Benefit Britain - the irony

[Mhoys]

Years ago there was no Housing Benefit as far as I remember - talking about growing up in the 1960s. Or even Child Tax Benefits, etc etc. Now it seems so many people get these, even people working in reasonably good jobs. The Government is meant to be anti-benefits but expenditure on all this must be significant. Some of this may be due to a small rise in living standards since then. But also have wages become so low relative to living costs, that the state is effectively subsidising private enterprise? There is nothing necessarily wrong with this I guess, but isn't the government "in denial" when few ordinary people could afford a family or rent or buy a home in the South at least , so the taxpayer/State has to stump up? I have some thoughts but am also genuinely puzzled ...

The op hasn't criticised those groups.

I know she hasn't. However, there are posters on here who wilfully misinterpret things, as evidenced here.

Well done for driving away an OP who actually brought upcoming an interesting topic for debate though....just because some people couldn't be bothered to read the OP or were to dim to understand it. Probably not best to start frothing at the mouth just because you see the word 'benefits'.

You've started a thread on an extremely emotive topic op. You have to expect extreme reactions. Please don't throw the cat amongst the pigeons then sod off.

She didn't. It's just that half the thread couldn't be bothered to read and think about what she'd actually written before they waded in with biscuits and accused her of being goady. And has come back despite people attacking her and calling her goady for a point she didn't make.

Although she may need to come back and explain her point in much smaller words.

So if people in manual physical jobs are expected to retire later we need to be prepared for the effects on their health that will bring and the inevitable pressure on the NHS.

Thing is, if the UK does not want to give megacorp.com tax breaks and incentives, then plenty of other governments will. If megacorp is willing to employ 500 people in the north west area on minimum wage, I think the govt or council think thats better than having no megacorp at all, or megacorp locating in Ireland/Spain/Australia etc

Years ago there was no Housing Benefit as far as I remember - talking about growing up in the 1960s.

Even though it has only been called Housing Benefit since 1982 when it transferred from Central to Local Government - I'm pretty sure that there have been rental allowances paid since the implementation of the National Assistance Act 1948.

In the 1960s though there was a much greater proportion of Council Housing available

I really think we should raise wages across the board and get rid of benefits for people without disabilities. Really? Are you after civil war?

The newspapers say 'immigrants come here for the benefits' like the uk is this amazing place that hands out money and makes everyone rich.

There are quite a few European countries whose benefits are far better than those of the UK, something the Fail frequently forget to point out.

So an interesting post about the decisions of various governments to subsidise the profit making of business/ landlords by subsidising the actual cost of living is goady now?

Wages are too low, but the main problem is that the cost of living is far too high. If wages went up, the recipients wouldn't see much of an increase - substantial amounts would be funnelled into rent increases.

The government could start a social housing programme on govt owned land, encourage local authorities to do the same and not outsource it to private developers. They could also end right to buy, at least temporarily. If there were more secure tenancies and publicly owned units available, the massive housing benefit bill would decrease.

Sensible pension arrangements (like an enhanced national insurancepossibly) which were govt controlled and not subject to the vagaries of employers but which also don't require the beneficiaries to become experts in complicated financial services to survive retirement.

If the govt houses were built yo passivhaus standard as well, that would help.

...just to add that the min hour min wage jobs don't get you any benefits, if you don't have dependent children. I'm on a 16 hour contract, NMW, and because my children are at university, I cannot claim any kind of benefit at all. Not housing. not tax credits, nothing, because my job is called 'part time' (most jobs round here are limited hour contracts). So I just have to hope and pray that I can be rota'd for more than my contracted hours every week (it's horrible to have to hope that my fellow workers go sick just so I can eat, but, there it is...)

Tax credits are simply tax breaks given to the people the government wanted to help most - not people who earned £13,000 but those who earned that and had children. It's easier to give people money than it is to change th tax code system etc.

I agree with you and now companies can get away with shitty wages knowing their wages are topped up by the government. A bit like when I worked as a waitress for 2 years the customers topped up my salary with tips.

It'd be nice to start everything again.

Lunde My mother received a weekly 'rent rebate' as a single parent, in the 1960s.

Also the Tories aboloished the minimum wage for quite a few years in the 1990's I think

We never had a universal minimum wage until 1999.

