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.

thank you ! You have made me laugh out loud! I needed that today and agree wholeheartedly 😂

I will shortly be economically inactive.

I'll be 60. But I've had a job of some sort since I was 13.

I've paid NI for 42 years and higher rate tax for 31 years. Adding it up, just over half a million. Plus the profit I have earned for my employer, and all the VAT and fuel duty over the years.

I've seldom claimed benefits, own my own home, have always worked full time while raising my child alone, and have saved into a private pension.

I don't feel morally obliged to carry on working, no. I'll probably foster or act as a mentor but that is my choice.

When they raise the NI requirement to 42 years for everyone, then I would do more (my fair share). But otherwise, no.

Yes this. If your household has enough to support itself without state help then I don’t care how many of you work, if none of you work. It is no one’s business and I don’t see how it’s a dilemma or a difficult question.
If you are not asking anything of the state, the state can butt out.

So you don't use any council services? Never used NHS? Opticians? Dentists? Don't use business services, which depend on an educated workforce? The fact you don't have kids is irrelevant. The previous OPs post is quite correct in stating that the value of services you use and pension you draw down, is more in cash terms than the average earner pays in. A fact which people completely ignore when they say "I've paid in all my life" etc

A huge number of Britain’s ‘economically inactive’ citizens are actually quite busy working as unpaid carers for the elderly/young, running charity shops, managing food banks, working as magistrates (they are 100% volunteers), advising at Citizens Advice Bureaus, volunteering at primary schools and answering mental health phone helplines.

The government just wants to increase tax revenue to help balance the books, which are a mess because of government mismanagement, but it’s mind-bogglingly naive of them not to recognise that Britain is propped up by the volunteer sector.

I do think it should be much easier for mothers to return to work after a decade as sahm. Some business sectors such as law and banking now have ‘returnships’ and it would be nice to see government incentives in that area enabling middle-aged professional women to get well paid jobs not just minimum wage, or retrain. But it’ll never be wildly popular because of the unspoken issue that a woman in her late forties / fifties is dealing with the menopause, while also managing angry teenagers with post-pandemic dodgy mental health and trying to support elderly parents with dodgy physical health.

That said I have met a few people who are on long term benefits because of autism and have no plans to ever work, it would be good to find a better path to employment for them because I know personally two who are listed as unable to work when they could easily do a wfh proofreading type job.

No moral obligation to work when the likes of our PM and Matt Hancock can give billions away to their mates in the middle of a pandemic.

I can see the OPs point. You can have all the money in the world to support yourself but if there is no-one to staff shops, restaurants, visitor attractions, airports etc you're not going to able to do much. That's without considering staff in the NHS, utilities, schools, police etc. If there aren't enough workers the country will fall apart, regardless of how much the early retirees, sahms etc say they support themselves. It feels we are moving towards that point. The workers can only provide infrastructure to a certain number of other people. There is a tipping point.

The previous OPs post is quite correct in stating that the value of services you use and pension you draw down, is more in cash terms than the average earner pays in. A fact which people completely ignore when they say "I've paid in all my life" etc
So what should we do differently?

Okaaay 🙄

Well, when you've contributed 40 years NI like many retirees have, come back and tell us about it. Until then, your opinion really doesn't hold water.

I think it would be nice if people stopped thinking in terms of “paying in / taking out” for public services. It perpetuates this view that those who are less fortunate and need more services / help are somehow there because of their bad choices when quite often that just isn’t the case. Disability and poverty can and does affect people from all walks of life.

Opticians? Dentists?

But those services aren't free.

I think as long as you are self sufficient and don't expect others to pay for you not to work/to only work part time, then no you aren't morally obliged to.

Do any of us live without state help? Even if we don’t have our own DC to educate we benefit from other people’s receiving the education which alllws them to carry out vital jobs. We all expect the police or the fire brigade or the ambulance service to show up if we need it. We presumably quite like that the criminal justice system keeps the bad guys off the streets, and that social services try to ensure older people can receive care.

Considering the Tories are so often roasted for Thatcher’s claim that “there’s no such thing as society” it seems odd to essentially agree with them like this that we all only owe a duty to our own immediate families and nothing further.

Can you just imagine that conversation "Sorry boss I've got to take some time off to see my work coach...apparently you're not paying me enough or giving me enough hours. Oh and if you can't/won't do either of those then I'm going to need more time off so that i can get another job that will. You're ok with that aren't you?" Bet employers are going to love that idea.

Exactly - all these "weel how much have you paid in" wonks are anti-society - the anti-social children of Thatcher.

This is an interesting conversation. We pay £100000+ in income tax a year, and we have private healthcare, private dentists, private school etc. Certainly never had any help paying for opticians! I use council bin collection but not much else. Don’t even have streetlights on my road. Not everyone is a getting out more than they put in, some you could say are being ripped off funding services for others over which they have no control.

A huge number of Britain’s ‘economically inactive’ citizens are actually quite busy working as unpaid carers for the elderly/young

Yep

The chancellor has announced more help to get people back to work. I do think there are a lot who could work with the correct support. Some people just seem to get onto the mindset that they will never work again. I guess it's fair enough people retiring early if they have worked and paid into the system for years but too many have never worked. I'm not talking about those that can't work through disability or because they are carers.

Interesting. i have a former colleague who inherited a shedload of money.

She worked on for a bit then gave up as she said that she felt as she no longer needed to work, she was taking a job from someone who did need. She felt morally obliged to step back and free up a job for someone else.

I had never thought of it in that way before.

Ageism is an issue too. Especially in some sectors and for women. That could be better.

Got your own police, fire, ambulance, utility infrastructure and roads too? Living the high life there.

Personally I work, but part time, and have zero intention of working as much as I could. This is very affordable for my household, not funded by top up benefits so the coercive opportunities are limited, and if anyone suggested there's a moral obligation to work more, the response would be derisory laughter

Same here. I work 3 days a week plus a bit of freelance work. I have no intention of doing longer hours, I don't need to to fund the lifestyle I want.

If Hunt wants more economically active adults, he needs to do something about (a) childcare costs - I'd make the care for the first child tax deductible and (b) ageism which keeps over 50s and even some over 40s out of the employed workforce.

She worked on for a bit then gave up as she said that she felt as she no longer needed to work, she was taking a job from someone who did need. She felt morally obliged to step back and free up a job for someone else

That is a very reasonable argument.

Those 600,000 + on UC are to be given extra mentoring in order to encourage them to increase their hours.
That's how I understood it.

Make these jobs attractive then.

I thought the current government were mad keen on " The Market"?

Doesn't the market solve everything?

COVID and Brexit changed the market, we can't import people to treat like shit and many of our own people are sick of being treated like shit.

This is " The Market" now.

Both of us worked in jobs that are now desperate for staff, they claim the can't get staff for love nor money.

Things they haven't tried, love, money.