Oh, right , give money to the “working” poor as priority
what about the non working poor
you are just stating we have the deserving poor and undeserving poor
you must be very the privileged not to be able to see the numerous situations that people find themselves in when jobless: of being sick, disabled, single mum with young children because her waster of a partner has walked out or beaten the shit out of her. Or becuase one of your kids has special needs. Or because your aging parent can’t care for themselves and doesn’t have money to pay for someone else to help or doesn’t want some stranger coming in for 15 minutes to bath, dress, give them a meal in such a bloody rush at 10am in the morning when they have been sitting in their own faeces for 3 hours. Or because you have to care for a mentally ill partner who can’t be sectioned as there are no beds and sees someone from the mental health team precisely once per year and you are effectively a full time CPN . Or becuase you have educational special needs or mildly disabled, or even the “wrong” appreance for what employers want ( e.g. wrong race, wrong age, wrong sex ) and can’t get a job because no one wants to employ you. Not everyone can work a full time job, not everyone can find work that will fit in with their personal circumstances that they find themselves in.
contrary to popular (eg daily mail readers) belief not everyone can work as fruit pickers - it actually takes a lot of physical fitness and a degree of skill. I wouldn’t want someone providing intimate care for me who was doing the job reluctantly because their dole money would be removed if they didn’t- jeez that’s a route to abuse. Or a job that is gig economy when you don’t know form one day to next when you are needed to work but you would need childcare to do it that, unsurprisingly, can’t be arranged at one day, or even 1 months notice.
be very careful going down the route of being judge and jury over who is deserving and undeserving. You are down a slippery path of thinking back to putting undeserving into work houses before you know it- which by the way isn’t that short of what the current treasury chiefs paper stated on “work for the dole “.
Yes, the working poor are in need too - it is scandalous that those in work, full time, need subsidies to make ends meet- they don’t need benefits they need employers to pay up. We shouldn’t even be in a situation of directing benefits to them …what they need is a government that makes companies pay a living wage and not expecting the tax payer to subsidise wages . That’s what happening to allow their CoE to be paid 10 times what their workers get on average, or lining the pockets of their shareholders with increasing returns, or giving the boards of director eye popping bonuses even when the company is struggling financially . But those companies effectively using tax payers to pay their wage bills are the ones lining the Tory’s pocket and their lies of trickle down economics.
I am very fortunate in that I was able to work, and earnt a high enough wage to be upper rate 40% tax payer. I paid a lot of tax, which I never begrudged going to people for whatever needs- by the grace of god and all that. I do object though to paying tax to subsidise wages of other company employees who could get away with paying shit all to their workers. And I do object my tax being scaudered on dodgy government procurement deals with their mates, or on BOE costs of £65billion to bail out Truss’s bribe to her rich cronies to vote for her in next election.