The Tories abolished wages councils and destroyed the Trade Unions, which drove wages down, as they wanted, for all except the very rich.

tiredbut
Also the Tories aboloished the minimum wage for quite a few years in the 1990's I think
Um no.
Minimum wage was invented by Tony Bliar.
He has his faults but protection of the poor so that shit wages like helenadove mentions were criminal is not one of them

the eejit Brown then complicated tax credits to generate house price inflation
but that is another matter

if the UK does not want to give megacorp.com tax breaks and incentives, then plenty of other governments will.
Nope
if a country taxes sensibly using a sales tax based model then either the company accesses that market or not

CT rates are stupid and badly designed
but until the USA grows up (not holding my breath)
the world tax system will remain unfit for purpose

OP - I completely agree. It's insane that the majority of benefits help the rich not the poor. As in - tax credits for working families because big companies don't pay a living wage. or - the biggest con around - massively over-inflated rents going to buy-to-let landlords' pockets as passive income.

YANBU!

Raising the minimum wage wouldn't necessarily solve the problem because the money would still go straight to private landlords.

Improving the availability and quality of social housing might help though, both directly, and through generating competition with private landlords who would have to drop their rents. This could result in a drop in house prices which would benefit those on lower/middle incomes (but not property tycoons).

I agree too OP

So weird - how is this a goady post? The OP is making a good point that the reason people are forced to take benefits (tax credits etc) is due to the dirty, corrupted relationships between govnt and big business.

Part of the problem is globalisation as well - so places have "outsourced" jobs to developing countries, where they pay absolutely sweet fuck all. The UK cannot (and shouldn't) compete with that.

Capitalism is a system that is now running completely rampant. The brakes, balances and checks have been removed with the wide scale loss of unions and the pressures placed on successive governments (I don't only blame the conservatives for this either) by the financial industry to deregulate. We have a revolving door policy where former cabinet ministers are made board members of large businesses and banks and this essentially means that we are now The UK PLC.

So do other countries have the same sort of system of a low minimum wage topped up by tax credits?

If not how do they do things?

Wasn't there a bit of a trade off over the minimum wage? I seem to remember something about them going to set it higher but ending up agreeing on a lower minimum wage but in work benefits compensating for that.

Not being goady. I also question why private enterprise and landlords are being subsidized by the state. Philip Green and his ilk are raking it in, while those on low incomes/benefits are made out to be on the make.

The loss of council houses causing private land lords to pick up the pieces is awful, government money going to private hands just shouldn't happen.
It should go in circles, money goes to the council, paid to individual, paid back to council.
It's awful that it goes to private hands and then not back in (other than tax). I'm not knocking landlords, I'm knocking the messed up system pumping money out. House price rises and therefore rent increases wouldn't affect it as they already own the home.

I get what your saying op that somehow the split between wages and cost of livings gone wrong meaning the government have to prop it up, which causes even more low wages.
I personally think it's housing that's caused it

One thing I've never ever agreed with is Right to Buy; a social housing home is a public asset lent to a tenant, and no tenant should benefit unfairly at the expense of taxpayers. However I'm thoroughly in favour of increasing social housing stock to avoid landlords creaming it by receiving rent credits. Equally social housing should be assessed twice yearly. I remember reading that Bob crow was still living in council housing yet earning £120k plus benefits.

What's changed? The welfare state has been dismantled by successive conservative governments. Council housing has been sold off so the only alternative to buying is renting from buy to let landlords. The government is happy to subsidise the landlords rather than invest in social housing because subsidising landlords creates Tory voters and as Cameron/Osborne said to Nick Clegg when he was "banging on about social housing", "It creates labour voters". Likewise the Tories would rather support crap businesses like Sports Direct and the likes of Phillip Greene and let them of the hook by paying out tax credits because it keeps the wealthy voting Tory. The shareholders benefit and their wealth increases, the government squanders money on tax credits (don't take that the wrong way, I know people need and depend on them but they only need them because they are paid low wages), again this creates and keeps Tory votes.

I don't see the OP as goady at all, but rather a comment on the unaffordability of more or less everything in the UK compared to the crappy wages that businesses are getting away with paying because of the existence of in work benefits.

Why the biscuits FFS?