To not understand how people can justify it

[ijustdontunderstand]

Okay, not a bun fight I just want to understand how those who vote Tory can think the cuts to disability benefits are OK.

This is NOT saying if you vote Tory you're a bad person, at all, I just want to understand. Will you vote them in again knowing?

Housing benefit is propping up the buy to let market.

In August 2015, the average house price was approximately 9 times local salary in England & Wales, while in London it was between 10 - 20 times local salary. London rents were between 40 - 78% of earnings. (ONS statistics) Since house prices and rents have continued to rise in the intervening months, the ratios aren't likely to have improved any.

Hardly surprising HB has become a necessity, is it?

That needs to change, but not by simply cutting benefits without addressing the causes. It's not benefit claimants who have pushed rents and house prices beyond the reach of an increasing number of people - including people who work fulltime - but they're the ones who'll suffer from a stick-with-no-carrot approach to cutting benefits. Where are they supposed to live?

first, I agree you can't just remove benefits. that will cause huge problems.

but HB is part of the problem. London has a supply/demand problem. Neither labour nor the tories have done anything positive about supply, but HB pushes up demand. Suck 22 billion pounds (all of which is specifically earmarked for rent) out of the system and rents will come down.

Where are they supposed to live? Given that HB doesn't actually create more dwellings, recipients will leave expensive areas and people who can pay will replace them.

HB recipients aren't the criminals though. I 100% sympathize with them. It's the government (and by extension us. we don't demand a more sane system) who are the problem.

My point about the "lifestyle" comment is that welfare is no longer a stop gap measure during hard times, which is how some people present it. Now, it's meant to be collected for life, while you work a proper job. That's neither desirable nor sustainable. 22 billion is a big part of the budget, which could instead be used to build a large number of homes.

recipients will leave expensive area and people who can pay will replace them

I'm not sure how London is supposed to cope without cleaners, binmen, teaching assistants, shop assistants, supermarket checkout operators etc etc though.

In general, cheaper areas are cheaper for a reason - comparative lack of jobs.

I can't see how the situation is to be changed without a full-blooded 180 U-turn on social housing, TBH, and that looks about as likely at present as sending a cow to the moon.

I'm going to call housing benefit/tax credits what they are Chilli and that is corporate profit subsidies.

In reality people who work full time should be able to live within a reasonable commute of work and be able to afford the rent. If not its the case that the employer isn't paying enough. It is well documented already that London weighting hasn't changed as a % for decades and is now not the equivilent of the extra cost of living in London.

The "living in expensive places" rant used by people is rather silly, if we make everyone commute from zone 6 many jobs will go unfilled and then there will be massive problems with service delivery.

Benefits are not a lifestyle choice, quit reading newspapers produced by people in whose vested interest it is to get you to pay attention to what the poor have.

If you want to sort out the deficit, national debt etc, we should be looking to the most wealthy to shoulder the burden, they don't contribute enough for what they get out, but in whose vested interest is it that you don't think about this? Who owns the papers?

"Corporate profit subsidies" - spot on!

Benefits as a lifestyle could also be applied to firms couldn't it. How bout the tax break just given to 600,000 small businesses? Benefit.

The lowering of corporation tax. Benefit.

the 45bn or so paid in direct subsidies to firms. Benefits.

Spending on infrastructure, bank bailouts, farming subsidies, the "patent box", all benefits.

Spending on the poor is dwarfed by the level of spending on things that benefit business, and lots of the spending on the poor benefits business too.

In a culture where attacks on the disabled have increased exponentially and they are called "scroungers", we must consider all fiscal spending and look at who benefits and why. Where the poor are stigmatised, where the sick are sent back to work because it fits a quota for a private firm. Where vital public services are cut in the name of austerity but tax cuts for the wealthiest are brought in at the same time, we must question for whose benefit they are being done.

There is only one answer, all those pro tories pro cut posters on this board are distracted and look the other way and with some kind of inverted green eyed envy compain at what the poor have got whilst the rich make off like bandits.

When your children ask what you did to stop the welfare state being destroyed, you will have to ashamedly admit you stood by and cheered it on. Well done.

Many renters collect housing benefit because of the lack of council houses.

Council houses are supposed to be affordable homes for working people.

There is nothing new about the concept that the reward for labour should include a roof over your head.

In the last century companies built whole towns for their workers. Most villages have houses built by the local large estate for workers. Industrial towns have rows and rows of houses built for workers.

The direct link between the employer and housing rarely exists any more. However, people have always needed homes.

Different people need different amounts of support at different times in their lives, and if we want to benefit from living in a functioning society we need to provide that support. We always have done and always will do.

This is not just a London problem. I live in an area with relatively low house prices, rents are still high. Many renters can not survive without housing benefit.

Benefits as a lifestyle could also be applied to firms couldn't it. How bout the tax break just given to 600,000 small businesses? Benefit.

the trouble is that firms employ people. Do you really want to give companies less incentive to employ?

