Are we morally obliged to work ?

[Justthisonce12]

630,000 economically inactive people in the UK not claiming benefits. Early retiree’s I guess.

Hunt plans to tackle this and encourage work force participation to allow businesses to grow. ie cheap labour I presume ? But also preventing a brain drain.

Will be interesting to see how he plans to address this.

In my experience, the number includes lots of unpaid carers for family members with disabilities. The ones who currently save the state hundreds of thousands of pounds by working for no reward. It's all very well tempting them back into work, but he'll need to spend more on carers-- especially if he wants to reduce bed blocking in hospitals.

This is me.

I said I’d never made use of many of these services. As I never had children I’ve never used maternity services, claimed child benefit, schools, free dentistry, never had NHS IVF, but have subsidised all of those things with my taxes.

Why do you link encouraging these people to work and "cheap labour"? I know a few people like this, one mid-forties and one mid-fifties. They are not rich by any means, but they have planned carefully and decided to give up work as a choice. I can't see then being "encouraged" back into work and why should?

I work 2 days per week and absolutely would not work more in that job, which is purely for the cash and gives me nothing else. My professional job in the public sector turned out not to be as billed, that’s putting it mildly. No way I could have stayed for a whole career without getting ill. I am in training though, so I suppose I may still become more productive in future. There is a big problem with work, it’s not working for many people. The other people I know who are not in work are either too ill and being looked after by family (no benefits), or independently wealthy enough not to, but not necessarily living lavishly or spending a lot of money in the economy, just subsisting.

No you are not morally obliged to work at all. If your partner is wealthy enough and there is no need for you to work because you can spend his/her earnings and especially if you are able to make use of tax avoidance schemes etc there is no point at all in you working and most definitely no moral reason to work.
The UK government absolutely wants there to be "people who work and pay taxes" and separately "people who don't work because they do not need to" and they are absolutely fine with the latter category not contributing anything to society financially (apart from whatever tax is absolutely unavoidable/they cannot get away with not paying for them).

There's a fundamental difference between the question in the thread title and the detail in the OP.

From the basic laws of causality of the universe - everything decends into chaos unless work is done to prevent it and effort is put in to combat the inevitable spiral towards death. Anyone who doesn't work is living from the explotation of others, whilst still living in such a way as to generate waste, mess and chaos which someone else therefore has to deal with. So on that level yes we are morally obliged to work - as a very minimum anyone capable of doing so should be putting enough useful work and effort into the universe every day to counteract the negative impact that their existence has on the universe, plus a bit more than that to account for those to little, or old, or weak to care for themselves. This work doesn't have to be directly about feeding yourself or cleaning up after yourself - e.g. it's not exploitative for someone who is skilled at computer programming or teaching or house building to spend all their working time on exercising those skills and maybe paying others or being in partnership with others who deal with such practicalities. A life spend in ease and luxury doing no real work of importance when one has the mental and physical capacity to work is morally bankrupt and there are plenty in the1% richest who do no useful work at all, gaining all their income from the sweat of others.

But the detail in the OP isn't about that, it's about doing PAID work, and there's lots of valuable and important work that needs to be done that isn't paid, so there's no moral implication if one is doing valuable work but is nevertheless considered "economically inactive"

Agree with this.

There is no shortage of human beings on this poor old planet. Changes to immigration laws can take care of any labour shortage in the UK and anywhere else on earth.

By inflating away their savings, by increasing house prices to the point where it takes two incomes to secure even the most basic accommodation preventing the future stay at home mum. By increasing the costs of food and fuel so that any fixed incomes simply just will not cover it. No doubt they have lots of tricks up their sleeves.

I'll await my instructions from Mr Hunt then and he can f*ck right off

I'm late 50's and haven't been in paid employment since I was I was 35. I had to give up work to care for my DD (who had many and varied disabilities and health conditions). Believe me I'd have preferred to carry on earning rather than survive on the pittance that is Carers Allowance for my 24/7 365 'job'. Sadly DD died in 2016 and I figured I'd earned a bit of a rest.

Because I couldn't work - due to DDs multiple illnesses/hospital stays and no holiday care, I did volunteer at a school for 13 years and multiple other charities. None of which I'd have done if I'd been working. I also volunteered at a Vaccine clinic during Covid.

DH earns enough to support us both (thankfully) and is winding down towards retirement. I get a workplace pension in 18 months time from the years I did work and am only 2 year's contributions short of a full state pension - unless they move the goalposts yet again!

