To think half of all households not paying their way is OK

[FraidyCat]

and should be a formalised target?

Thought prompted by a Telegraph article.

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/labour/10927902/Labours-costly-legacy-of-dependence-on-the-state.html

Several years ago when I got the figures off the government (ONS) web site I became aware that at that time almost exactly 50% of households received more from the state than they payed in. All the article tells me that i didn't already know is that the recession has caused the figure to rise slightly since, and that in the 1970's the figure was in the region of 40%. (So 25 years after Thatcher, the country is more socialist than it was before, contrary to what many people seem to believe.)

If you'd asked me when I was younger I would have said help should be for people in exceptional circumstances. Exceptional in statistical terms would mean that figure should be 1%, or 5%, or at most 20%. However I can't see any realistic way back to that from where we are.

Given that we have two main political parties, one of which can be caricatured as the party of the poor that wants to maximise resdistribution, and the other as that of the better-off that wants to minimise it, maybe they should agree to meet half-way and formally set 50% as a target/constraint?

I suppose I think it would kill some arguments that are pointless, because the conflicting forces that lead to the status quo aren't going to go away, and leave politicians to focus on optimising the narrower details of redistribution.

benefits (including in-kind benefits such as health and education)
that tells me that the cost of those rosefaster that taxes paid by people who are using "free" benefits provided by the state

[Envy]
I think peoples obsession with buying is because privately renting is so insecure (and expensive if you have to keep moving) rather than being obsessed with buying. I wish we could buy, but using my example that looks unlikely!

Crinkle... yes, but the increased % of retired people on state pensions is the problem. Their contributions are long gone, as antimatter suggests!

Cap private rents.
Enforce a living wage.
A big chunk of the "dependence" will resolve itself.

I think that would be an excellent idea biblio

It is easy to say cap private rents but in some parts of the country even a high rent is just about covering the mortgage.

In my road a 3 bed semi (more like 2.5 bed) has just sold for £683K, how does a normal family afford that?

My God, that's even worse.

Cap private rents.... how?

Sellers need to cover their own liability in a house.
BTLs then need to cover theirs with the rent.
Cap rent, no-one can sell and no-one can rent!
How would you compel anyone with a 2nd home to rent them out at a price you set?

And, given today's free trade, open market stance, how do you tell someone they can't rent their home out for whatever price they want?

We don't live in a communist state or junta....

I don't think it's remotely ok but I think the main solution is a higher minimum wage, no zero hour contracts and a stop put to businesses relying on benefits to keep wages low. I have zero sympathy for business owners. If you can't afford to pay workers properly then clearly you shouldn't be in business. Greedy fucks.

More social housing / capped rents would make a huge difference.
The problem with increasing the min wage is the impact on small businesses. A lot of them would go under if they had to pay a living wage to all their staff, leaving us even more dependant on the big businesses and less jobs.

I'm not saying an increase is a bad thing, but a blanket increase could be. Small businesses employing student etc in pretty transient type jobs could well go under.

I think only 16% of the population are pensioners. Definitely wages are being kept too low.

When I left home and rented my first flat (about 16 years ago) the rent on our 3 bed flat was £550 per month. The flat next door to the one I used to live in has just come up to rent it is on for £1950 a month. When I rented the flat I was a shop assistant earning about £10K, if I went and got the same job now I would probably earn around £13K, the £3k extra a year wouldn't cover the £1500 extra rent a month.

It's literally IMPOSSIBLE to live in any decent fashion in this country if you're an unskilled labourer.

My DH works full time for a Painting and Decorating firm and I work part time self employed. We have low rent council housing and are vegetarians, we have no car and don't enjoy any nights out yet STILL we're struggling to eat some weeks.

Bills are horrendous and food is expensive too. I have no visits to the hairdresser and have holes in my one pair of trainers.

We don't live in London and we don't drink or smoke.

How is it happening this way? We have such minimal debt that it's paid off at a rate of 5 pounds per week...I have to do it weekly as that's how we're paid.

And that 16% takes up 65% of the DWP budget.

www.parliament.uk/business/publications/research/key-issues-for-the-new-parliament/value-for-money-in-public-services/the-ageing-population/

A bit depressing!

Sara... that sounds as though you don't understand how businesses work! Imagine... all those 'greedy fucks' stop trying to make their businesses pay and close. Now, where will the workforce go? What will happen to the people they ought from and sold to...... ? In short if all businesses stopped trading because they had to pinch a penny in order to continue, what would happen?

Just to add our rent is £100 per week and council tax 120 per month.

DH earns...not much. Despite working full time and taking on other smaller handyman jobs when he can. I would get an evening job in addition to my own work but can't find one!

I've dropped CV's into all the local pubs and registered with a cleaning agency but many want you to drive and if not, they say they will call and then don't.

OK, that counts in-kind benefits like NHS and schools, so for example my household are probably net 'takers' even though DH is higher-rate tax payer.

Doesn't it need to be about 50:50 anyway? Mathematically? If more households were net 'givers' than 'receivers', then the country would be running at a profit.

A slight tangent but worth bringing up again in terms of people paying in and out: of all the UK's billionaires, only two actually pay their full share of tax. JK Rowling and James Dyson.

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/the-billionaires-who-do-pay-their-bills-including-james-dyson-and-jk-rowling-7873607.html

As income inequality increases then a greater percentage of total income is in the hands of a smaller percentage people. So, the top half of all earners may be contributing more but a part of that is because they are getting more of the cash.

Friend of mine said 'why don't you move to Oxford'.

I thought yes, that seems like an idea, a bit out of London, should be a bit cheaper. So I had a quick look on rightmove

www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-30255111.html

Maybe not.

Basically landowners/the banks are absorbing an ever-increasing proportion of our incomes in rents/mortgages. And this is sold to people as a good thing.

BTW, I don't think JK Rowling has published her tax affairs, so I don't know anyone can possibly say she pays her full share, whatever that means.

Actually, I think people 'pay in' more than they realise so these figures could be wrong. What about the VAT paid on food/fuel/clothes etc? If I spend £50.00 a week on food (I wish) then 20% of this is VAT, so £10.00, so even those on benefits are still paying into the system, their VAT is going back to the Government who give it back to them by way of benefits. I do think it's stupid that large companies are given tax relief (money from the government) when they can't be arsed to pay their staff a decent wage though. Oh, to be a shareholder!

No VAT on food.

And things like education costs about £7k/year/child I believe.

Sarah , I fail to see how you can say all business owners are greedy fucks!
What do you think would happen if all business owners stopped trading this evening at 5pm?
Come on- think a little.

It's ok if that's what people need it to be, but it can't understand why you'd want it to be a target.

The fact that we've been near 50% for so many decades suggests we would not be constraining actual policy if we made this a target/constraint, we'd simply be agreeing that this is no longer worth arguing about, so we could move on to arguing about other things.

People tend to only look redistribution from their own point of view. If those who wanted more spent on something always had to say what other spending they would cut to fund it, or those who wanted a particular tax cut had to say what other tax they would raise to enable it, we might get more sensible public debate.

What we have at the moment is everyone on both sides thinking they can get what they want at the expense of someone else whose interests they don't care about.