to think its an awful thing that 80% of working age benefits go to people in work

[medona]

Constantly people, like O'Brien on LBC, tot this out as if its a good thing.

In what world is it ever good that workers are not paid enough to live on so tax payers have to top up their income?

Blair and Brown were very clever. They couldn't nationalise utilities or industries, as that debate was had in the 1970s and 80s and conclusively won by Thatcher. So they nationalised the workforce instead.

It is dreadful the government (or all governments) should be ashamed of themselves allowing their mates in big business to pay people peanuts. A better way would be a living wage with tax breaks for small businesses to allow them to pay the increased wages. Massive multinational companies make massive profits of the backs of low paid employees. It's little more than serfdom!

High housing costs, stagnant wages, zero hours contracts, temp work, high transport costs. The trend continues . . .

*off

Blame Blair and Brown

They trot it out as a good thing to counteract the 'benefit recipients are dirty scroungers' trope. Not as a stand-alone 'good thing'.

What is this fascination with assigning blame? How about fixing it instead?

YANBU. Employers should pay sensible salaries to their workers. It is outrageous that the taxpayer subsidises these employers.

And before someone says they can't employ someone if they have to pay a decent wage, I don't believe it. It's all about profit and greed.

I'm not sure Blair and Brown are to blame. Employers have always tried to exploit their workers. We wouldn't have needed trade unions if they didn't. Some trade unions go over the top in their demands, but there's no doubt many employers treat their employees as badly as they can get away with.

We need a higher minimum wage.

I wonder how much, on top of that, it costs to just administer the system, it all seems needlessly complicated.

Totally agree - the minimum wage has ceased to be a safety net and has become the benchmark as to how little you need to pay an employee. Have known employees to be told - don't ask for a pay rise because you will be no better off because it was be taken off your tax credits!! Taxpayer subsidising big business!

I'm gobsmacked that 80% goes to people in work. I don't know a single person who receives any benefits (apart from a few who get CB still).

So plenty of people do get paid decent wages; I guess it depends on their qualifications and experience....

In my husbands company the staff (who are lucky enough to actually be employed and not stuck on agency contracts) have been told there will be no pay rises this year, as there is no money for it. On the same day, two of the directors drove to work in brand new cars that cost upwards of £50k.

IMO it is truly disgusting that the big bosses are able to pocket big profits, while the government tops up the wages of their workers. Not to mention the fact that job security is non existent and they treat their workers like shit.

Brown thought he was the best chancellor ever, history will prove he was the absolute worst.

If someone days they can't afford to pay workers a decent wage, then their business model is broken.

It's no use blaming companies for not paying enough in a global economy where we simply can't compete against less expensive foreign labour. We need the cost of living to drop and come into line with wages, not the other way around.

Successive governments have hidden the problem very cleverly - not least by encouraging people to make up their income shortfall by taking out secured debt against their houses (remember all the ads - "We consolidated all of our debts and had enough left over to buy a new car / holiday / conservatory!").

Blaming one government or another for this doesn't wash - they've all been complicit in it and all failed to do anything about it.

"So plenty of people do get paid decent wages; I guess it depends on their qualifications and experience...."
oh really well guess what I have a degree and PG qual plus years of exp and still need a top up from the nanny state. It was designed like that.

My DH has good qualifications and good experience. Gets paid a few pennies over NMW. Had to apply for 100's of jobs over 2 years just to get the job he has in ASDA. Not as simple as someone's qualifications or experience.
YANBU Op.

I thought exploiting the workforce was the whole point of capitalism.

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/supermarket-workers-minimum-wage-pay-topped-up-by-11bn-in-benefits-says-charity-10170426.html

Qualifications and experience mean nothing now. The NMW has just become THE WAGE in many jobs, no matter what qualifications and experience are needed in the role.

We need the cost of living to drop and come into line with wages, not the other way around.

They need to meet in the middle. One can't go all the way to meet the other. The cost of living is high, but wages are lower than they should be too.

The government needs to quit talking shit about scroungers, and spend their time introducing more regulations in to the rental market, encourage house building, and start handing some social responsibility back to employers.

Blue42 nailed it. We simply cannot compete globally, in a global market, if we keep increasing nmw to cover the cost of an extortionate cost of living, Small business, the heart entrepreneurship and economic success, would bear the brunt of any increase and close. The cost of Housing, utilities and transport have to come down.

Yes, I realise this is unlikely ...

The point people are making when they say 80% of working age benefits are paid to people in work isn't that they think that's a great thing, but that people on benefits generally aren't sitting on their arses at home as the government would like you to believe.

Tax credits for workers weren't some big conspiracy to make everyone dependent on the government. At the time they would have been vote winners because they enabled a lot of people and especially women with young families to go out to work, they lifted millions of children out of poverty.

Before tax credits low wages still weren't enough to live on, but there were many people in a position of being financially better off on benefits and unemployed. Tax credits meant that noone was ever financially better off not working. They were/are particularly helpful to single parents a large chunk paying for childcare.

Like most things they haven't been perfect and have had a knock on effect, they've also been open to abuse but people should remember what things were like before and they weren't any better.

Minimum wage and or one income simply isn't enough to live on.

There are also certain disability benefits paid to employed disabled people.

It probably also depends on ages; we're early 50s and have never got any benefits apart from CB which ended a few years ago. Our friends are mainly the same age and also never been on benefits to my knowledge (nearest 8 neighbours are an engineer, Colonel in army, 2 GPs, accountant, founder of a telecoms co, DH is VP of a Big Pharma co & I'm a lawyer.

I suspect if we were 20 or 25 years younger it would be a different story.

I do worry about how DS (20) is ever going to be financially independent when he graduates.

I agree with Oddboots. If the tax free allowance was raised to £15k for example, how many people would cease to pay tax, and not receive any form of tax credit thus reducing the burden of administration.

Why not introduce more tax bands - if a sliding scale can be done for stamp duty then why not have a 10% to £20k/20% to £40k/30% to 60k for example/40% anything above scale? The alternative is head towards a Danish style model where income tax is very high but state services [health/schools etc] are excellent.

By the same token - if a livable minimum wage was legislated for, or zero hours contracts made illegal how many people would be made unemployed as employers would have to do things the old fashioned way. It wouldn't play well as the unemployment rate would go up and the reality is that it is hidden right now.

I work for a company that operates a form of highly paid zero hours for some top up staff, though it does at least guarantee a basic income to them. Because the business has a lower overall operating cost, it can sell more services and has grown 600% in 3 yrs. The overall growth and numbers of staff made full-time and permanent would be considerably less had the normal employment model been followed. I think they would have just opened up in India or similar instead. But now there's a trained labour force and infrastructure the cost of switching is much higher so in many ways I can see the business argument for flexible employment if it will stop more and more work going offshore. We've gone way too far with zero hours though and in our own way screwed up the school leavers generation just as badly as the French did with a really rigid employment model.

I think Labour have truly screwed up the economy and wouldn't vote for them if my life depended on it, but I do strongly believe that very large businesses and multinationals do not pay a fair tax on their UK revenues, and I feel very strongly that small businesses are not given enough support, but exploited by comparison with large businesses being at the mercy of whatever the local council can dream up in terms of rates and also government levies. They are the equivalent of the middle income families who don't have the funds to find ways to hide their [non-existent] income outside of the PAYE system. This is an interesting read www.fsb.org.uk/stats

I wish I had the right answers and could afford to run for parliament though a degree in economics might be useful first

I'm fairly comfortable reciting my times tables though so I'd be a sho-in for Chancellor!!