In reality people who work full time should be able to live within a reasonable commute of work and be able to afford the rent. If not its the case that the employer isn't paying enough.

this argument makes no sense in light of the fact that doctors, who get compensated reasonably well, can also not afford places. Should they get paid more too? Wages aren't the problem. Relative to food and clothing, wages are pretty good. It's the cost of housing that's the problem.

Trouble is that firms actually employ people.

And in order to be able to do so, those people have to be educated, healthy, the infrastructtre of the country has to work etc etc etc. Getting not to pay any business rates means that they are not contributing enough to pay for what they benefit from,. Firms will employ people anyway, but need laws and rules because as has been proven in the past they will exploit their workers.

Being granted a reprieve from paying taxes means that they benefit from the state for free, its essentially a way to protect their profits. So its effectively a profit subsidy, not something to encourage the business to employ people.

I don't know many doctors that can't afford London property, maybe not Belgravia and Kensington but they can afford flats and houses and many earn very very good salaries. The ones who are on lower paid tend to be starting their career and have prospects of earning far more in the future in a way that shop workers, TAs, Nurses, Care givers etc don't. We need those just as much as doctors, and more of them ! That is a really poor point to make and a poor comparison.

That is a really poor point to make and a poor comparison.

right. my point is if doctors struggle, there is a problem. I have never lived in a city where doctors didn't have their pick of places, and I have lived in a lot of cities.

it's not their wage. it's housing.

I live in London and I've never known a doctor struggle for accomodation, never! Not young ones that I know now who all live in really nice shared accomodation, slightly older ones who have really nice flats that they have bought, the ones at the peak of their career are earning loads and have great houses.

None of them needed housing benefit.

Where as I know a lot of Postmen, TAs etc that need HB to keep them in London within a decent commute of work. None of them would do their jobs if they were forced to move out and commute for hours each day. The cost and then the time lost would make it unviable.

Benefits as a lifestyle choice is trumpeted by readers of the Daily Heil repeatedly who don't get the true facts, bother to look at the facts etc. They just want someone to blame.

Misdirection, divide and rule, its what the tories are using to get their agenda through.

None of them needed housing benefit.

doctors in shared accommodation? Why? They just like living with non relatives? I have never met anyone that shares for fun.

I don't know doctors on HB either. it's not about that. It's about people even with incredibly high wages, by any reasonable standard, living in housing that they wouldn't tolerate anywhere else.

I know doctors who share. I also know doctors who don't live near their work on account of cost. That's the tip of the problem, and the problem isn't their wage.

"The "living in expensive places" rant used by people is rather silly, if we make everyone commute from zone 6 many jobs will go unfilled and then there will be massive problems with service delivery."

Imagine the complaints (some of which may appear on this very board) when someone in a very well paid job has to take time off work to wipe their elderly relatives arse because care workers can no longer afford to live in the area or commute in.

I don't think there can be many areas in the country that Doctors can't afford to live in.

Helena.. but only successful people should be able to live in certain areas, doncha know? The proles should commute for hours, pay for it and be bloody grateful to have a job.

I don't think there can be many areas in the country that Doctors can't afford to live in.

I didn't say most areas. I was talking London.

The proles should commute for hours, pay for it and be bloody grateful to have a job.

many proles and non-proles already do. that's the problem. Perhaps those that don't work but are supported to live near where the jobs are, shouldn't live there. if, in fact, the proles are important.

HB is just one big transfer of wealth from the public to the private sector. the primary beneficiaries are those who receive it. the secondary beneficiaries are companies that have their workers put up by the state.

HB is just one big transfer of wealth from the public to the private sector. the primary beneficiaries are those who receive it. the secondary beneficiaries are companies that have their workers put up by the state.

100% agree. We need higher wages.

Imagine the complaints (some of which may appear on this very board) when someone in a very well paid job has to take time off work to wipe their elderly relatives arse because care workers can no longer afford to live in the area or commute in.

Helena can't you see that this is the kind of disruption that is remedied by higher wages?

100% agree. We need higher wages.

I could have better said:

100% agree. We need higher wages borne directly by the employer.

But we're never going to get higher wages whilst there's unrestricted free movement of labour around Europe. Who's had a pay rise in the past decade? Not many, as employers have a massive pool of cheap labour to use. Add in that all the extra migrants use housing, demand goes up, so pricing goes up for rent and we're all screwed, other than the very wealthy and the likes of Call me Dave and Gideon. Big companies are laughing! The EU is not good for the low paid.

I agree with you Percy - the EU has driven down wages.

100% agree. We need higher wages borne directly by the employer.

and that's supposed to make rents more affordable? how?

I misread your post, I thought you were talking about tax credits. My bad.

I suspect that housing benefit is more an employee subsidy than landlord subsidy.