Where is the money going to come from to meet the UK people expectations?

[Pandersmum]

So assuming that:

• everyone who receives disability benefits needs them and may actually believe they should be entitled to more
• pensioner benefits are non negotiable and again many believe they should be greater than current
• working people (most) believe they are already taxed highly and believe they cannot be taxed any more without further impact to their feeling of unfairness and resentment of the system
• it is unreasonable to expect young people with ADHD or other similar ND disorders / mental health challenges to work, even if they have qualifications and therefore they must be financially supported by the state
• Mental health challenges are very real in any age of person and therefore they must be financially supported by the state and if in work, by their employers
• rent (whatever level) should be supported by the state because it is a basic right to have a home
• NHS treatment (& the best treatment) should be free be all, no matter how expensive it is or whatever their age because people pay their taxes
• businesses are businesses and are there to make profits for their owners - therefore they can choose which country they operate in / pay their taxes in - if they don’t like the UK tax system, they can move somewhere else
• ’in work benefits’ are necessary to support ‘low paid workers, often in essential jobs’ to gain similar amounts of financial remuneration to those on benefits
• high net worth individuals can move if they don’t like the UK tax system

So just where is the money going to come from to fund the UK population of financial expectation of what the state should provide?

Yes my DD went off to Australia, came back for her Nan - and she missed me of course!! lol!

HCPs are in demand worldwide.

Scrapping loans is problematic though, how would you re-imburse those who have worked in the NHS for say 10 years, who have paid back a large amount...

Perhaps a better way would be to reduce the repayment period but keep the repayment amount the same.. to say just 7 or 10 years... in return for a fixed period of FT employment.

It is not acceptable for an able bodied adult to turn down work on the basis that they are. “not a lot better off” then when living off the state. The state is supposed to be a safety net, not a lifestyle choice. They are choosing to sit on their backside and live off the efforts of their equally hard up peers.

If you don’t think Reform will plough that line on benefits relentlessly at the next especially in working class seat then you are deluding yourself. IME with years of canvassing/campaigning experience behind me (on the left) its liberal leaning MC voters who tend to be sympathetic to slackers, not WC voters who are much harder line on this.

Society has not changed so much that working people will happily struggle to pay their bills whilst abled bodied slackers elect to live off the state.

Well teachers probably are underpaid if you look at the hours they are expected to work. On the face of it they get great holidays. However, my understanding is that they are paid for the weeks they work but that pay is spread over the whole year. My daughter does not get paid for marking or lesson preparation which, mostly, is done in the evenings and weekends. Her timetable is such that she has a full teaching day with very little time to do prep and marking, hence she does it at home.

And so are "junior" Drs imo. It is only this year, 7 years after qualifying, that his salary approached that of a train driver and that's after he does extra hours! I'm sure he would do a better job driving trains than a train driver would do as an anaesthetist!

Something has gone seriously wrong with pay and pay structures in the UK but I'm sure someone here will say it's the boomers to blame! 🙄

@MyObservations

And so are "junior" Drs imo. It is only this year, 7 years after qualifying, that his salary approached that of a train driver and that's after he does extra hours! I'm sure he would do a better job driving trains than a train driver would do as an anaesthetist!

The difference is that the junior doctor will be earning double or treble that in later years whereas the train driver will be earning the same.

Perhaps we need to level out the doctor's pay, so that they get more in the early years, but the increments don't rise as much as they get decades of experience behind them and move up the career ladder??

The difference is that the junior doctor will be earning double or treble that in later years whereas the train driver will be earning the same.

Maybe. There aren’t enough consultant jobs for every doctor to get one, some are resident doctors for their entire career. Added to which, their salaries have been eroded in real terms over a long period.

Well, you're not strictly accurate there. Yes, their salary might increase in later years but only on the assumption that they become consultants and do some private health work. Not all doctors will specialise and not all specialists will become consultants. And they have pretty stressful times particularly when things don't necessarily work out.

Pensions? pays in a substantial % every month.... does that offset lower wages?

The pensions are amazing but the problem is COL for many younger staff.
I used to work in an academy; a lot of the older teachers lived locally in houses now 800k plus & very little commuting plus lower student loans. Our new cohorts of teachers would be travelling from all over London/out of London & many would opt out of the pension because they didn't have that chunk spare after housing, commuting, and student loan repayments. There was such a turnover of young staff as they often left London.

Added to which, their salaries have been eroded in real terms over a long period.

True, but I don't know any doctors struggling. Every private school I've worked at has had a large proportion of medical parents. Although granted they do tend to come from particular backgrounds so often have family wealth.

Well if we are going to use silly out-of-context comparisons, my DH also works in IT, completely WFH and earns £30k, so around the starting salary of a nurse.
Do I get a prize?

