'The purpose of Welfare is to help people into work

[AnnieMaybe]

This is what David Cameron just said at the end of the BBC benefit programme

Does he not know what welfare is? Has he forgotten the ethos of where it has evolved from

The point is, my neighbour contributes to society. The unpaid work he does for a pittance from the taxpayer is likely to save the taxpayer that many times over if they were having to shell out for the counselling services, social services, home help care, fly-tipping clear up etc etc. some of which have been avoided by his valuable contribution to society.

truffle yes, I'd agree with you there.

What a mess!

Feminine What has changed that now makes you think you're on benefits. I have to confess to being utterly confused by tax credits. I have no problem with tax credits; however, my sister (an unmarried single mother with two kids two dads) gets them, despite not working or paying any tax.

I think it would be helpful to destigmatise tax credits by seperating those that receive them as a geneuine tax credit (their employers should have to publish in their accounts the proportion of their employess who qualify for State support) and those that don't.

Isn't the majority of welfare spend on the retired? Surely they are not being helped back to work?

fideline you can still pay taxes on a PT job and still top up with benefits. It is what economists have been shouting for years now. That most HB claims are made by working people.

78 Nothing in our situation. There are pages here where posters lump anyone who receives anything from the Government as benefit recipients! Sometimes those poor sods who just get child benefit!

Originally we were 'sold' tax credits as a totally viable way to raise a family (on a low wage)

I worked out that if my DH didn't work we'd have more money!

Crazy...

prh47 Labour were the architects of welfare restructuring, back to the Freud report around 2007.

It doesn't make IDS non-evil; it just makes many Labour-ites evil twats as well.

Though to be fair, many of them were party-hoppers anyway, just going where the power was. Frank Field switched from the Tories, David Freud is now a Tory lord.

Why should tax credits and child benefit be distinguished? They are still taxpayers money.

BTW, I'm not suggesting that any change ever to welfare systems is bad. Obviously they need continual tweaking to match conditions.

But these changes have been appalling. They make parts of the welfare state a substance-less facade for some people - like those folk with cancer in Dawndonna's link.

Miss what would you like to see happen?

Partial the dwp stated last night that disabled people are not being affected by the Benefits cap. That has to be one of the most ridiculous statements I read. Bedroom tax is part of the benefits cap. Disabled people are the hardest hit. . Not To mention the appalling atos shambles!

I think probably the prevailing view is increasingly that your husband's employer is on benefits. Everyone is fed up with that.

I do hope so Truffle. Do you really think people are grasping that? (Not hearing it much myself.)

Feminine what I would like to see happen is people who are just as heavily as reliant on taxpayers money to stop slagging off others that are equally as reliant. I would also like to see that everyone understood a huge part of the welfare bill goes to pensioners (no I don't think it is right that they come under this category but it is important to note when it is being quoted as a large figure). I would also like to see all Employers pay their workers a living wage and see how doing so would impact on the HB claims made and if it does inevitably lower.

We get Child Benefit -though I'd be in favour of limiting it to two children I suppose. I do consider it a benfit (the clue's in the name) but I think that the govt. have been quite canny in removing it. As it was, the benefit was universal. Now that a cap has been introduced (this will be continually lowered) there will be further division between those that receive benefit, and those that do not.

Misspixietrix.

How on earth can Jo Average understand what's being done to the most vulnerable when the reporting is so wrong?

more facts

fideline you can still pay taxes on a PT job and still top up with benefits. It is what economists have been shouting for years now. That most HB claims are made by working people.

Yes Misspixie but he wasn't .

At the time of filming the personal tax allowance was somehere between £8000 -9000 per annum, he was earning £150 per week = £7800 per annum. So no income tax.

It is also notable that the reason his family were subject to the cap was because he hadn't met the theshold for two parent families of working 24 hours a week or more.

He and his wife were (I felt) a bad example of people needing help and suffering under the cap (even if you leave aside the threats etc he and his wife sished out to council staff).

miss we are on the same page then :)

I agree with your points.

feminine your household is a much more typical example of a family needing top up.

I wish the need for a living wage could be more effectively linked with the welfare issue in the public's mind. I'm not convinced people get it.

I thought the purpose of welfare was to 'eradicate child poverty'. That's what it was originally set up to do I thought.

Rita the emphasis on child poverty came about forty years AFTER the creation of the UK welfare system

Yes, rita so why under IDS are a million more children going to be living in poverty in the next two years?

Correction - more than FIFTY years.

fideline I'm not sure people get it either.

We have been on the same threads where some people clearly don't-or don't want to! :)

Oh they'll be along Fem