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.

I agree it's appalling how people in their 50s and 60s are treated in the workplace and it must change if this country is to get back on it's feet post covid.

With the retirement age increasing employers' attitudes must change

It's also clear that going forward, this country has to have more people in the workforce and paying tax and national insurance so something has to give.

@mnhqceo all of this 🙌🏼🙌🏼🙌🏼🙌🏼

She's not eligible for any benefits and will receive a full state pension when she reaches retirement age so not sure what credits you mean.

@SirMingeALot

Yes the op is about paid work but someone asked me why I equate not working with not doing much.

I equate it with not doing much because its not

@mnhqceo

Id much rather my dd made her own millions personally. If she had to

Im not a fan of millionaires or sexism really

Nope not pensioners but working age men and women making career out of claiming benefits - needs overhaul but our government are more interested in spending money rather than saving it!

Topgub - my point was that there's no point having a rigid mindset about these things. It's a waste of energy. It doesn't really matter what you or anyone else would "rather" have. Just as you exist in your own sphere will are making the best of it, other people navigate their very different lives in their own ways.

I have been told by people that they don't need to worry about old age as the government will always look after them. They mean it as well.
A member of my family is withdrawing their pension to spend now.
I tried to say that it is my tax money that they will be relying on but no forward thinking at all.

People are just answering the op.

You'd be as well saying there's no point in having any opinion on anything

I agree. I retired at 63, a few weeks ago. I was self employed in the hospitality trade and could not cope with the hours any longer.
I look after an elderly parent so really need a job for a couple of days a week.
Am very worried about being unemployable tbh.

It's futile having a dogmatic opinion about other people's lives because you can never understand unless you are in their minds or have walked in their shoes.

We are supposed to accept that having children is a choice and we pay the burden so pay for childcare before and after school. Sadly, I've accepted this and whilst baby is at nursery then I hardly make anything as majority of wage is on childcare. Should be a bit better once he is at school but still have wrap around care to pay for

Question- if you don't work, but don't claim benefits, do you still get the same access to NHS etc? I wonder if that's the problem in that by not paying tax there is no contribution.

Yes, no one asks for your payslips when you go.

But if she met a boy in school, they stayed together, married, had a family etc and he, at this point, was able to offer her them a very wealthy lifestyle and she WANTED to stay at home, was indeed happier doing so; you’d judge her for that? Would you really want her to be unhappy? For what?

How can you be “not a fan” of people with only a similar wealth in common. It’s not like they’re a homogeneous bunch. That’s like saying “I’m not really a fan of people who earn between 30-35k a year” as though they will all be the same and not providing any reason for this generic dislike of a hugely diverse bunch of people.

You can buy better access to the NHS. Many of my social group do. They don’t work.
The majority of people I know who don’t work but don’t claim benefits fall into the wealthy spouse/family group.

We are supposed to accept that having children is a choice
It is a choice, but it's also the most important work, growing birthing & nurturing new humans, there is growing awareness that we dont have enough new ones, just because you dont get paid for it, doesnt mean it's not contributing to society, it is VITAL work

The planet is burning and the global population just passed 8 billion. We have more than enough human beings and there is no looming shortage. Other species are dying off every single day thanks to us.

Society needs to start encouraging and rewarding the childfree before we reproduce ourselves into extinction.

We have more than enough human beings
yes, lots of elderly, but falling birthrates now threaten population collapse

Ridiculous. Inform yourself.
We are killing this planet and every species on it with our excessive reproduction. The trajectory is still upwards, regrettably.

The world is overpopulated. The answer is for more migration so that each country has enough people for its needs. Also giving those people a means of survival especially if they are from areas with more mouths to feed than jobs. Would disrupt countries that are badly run as their population would be able to seek better conditions elsewhere. It's really not that hard a problem. Too many people is screwing up the planet.

Society needs to start encouraging and rewarding the childfree before we reproduce ourselves into extinction.

I wish, but it's not going to happen in my lifetime.

Because, as mentioned above, there is nowhere near enough going into the system to account for the expected value needed.

I’m happy for this burden to go onto corps and rich individuals, however.

I agree but too late to change the direction of travel.

If childcare were a lot more affordable, I dare say quite a few women who at the moment can’t afford to work, since their earnings won’t cover childcare costs, might well think of returning to work.