No you don't.

Band 6 and 50k IT jobs are very very common, not out of context at all.

30k in IT is low level, even in low wage Plymouth a 1st line support IT worker will be on around 25 to 30k.

You DH wouldn't have needed a degree for that job nor will have missed out on 3 years of earning power or down 100s of hors unpaid, in placements.

My point which you have not taken on aboard is that healthcare work can be extremely stressful, more so than many other jobs, certainly more so than someone who resets passwords or explains where the printer icon has gone....

Yes, the entire package needs to be reviewed, but until it's done nurses and teachers are underpaid - it doesn't help 20-30something woman working as a nurse who can't afford even basic property, be it rent or buy, can't afford to start a family, to know that in 45 years time she might have a great pension.

I was in Acute Heart Care unit, there are ads in the lift about room sharing for nurses working there. It's just disgrace - they must be paid enough now to be able to afford somewhere to live, not room sharing after 12 hours shift caring for some most ill people.

It's housing costs, they have done so much damage.

Yes it’s an absolute disgrace

Wait. What? I assume your DH is at least in his 40s?? I've seen a thing on MN where someone in IT makes £60k doing IT.

My DS is 24 and makes £30k.

Yes, but train drivers don't have those options. So the comparison is meaningless.

But the upside is that other parts of the UK benefit from professionals leaving London because they can't afford to live there, to live and work elsewhere.

Nail on the head. Successive governments have based entire economic growth on house price inflation and now the damage is clear to see.

Of course it's not meaningless and one can compare them based of salary, qualifications, and so on. That's precisely what most of the comments on this thread (and others) have been doing. And precisely what options are you referring to anyway?

Well you can say that it's unacceptable and get cross about it but you don't seem to have taken my points on board about why it may be happening. Obviously, there is more than one reason but some of the reasons are undoubtedly collective, societal failures.

I'm definitely not deluding myself about Reform or the likelihood that benefits and payments of all sorts will be scaled back. I also agree that the WC voters quite often tend to be more judgemental or harsher wrt what you call slackers.

I'm totally with you there @Badbadbunny
There are lots who are in denial about this though. It's a disaster but it has been gradual. Overall, the populous has been like boiled frogs, with things getting visibly worse for at least 20 years. It's now got to a point where it is obvious to the great majority and trust in politicians is at an all time low.

I think that would be v sensible.

Also agree with comments that nurses/teacher/doctors are under paid still. The problems with recruitment and retention, doctors leaving for Australia, etc aren't just about pay but also about the actual demands of the jobs.

We need to look at genuine ways of helping people back into work. But high quality sustainable jobs. Loads of funding seems to be going to random companies offering low quality bulk online courses but there’s limited funding to do courses which actually train you to do a job even in shortage areas. There also seem to be very limited apprenticeships.

I’m currently unemployed, disabled and a carer but desperately looking for a job and preferably something I can build a career in but there’s little support available.

When the gov talk about a (package of support) to get people back into work it seems disingenuous and like it will likely involve benefit sanctions and low quality courses where companies are raking in money and not helping people get work.

Someone who chooses to sit on their arse and let other workers pay for them is a slacker. If you don’t think they are a slacker then frankly you are the outlier.

Honestly you sound like a lot of the woolier liberals I've met when canvassing. Under Blair they were all wringing their hands about the awfulness of ASBOs and how poor little Darren would be ‘labelled” whilst living well away from any of the problems caused by antisocial behaviour (and often making damned sure their own DC never went near Darren). Meanwhile in WC areas they loved the system because finally they could do something about antisocial behaviour which made their lives a misery.

Working but low income voters know what slackers cost them, they have no time for it. The welfare state was set up to support those in need or hitting difficult times, not to subsidise those who will not work by choice.

I didn't actually say that current pensions shouldn't be changed. I say that no one had advocated for it but it could be considered. I agree with you that it is fraught with problems though. I don't think the initial post was about pension credit specifically, having just double checked. I do understand why you suggested changes for people entering the workplace. I was just making the point wrt to the contrasting comment about pensioners being sacrificial lambs when that is the exact opposite of what is happening, ie it's the young that have been discriminated against.

Wrt the q about would I be happy to lose a chunk of income. Of course not but that is income I actually earn over many years, via a contract. It's totally different to state pension provision, which is a benefit and not related to earnings directly, as has been discussed.

Again, you have totally failed to take on board the points I have made.

You can keep on ranting about slackers, etc. I've seen people who fit that description too, I'm sure we all have. The difficulty is how to reduce the problem and that involves understanding what the actual problem is, which you are totally ignoring. I don't think repeatedly comparing the WC and MC response is particularly helpful.