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

something not adding up for me, maybe about your level of need or ability to work. Not an expert, but do see the details for person I provide support.

Sure, my person might “want” different things… but they can only get what they can get.
maybe you also need someone to help you with your finances. Talk to citizens advice for a referral

The only way to make this happen would be to raise taxes massively and the UK electorate will never vote for a political party that puts significant tax rises for the majority of working people in their manifesto.

Benefits for people with disabilities and health conditions are much more generous than those for people without any health conditions. The basic rate for a single person on UC is very low and doesn't provide any quality of life at all.

Ensuring that wages are higher than most benefits is what most governments do to ensure that there is always an incentive to work rather than claim benefits. Governments want as many tax payers as possible.

And who pays for it?

As a privileged person, you’re not seeing this from the perspective of your average working class person. They and their partner might earn £15k or £20k each, go to work, do all the right things but be really struggling.

Why should someone who doesn’t work take home more than their salary in benefits?

As a better off worker, my DH and I get little state help or childcare assistance - but we pay a shed load of tax. We have to stop at two children because it’s all we can afford. Why should we pay for others who are less responsible to have 4,5 or more children?

The tax take is going down as more people go on benefits and more millionaires leave the country. Our economy is tanking.

Who pays?

How does a severely disabled person do this pray tell?

Are you seriously suggesting that the state should pay x 5 rent or mortgage ?
This is seriously deluded.

I run my own company and have done for 36 years with all the stress that involves. There have been times that my salary has been x 5 times my mortgage and others when it most definitely has not.

Sweden has an interesting unemployment benefit system. You work and you can choose whether to pay into a state run redundancy insurance fund. Most people do. If you are made redundant you get 80% of your previous wage for 2 years. After that nothing. We need more of these sorts of benefits to reward those who are keen to work but are struggling finding any.

OP wrote in her opening post: "I have been always lucky enough not to need help from the government." Did you miss this?

You've jumped the shark now! How on earth would unemployed and disabled people be able to have a fairly affluent life on benefits if the standard rate of income tax was cut to 7%? There would be no money for benefits, education, the NHS, defence, foreign aid, policing etc.

You have obviously come from a very privileged and wealthy background with little knowledge of how governments work and how other people live. The things you are proposing would sound too juvenile in a 6th form debate.

Are you basically saying you want the taxpayer to fund you to the extent/lifestyle you managed before you became disabled? Like a benefits equivalent of a final salary pension?

If so, then no. That's not equitable or practical or affordable or moral.

So many people seem to think their benefit money comes from….well I dunno where from really. The magic money tree? Fortunately the gravy train is hopefully about to stop.

@MrsSkylerWhite OP is not making a whole lot of sense.

What do you mean by the highest quality of life, though? I'm a socialist too, but the welfare state is supposed to be a safety net to try to ensure people are fed, housed and are warm enough to survive if they don't have the means themselves, for whatever reason. It's not to pay for luxuries that 'the highest quality of life' suggests. I don't think it's enough for many people to exist on (despite the popular narrative about benefits scroungers) and I don't think there is enough/ the right support to reduce the benefits burden on the public purse. But that is another matter entirely.

I'm well aware that the taxes me and my husband have paid during our whole adult lives (never a day out of work) pay for our dd's DLA. And others. Lots on this thread forgetting that those in receipt of benefits have been/ still are taxpayers too.

But you're not alone...you admitted in your other post pre not working there was 130k annually coming in..

I asked before does your DH not contribute any of his wage...to the household

Some are, some aren’t.

Some are able to, others not. Which is why this perpetual gravy train money tree narrative is disingenuous. I don't begrudge paying taxes to support those in more vulnerable positions.

Well I do I’m afraid, especially if it goes on and on and taxes on working people keep increasing. Each to their own.

Do you view the state pension as a benefit? Should the triple lock gravy train be stopped, too?

I don’t regard the state pension as a benefit, no. Do you? I think the triple lock should probably be looked at and the way the current govt are going I wouldn’t be surprised if it was scrapped next year.

I think the standard of living you're wanting to be the norm funded by the state is ridiculous.

In an ideal world nobody would be on the breadline but many working families are, along with those in receipt of benefits. Would their standard of living be subsidised also? Roughly 22% of the UK population live in poverty. To bring the income level to all those people up to the level they can go on holiday, have savings is unfortunately unobtainable.

You've asked for reasonable discussion but your ideal is unreasonable and unrealistic from a practical standpoint so I don't think anything anyone says to you other than blind allegiance to an unobtainable expectation of standard would be received by you OP.

Of course there's a bread line (or poverty line as it's now known). Households are considered to be below the UK poverty line if their income is under 60% of the median household income after housing costs for that year.
For the year 2022-23, Poverty thresholds per household type were defined as follows:
Single, working-age - £8,632pa
Couple, working-age - £14,924pa
Single, pensioner - £8,632pa
Couple, pensioner - £14,924pa
Lone parent, one child (aged one) - £11,648pa
Couple with two children (aged three and seven) - £21,164pa

Destitution thresholds are also defined and for the same year were as follows:
Single, working-age - £4,940pa
Couple, working-age - £7,540pa
Single, pensioner - £4,940pa
Couple, pensioner - £7,540pa
Lone parent, one child (aged one) - £6,500pa
Couple with two children (aged three and seven) - £10,660pa

Households in destitution are defined by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation as those who have to go without two or more essentials in the past month because they couldn't afford them, or if their income is extremely low (less than £95 a week for a single adult). Essentials are defined as having a home, food, heating, lighting clothing, shoes and basic toiletries.

I don't like your post because it's just about people on benefits. What about all the people working full time on minimum wage. They are often no better off, than those on benefits. Should they not have have a better standard of living too?

Question for the "if benefits are generous then there is no incentive to work" crew.

Why is unemployment low in countries such as the ones across the Nordics where there is a very generous benefit system (and high taxation to boot)? The rest of the EU, with lower benefits, has higher unemployment than the Nordic countries which have hefty safety nets. If generous benefits are a disincentive to work I'd expect to see much higher number of Finns, Norwegians and Swedes choosing to sit at home and relax in their saunas rather than go out to work.

I suspect part of the answer is that Nordic states invest in their citizens during their careers, work is well paid and jobs that are undervalued in this country are highly prized over their. Childcare workers for example are well paid and expected to have high levels of education (degree level in some childcare settings). Contrast with the pittance your average nursery worker earns here. I read an article that showed that even an 18 year old McDonalds worker in Sweden earned more than workers in other EU countries across industries like hospitality, care and admin.

The disincentive to work in this country is often linked to the poor pay, appalling conditions and few opportunities. Why would you work for £10 an hour or less, carrying out back breaking, undervalued work when there is an alternative? It's very easy to judge people who do not work but the reasons are usually a lot more complex than "they're lazy and just want to live on benefits"

Exactly this! 👆
👏👏👏

I don't think you understand the Nordic benefits system, for a start.