If you rely on state support , you should have a great quality of life, not the breadline

[confidenceboost]

Aibu? Can we have a healthy chat on this one:

I will set my position out so nobody can say I've drip fed. I would say I have quite socialist mindset to be honest although I have grown up very privileged due to my parents hard work
I am from the uk but moved around as a child coming back to England age 18 for uni

I have been always lucky enough not to need help from the government. I think some people probably do claim help and don't need it but mostly I would say the cases are very genuine

Here's where I don't know if I am different

I think you should be given a high , highest quality of life by the govt if you genuinely for whatever reason need it.
Why should you live on the breadline?
Why should you turn down your heating?
Why should you not get treatment or help that would improve your life ?

Is it degrading to give state benefit as a breadline type lifestyle? I say yes

I think I am not being unreasonable saying that benefits and state support should be increased as it is unfair to resign people to a poor quality of life due to them needing help?

Thank you

Oh fantastic OP, wonderfully philanthropic of you. However, where is this non breadline lifestyle funding coming from? I’m all for helping the vulnerable, but people who work don’t want to live on the breadline either, whilst having any sense of aspiration and hope for the future stripped away. Makes no sense at all, and would actually be really regressive. It’s a no from me.

OK this one pisses me off.

I had to stop working due to ill health. Because I did the 'right thing' and paid in to a workplace pension I was able to get an ill health pension.

UC takes of £1 for every £1 I get in my pension.

You might think that is fair enough, but if I was able to work and earn the same amount they would only take 50%.

So people who cannot work get a higher quality of life than people who can work, but cannot earn more than minimum wage. I’m not sure there’s much logic to that tbh. If you have a serious enough illness /disability that you cannot work then that’s better than having a milder illness/disability that limits your work?

What if you genuinely can't work such as disability or long term illness? This removes the incentivisation element as it would make no difference to people who genuinely can't work.

I see what you're saying op and agree in principle for people who genuinely can't work.

I don't agree for people who can't or won't find work, obviously.

I don’t think “the highest quality of life” is reasonable or even realistic.

No, it shouldn’t be “the breadline” but there’s a gulf between those two situations. People should get enough to live and see them through to getting a new job - if we’re talking unemployment type benefits.

Benefits based on disability etc obviously need to be more.

I agree that if you arenunable to work due to illness or disability, then yes, you should be able to liveca great life.
But if you are claiming due to unemployment, the no, otherwise there is no incentive to work.

Where’s the incentive to work? I’m sure many people would rather not and who is going to fund that if you can have a great quality of life without working

Most people claiming benefits do have a great quality of life, especially when you compare them to the rest of the world's population.

I feel like if you live working hard you should not live on the bread line. I know the feeling. But people who work support people who live on the state.

You don’t get to say this without saying where the funding comes from or where it is cut from. There is only a certain amount of money coming into the country.

I do think unemployment benefits should work as they do in some other countries, where you get a percentage amount of your former pay for several months before it drops to a smaller percentage, then later to "basic".

I think it's unfair that someone who has always worked and lost their job through no fault of their own, gets the same very low amount, as someone who has never worked. Obviously disability is a different factor.

I also think it would incentivise more people to work. Many will say they either don't want to work, or turn down more hours as it would mess up their benefits. But if you knew that every hour you worked was building your own safety net, it would be a good motivator. I think the money paid out would be saved by more people working.

That’s great. Communism exists in some parts of the world should you decide to move there instead.

I have a loooong history as both a benefits claimant and a benefits advisor.
If I was stranded on a desert island I would choose to bring the CPAG benefits handbook. Benefits are my life.

I more or less agree with you OP. But with a couple of caveats.

Firstly: I agree with PP that the economy is messed up. We keep reinflating that property bubble and as a result rents and house prices are too high.

This puts far too many people in the position of having to rely on top up benefits.
Which has further distorting effects down the line.

For example: anywhere that predominantly employs working class mums (Supermarkets are a good example) feels very little pressure to increase wages as many employees wages are topped up.

Secondly: I don't think people enjoy being on benefits. It feels demeaning. And it attracts resentment from friends and neighbours. I'm personally shameless. Because I understand that no-one is truly independent and we all rely on other members of society to some extent.

But I think there's something about receiving help in the form of benefits that really throws that sense of dependency in your face.

If we were all paying £400 a month for council housing. And another £150 for state subsidised child care, we'd be patting ourselves on the back for being so independent and full of work ethic. But we'd be subsidised to the same extent or more. It would just feel fairer.

Where is the money coming from?

Money that is paid to people needs to come from somewhere. That somewhere is taxpayers.

We need to get away from the idea of "government money". It doesn't reflect the reality of the situation, which is that the money is really "money that other people have paid in tax".

And obviously the issue is sorting those who genuinely need to rely on benefits and those who are claiming fraudulently. There is shit loads of benefit fraud - ranging from the anecdotes of a cousin's friend on the take to the organised gangs like the one that was convicted last year of stealing over £50 million in benefits. Even if you say the stories about cousin's friend type situations are all shite, the £50 million isn't shite.

