Do you think our 21st century society can actually afford the full welfare state ideal?

[TheOtherBoleynGirls]

First things first, I want us to have a full welfare state. I think being able to provide everybody in a country with equal education, equal healthcare, and an equal safety net in times of trouble and illness is the absolute ideal.

But looking at the state our economy is in, do you think that dream is still achievable, with the right taxes and financial management, or do you think it might be a post-war ideal that is economically unviable for a country in the long run?

YABU - we can afford it if everything is managed correctly

YANBU - it’s a great but inevitably impractical idea

There are people who have protected NI contributions and have not worked for 40 years via child benefit, would be interested to see those stats if they were produced. Those numbers are going to be disproportionate within your generation on the basis that you had more stay at home mums/single income households.

Cash in hand work whilst claiming benefits was far easier during the 80/90’s too.

Lots to unpick if anyone was inclined to do so.

you had more stay at home mums/single income households.

I’d stop now if I were you, you’re displaying your ignorance. That was our parents’ generation, not ours.

It probably depends on the social economic group/demographic. Within the environment I was brought up and that was most definitely your generation not my grandparents.

57% of mothers worked in 1975.
66.5% in 2002.
75.6% in 2021.

As I said, our mothers’ generation. Very few of us were mothers in 1975.

Just to point pout that we have one of the lowest welfare rates in Europe.

What ? Boomers weren’t mothers in 1975 ? Nonsense.

Not many of us, no. Did you think we all had teenage pregnancies?

@hivebee I'm the last year of the boomers. I was 12 in 1975.

I became a mum in 2008. I think you need to stop your ill informed, generalisations. 😀

As @Blossomtoes says, our mothers' generation......

Boomers are those born between 1946 and 1964. Of course a lot of them were mothers in 1975. I was, and I wasn't a teenage mother,🙂

"Baby boomers, often shortened to boomers, are the demographic cohort following the Silent Generation and preceding Generation X. The generation is often defined as people born from 1946 to 1964".

Of course loads of boomers were mothers before the mid 70s. In 1975 boomers were aged between 29 and 11.

This.

People want it for themselves, but not for others. They want others to pay for it but not themselves.

That's the issue.

If we could afford it post WWII we can afford it now. We need to tax the super rich and big businesses properly. We also need to take drug production in house and stop paying big pharmaceutical companies ridiculous prices for products which are often no better than placebos - why is no one for example challenging the amount we're planning to spend rolling out yet another near pointless round of COVID and flu vaccines.

Sorry to break it to you blossom but you are old enough to be my mother and not be a gymslip, child bride either.

And I have a very big birthday coming up shortly and could be a grandmother myself without my daughter being a teenage mum nor having been one myself 😬

@Aishah231 we have a deal with pharmaceutical companies that we pay them to take on all the RND and the risk that goes with that. in exchange for them developing new drugs we agree to buy them from them for a certain amount of time. After they come off license anyone can make them at any price point.
Would you seriously take drugs that the government had developed ?

And your point is? If you’re about to be 50, I’d definitely have been a teenager when you were born.

Point being you’re a boomer with all the implications that come with that.

Which are?

The later boomers with professional qualifications were not encouraged to breed young; I was 43 when my only child was born, and before that my career was my priority.

There you go again with your usual smugness. You love to tell everyone how successful you are and how everyone who doesn't achieve as much as you just isn't trying hard enough.

It's blatantly obvious that many late boomers benefited from the expansion of women in the workplace, free university education, while enjoying relatively cheap property prices, which rocketed in their lifetimes, enabling them to sit on huge profits, and a functioning welfare state. You just have no empathy for younger people who don't benefit the way you did, and like to think it's all about you just being superior and everyone should be able to achieve the same.

It's so depressing people like you don't want to pay back for all the benefits you received due to the accident of your birth date. I bet you have more than enough but you still don't want to help those ahead of you. Shame on you.

Bloody hell, that’s really unfair.

No surprise you saying that.

Isn’t it? Why’s that?

What I have accrued in 44 years of paid work, without any inheritance, the pension created through self-employment and saving, and the roof over my head will eventually benefit my DC.

Are you about to order a cull of your parents' generation? @Goosygandy Sounds a bit feverish...