I have been out of work for so long now I'd struggle to get a job in anything other than retail, hospitality or care - None of which I'd choose to work in unless I needed the money.

We don't claim any benefits (since DD died) and my DH pays more than enough tax for both of us. So I'd be interested in what JH's motivation is for sending me out to work.

@bigbluebus but I don't think its aimed at you

Most of the people who've taken early retirement will have paid off their mortgages. Deliberately inflating house prices has been and will continue to be a useful tool in extracting participation from some cohorts, but not this one.

I need to work to pay the bills, like most people. Even if i could afford not to work, I still would if I was healthy as I like working and feel it is my duty to contribute to society. No slimeball politician could persuade me of that though - it’s my free choice!

My fear is that they know this so the only option is force - screwing pensions and saving

Mine too. The reason I’m living in this country and not dp’s is because we can both earn more here. Making hay while the sun shines. But I prioritise saving for retirement because I don’t want to work the whole of my healthy life. If that became impossible I’d be looking into moving abroad tomorrow. If I’m obliged to work til I drop I’d rather do it somewhere sunnier.

I think sense of duty to society can decline if you feel it's a one way street

I think we are seeing a lot of that sentiment in this thread.

If you can work, then you shouldn't expect the state to support you.
If you can't work, then the state should support you.
It's not really complex.

He’s got to find me first 😁

I’m 50, And I currently care for our autistic daughter. Before that I was a higher rate tax payer for 25 years (husband still is and he pays a 6 figure tax bill every year) and I’ve worked since I was 15.

We’ve had no help from any government with our daughter’s schooling or mental health care. The only benefit we’ve had was child benefit for 10 years before it was taken because we earnt too much. They have had, and will continue to have more than enough out of us. Frankly he can fuck, the fuck off.

As a student, I once had a temporary job the occupational health department of a very large local council.

There were more teachers on protracted sick leave with stress-related conditions than any other profession. In a lot of schools it's mostly crowd control and I simply cannot imagine having to do that year in, year out (I'm also an educator).

Same goes for hospital wards: it was notable how many of the nursing and medical staff were young people. I'd put very few of them at over thirty. As a recent patient, I could easily see why this would not be a longstanding profession. The conditions and working hours were dreadful.

If they're not claiming benefits then presumably they are either living off their own funds or someone else is subsidising them who is happy to do so.

Some of them will be carers, SAHMs, etc., but those that aren't (like my dad when he was made redundant and lived quite comfortably off his redundancy and savings for 3 years before feeling the need to look for another job)... the only way to tempt them back into the workforce is surely to offer such good pay and conditions that it's worth giving up their leisure time for.

That's the market the Tories are normally so keen on...

If the government funded better child care options including wraparound, more women could work. Parents should share caring for the children, but what about single moms and useless husbands.

But there are a whole group of people that this simply will not effect. There are a number of children in my DCs school who have 1 parent earning over 30k a week (professional sportspeople)

No matter how much the price of food goes up; they will not be effected.

The majority of parents in their school, us included, own multiple properties; the majority of which aren’t mortgaged. The more people who cannot afford to get on the property ladder only increases profits for this cohort as there will be more people whose only choice is to rent.

They will be people supported by a partner. Like sahms or people who care for others but don't qualify for carers allowance. Or sick/disabled people who don't qualify for esa/sick pay/PIP.

Also people doing things like unpaid internships, recent graduates, people doing volunteering to get back to work, part time students, people who are doing creative pursuits (art/writing etc) but aren't classed as working as zero pay, and small business start ups that aren't earning yet eg hobby businesses.

Not sure if it includes prisoners?

No moral obligation, but it's short sighted for a lot of people and definitely expensive as a country.

Most people in this category aren't independently wealthy, and many will still end up on benefits, one way or another. The mother unable to work due to the cost of childcare or difficulty accessing care for a dependent with serious illness or SEN isn't claiming anything now, but the years out of work will make it much harder if she ever does want to go back, even more if her marriage breaks down. When she's older, she'll still need govt funded healthcare, social care and likely state support.

Same goes for the person who is at home because they're struggling with mental or other health issues, but haven't qualified for (or haven't tried to access) disability benefits. Or the ones who have given up after many attempts. Or the others who are now working cash in hand, and aren't properly insured if they injure themselves or someone else, nor are paying into any kind of pension.

I would welcome a more flexible work schemes for the over sixties. I expect I will retire, but then go back to my old company on a project by project basis.