I would support those who are genuinely disabled having a much better quality of life and more benefits. However, there are entire families who have "bad backs" which the doctor has no way of verifying.

Very, very difficult situation.

I think that if benefits enable a good lifestyle, the vast majority would NOT feel demeaned by being on benefits. Indeed, the vast majority of people would move to this. How would this be funded?

Exactly. Here we go again and MNHQ gives not a shit.

The problem is that many people who are working can only afford to live on (or below) the breadline, so you can't keep taking more and more from those working to pay for those who are not working to have a better life than the workers.

For many workers the extreme pinch is relatively short lived, and the longer term benefits will eventually materialise. But virtually everyone I know who has 2 children in nursery and a mortgage to pay lives day to day on far less than the overall benefit package level despite both parents working full time in "well paid" jobs and earning well above the threshold for benefits. Obviously, once nursery fees end and mortgages are paid off there's longer term benefits plus career progression and pension provision etc. But in the moment, when they can't afford to put their heating on or are having to use the food bank to feed their children, to expect them to hand yet more money over in taxes so that people that don't work who already have more disposable income that them can be given yet more for a more comfortable life really stings.

I don't really know how we fix things. In an ideal world, everyone should have a good, comfortable life. But many tax paying workers do not. That's what I would prioritise fixing, rather than making benefit claimants' lives more comfortable. If wages (all, just not minimum wage) were raised as if they had kept in line with inflation, and people could afford to live their own lives comfortably, they'd be more happy to pay the taxes required to support those out of work to a better standard.

I think it depends. I don't think we should leave people in poverty, but I also don't think we should encourage people to not work by making their lives as financially "easy" as someone who works full time.

However- In the case of unpaid carers then yes, I think we should be compensated more fairly because we save the government a lot of money. We only get paid £377 a month in carers allowance for the privilege of providing over 35 hours a week of care to someone. And if we can manage to work on top of that, we lose our carers allowance, despite still providing the same 35+ hours of care a week on top of working. If carers claim UC it's also deducted pound for pound.

I think unpaid carers should get the equivalent of NLM. It feels massively unfair that it would cost the government roughly £1300 a week (source: Lincolnshire county council) to house my child and pay someone to give the care and therapies I give every day. And it would cost even more to house someone with complex medical needs. Yet we're only seen as worthy of £377 a month and that money is conditional. Even if carers were paid NLM for 35 hours a week of work, each carer would still save the government over £40,000 a year.

I'm not one to really discuss benefits but it does feel like unpaid carers get a really unfair deal.

Reducing the cost of housing would probably cause the biggest improvements in people's lifestyles.

Except of course for those who are paying a mortgage taken out to buy a property at current market rates.

Plus older homeowners who own a property that's 'worth' huge amounts of money will be pissed off as they will lose that wealth.

Define your terms … breadline? High, highest quality of life?

No idea of what you mean about any of this. I suggest you do some research before you start with this silly debate you are trying to have.

YABVU. Why should those who can’t work , or won’t work, be paid to live a high standard that a lot of people who do work don’t get?

Why should those that work be forced to live a ‘poorer’ life to support those who can’t/wont work through taxes etc, as that’s how you would have to fund your desire for those on benefits to have this higher standard

The OPs suggestion would remove the incentive to work for me and many others I think. At 63, I still work full time in a stressful job and have to live frugally with scant heating and no foreign holidays, little free time, health affected badly by work environment etc. The only way this would work is if benefits were only for the very disabled and their carers and then they will suffer a lifestyle shock when they hit pension age

I look forward to your proposal as to how this should be funded

But “the government” doesn’t pay for benefits , WE the taxpayers do and I don’t want to. I work hard to provide for my family why should my standard of living decrease due to a higher tax burden so that people who don’t work benefit?

OP I think your proposed model is sort of communism, where there is equality of income, despite differences in work contribution.

In theory it sounds great, but there are fundamental problems. If you make a relaxed easy lifestyle just as lucrative as a tough grafting one, where is the motivation to work?

I once went on a cycling trip in Cuba many years ago. Our cycle guide was a lovely man - he spent the week cycling with us, stayed in hotels with us, had fun, drank, ate, laughed - it was a pretty easy job for him really, requiring no qualifications at all, other than an ability to ride a bike and chat to people. His wife was a consultant gynaecologist. He earned more in tips (not his actual wages, just the tips from us) from a week’s cycling than she earned in a month. I talked to him about it. He had a young daughter and he was torn between pushing her towards academic achievement, and just working in hospitality. After all, why would anyone spend all those years studying, when you could earn more by chatting to tourists?

I’m not saying benefit claimants should live in poverty, but we need to ensure that life on benefits is not seen as an appealing lifestyle choice, because sadly we know that it would be exploited.