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.

Surely if people don’t need to work and not claiming benefits it’s none of Hunt’s business? I mean by all means try to give people opportunities- help SAHPs who want to return to work to do so, let people have flexible options to ease into retirement or to allow them to care for the elderly etc. But “tackle this” sounds odd!

Or we could go back to having FMP with the EU….

It’ll have nothing to do with people who don’t work and fund themselves. It’ll be a subtle way to increase pressure on other people on UC to earn more or work more hours.

Thats what this government do. Look at the attack on Widowed Parents Allowance. It was dressed up as “we’re going to change it so that people can claim new bereavement support allowance if they have no children and are under 45”. Seemed like a good thing, but whilst it was for childless younger widows it absolutely slashed support to widowed parents from until their child was 18 (or they remarried) to 18 months. The Tories wanted it to be 12 months and only caved under pressure about withdrawing financial support around the anniversary.

This will be another example of a stealth remove of UC from people.

How many in work claimants will end up being sanctioned for not being able to meet their work coach because it clashes with work? I doubt it’ll be long before the number is high.

I just want to correct assumptions that run through this thread and provide some data.

The 623,000 economically inactive mentioned in various reports are people NEWLY economically inactive in the period July-September. The actual number of economically inactive in the UK (figures release 15th November) is 8.999 million.

The definition is "People aged 16-64 not in employment who have not been seeking work within the last 4 weeks and/or are unable to start work within the next 2 weeks." The receipt of benefits (or not) is irrelevant to these figures, except to note that those who make up the unemployed figures are not included as by definition they are seeking work.

The breakdown of these (thousands) is
Non-working Students 2408
Looking after family/home 1720
Temp Sick 161
Long Term Sick 2519
Discouraged workers 18
Retired 1157
Others 1016
Total 8999

Discouraged workers are those not looking for work as they believe no work is available. "Others" includes those not seeking work because they don't need to or are awaiting a start date or the result of a job application.

Of the 8.999 million, 1.739 million want a job, and 7.26 million don't.

Of the 8.999 million, 1.739 million want a job, and 7.26 million don't.

You mean “7.26 million don’t, or can’t” surely?

There's not enough flexibility for carers to work and keep their carers allowance or credit. It's hard managing hospital appointments, a full time job and earning a decent wage. I know lots of highly qualified people who have children with SEND who are either working p/t minimum wage jobs or not at all. It's a shame that these skilled people aren't being used for the good of the economy.

I'd love a job where I could go to exotic locations and get paid for eating non human animal genitalia, while claiming that this is for the good of my clients and my employer back home.

Just to add a different perspective on those who, for whatever reason are not economically active in a 'working capacity', they will be making a contribution to the total tax take through their spending of whatever income they have - for example VAT on purchases, fuel duty, VAT on gas/electricity/phone etc.

Yes, it would probably be sensible to raise the allowed earnings threshold for those on carers allowance. I realise many carers can't work at all, but some are effectively being forced to limit their economic activity for no reason other than system says no.

Yup.
And that is all DH and I will pay until we drop.
He's 60 and I'm 50.
Neither of us will work again.

Basic support structures would help.

I worked in schools my whole career so should be ideally placed to have gone back to work when my DD started school.

She goes to a specialist school and is taken to and from bu taxi. The taxi arrives at some point between 8am and 8.30am, which is too late for me to get to work. They do offer a breakfast club from 8am, but because it’s voluntary they won’t provide the taxis earlier. To drop her off at 8am and get back I wouldn’t get to work on time because of traffic. The taxi wouldn’t cost any different to them, but they won’t do it.

Also her community dentist, physio and speech therapy are only available 9am to 2pm term time so every single appointment has to be within school time. Not a single one can be planned for before, after or in the holidays. So the last place I can now work is in a school because you can’t have time off.

Not to mention childcare/holiday club costs for an SEN child. Here are the rates for the one at my child's SEN school.

Table of costs

Amount Cost Type

£95.00 1:1 Staff Ratio Per day

£65.00 1:3 Staff Ratio Per day

£50.00 Per day

£33.00 Per half day

We don't and won't. You can take 2 off the total.

We do talk to our neighbours! The couple that have barely worked are proud of the fact. They tell us we are mugs for having worked continuously from leaving school at 17 until 66 (in fact DH is 66 and is still working).

The guy wanted to work for DH but DH refused as he only wanted cash in hand. He always seems to find odd jobs to do though with people willing to pay him cash. At present he is working for a couple who are renovating a house. He has been working for them for over a year now, doing decorating, painting and other jobs in the house and gardening.

After working (so far) full-time for the best part of 40 years, and still working, you bet when the time comes I will be sitting back and claiming my pension, with bells on!!

I would like to have some time to be free to enjoy whatever life I have left, while I am physically able to do it. When I think of all the hours, weeks, months, years of life I've spent working...!!!

When that happy day eventually dawns, nothing JH says or does will make me change my mind!

The estimated cost of the mini-budget - is £30bn
Brexit (to date) £150bn
Track and trace £32bn
Dodgy PPE end up burnt/landfill £12bn
HS2 so far £18bn

Assuming they had never happened that's
28 million households in the UK - costs of above £9000 per household.

@Justthisonce12 "Are we morally obliged to work?"
Are you on the side of, no one should ever retire then?

If not, what age do you think people should retire?
79 for a Nurse?
81 for a Plasterer?
68 for a Dentist?
90 for a Retail worker?
77 for a Train driver?
If you get seriously ill or should have a terrible disability what should you do then?
All the Older people I know are working as carers /helpers for their extremely elderly parents and neighbours, looking after their grandchildren, and working in the voluntary / charity sector, running their own homes and trying to keep well enough themselves to do all this amid an increasingly unhelpful NHS (absolutely not due to them , due to Tory austerity policies)
Some of them have jobs as well .

My childs disabled and if I didn't work I could get carers allowance and Universal Credit (used to be Income Support). I did do this for about 6 months but we were living on the bread line it was awful so I got a school hours job Mon-Fri and as a singke parent I am much better off. Somedays I do think f this though.

Benefits are means tested on the household income.You say your husband earns a high wage but doesn’t give you any money.In that case you have a husband problem not a benefit problem.

What about artists, comedians, circus performers and all the froth that sits on top of a productive economy? Everybody with a job that you can't explain to a child in a single word is that even a job? Hedge funds and investment bankers who create instability and volatility in the market should they have a job ?

@ComtesseDeSpair

I think there are a lot of early retirees who think or feel as though they’ve earned their keep and thus the right to sit back and claim their pension

No "early retirees" can sit back and claim their state pension when they feel like it. . It's not payable until they reach the age decided by govt. Currently, 66.

66 is hardly "early retirement".

Ahh this will be all those dads that get away with paying no maintenance then, as they've 'no income' ... or could just be penalising carers and mothers again 🤷🏻‍♀️

I later clarified the point as referring to those in or approaching retirement who often appear to think they’ve built up some kind of giant pot of their personal NI contributions sitting there in some kind of government coffers earmarked for “their” pension, without acknowledging that what their contribution actually covered (or, more the case, didn’t) services they used in their working lives. They often tend to be those critical of those on UC, who they view as not having contributed.

@jcyclops
Thank you for posting the full facts. I thought the majority were FT students. They really should not count them as “economically inactive” and should raise the age of measuring this from 16 to 18 as the law now requires FT education until 18. People get shocked at 9 million people unemployed, when it’s really 6.6m once you subtract the students.

I think people shouldn't rely on the state to fund their lifestyle choices too much.

I always love the hypocrisy of people who bang on about work being for corporate mugs or wage slaves etc. Happy to take the money other people earn though eh