnourished kids leaving the fat kids in the sweetie shop on the promise that they will get their turn next, only to find the shop bare when they finally get their turn.

These pension benefits will be drastically reduced by the time anyone under 40 or so finally reaches retirement age - state pension age is already 68 for anyone under 30, and in all probability will be over 70 by the time they get to 68.

But what's the point in"proving" that Madame?

It's like saying, well over half of my salary goes on mortgage/fixed bills so there's no point in reducing other discretionary areas of expenditure, whilst although smaller, are still significant

And Reading Threads - Why Skim Reading Will Result in Misapprehension and Conflict.

If you don't care about he benefits bill, then why contribute to a discussion about it?

I too am an idealist - and a rationalist. What offends me is the obvious social problems endured by us all when the divergence between the very poor and the very rich becomes so pronounced. Any policies (especially the ill thought out back-of-fag-packet ones we are now seeing) which lead to an even less equitable society are an embarrassing and costly mistake.

It clearly needs proving (not sure why quotes were necessary) as so many posters on benefit threads dont actually understand how the welfare spend is divided up. Seems pretty reasonable to me. Arm people with the info and they will have a better chance of making an informed comment rather than just a prejudiced one.

Why do you think other posters don't understand how the benefits bill is divided? Do you think if someone has an opinion different to yours it must be because they don't understand?

ZWISCHENZUG, you say what incentive, what about self confidence, My DS could have gone on benefits, but he would not do it, he works 11 hours a day min wage, never say whats the point, our parents could have said the same, so it might have been eaiser to find work, but if you have it in you to try, you bloody well try, and yes my Ds is renting a flat with a friend, both working hard, he won't give in to the feckless view that he could do better on benefits, ( which he would)

Does it matter whether the majority if welfare goes on 'scroungers'?

I am supportive of many (not all) of the benefit reforms, but I never believed that the majority of welfare goes on scroungers. I still think that the system has been too generous to legal and legitimate claimants though.

My profuse apologies for growing old and draining this country of money.
However I am 69 and DH 66 are caring for 5 with SN age 7-33yrs we work bloody hard (2 LO's in wheelchirs) No we don't do holidays BUT we are not repeat not hard up.

I fail to see why we need bus passes let the young travel free.
We do not need winter fuel allowance give it to familes

Cloud. that is indeed a reasonable position. But the government is not pushing that viewpoint. They have chosen to demonise ALL benefit claimants as scroungers. Its a malicious and rather vicious attempt to demonise all low wage earners.