To wonder how the UK will look in 3 years time?

[Labradorlover987]

I was inspired to write this after reading the UC post that was just reported - the govt’s welfare bill has passed but was watered down so unlikely to make any real savings.

I earn 40k, have a school age child and just feel like I am living hand to mouth 😩 I 100% think there should be a welfare systems that supports people on low incomes but I wonder how the current system will be sustained in the long run?

Just wondered what other people thought.

I actually wouldn’t mind paying more in taxes if we could be guaranteed more in services etc - for example my council tax just went up and the services seem even worse this year than usual.

Because 4 million people are entitled to it. It has a fraud rate of 0%. If people are thinking you get it, so can I. They do also have to apply and be assessed, thereby also having to be eligible. Social media might highlight this, but it doesn't give you a condition you don't have.

Have you ever claimed it, or helped anyone else to do so? If so, you'll know why it's difficult to get. If not, probably not your best area to make claims about.

If on paper, it isn't fraud, then it isn't fraud at all. And she needs to not worry about what other people are entitled to.

Why would Musk be entitled to PIP, what elements of his daily living or mobility does he struggle with?

How is PIP “difficult to get” if almost 4 million people get it? This huge number is significantly higher than all other comparable countries. Why?

I know the answer to this. Look at this link

1

the link looks strange, but it's Scottish Gov doc.

Number of disability benefits recipients in the UK is dramatically higher than in Denmark, France, Norway, Sweden - all comparable countries.

"This research has found that extra costs benefits are uncommon in other countries. Indeed, in a New Policy Institute report for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, MacInnes et al (2014 – emphasis added) argue that, as far as they are aware: ‘no other European or OECD country […] makes such extensive use of a cash benefit to meet the additional costs of disability.’7 As a result, the sample of countries examined was necessarily constrained – including only countries with broadly comparable benefits. To this end, this report presents an examination of assessment for disability benefits in: Denmark, France, New Zealand, Norway, and Sweden. Even in countries where extra-costs disability benefits are offered, their reach is far more limited than in Scotland/UK (see Table 2)." 1

No other country, at least in developed world, pays monetary disability benefits in such amounts and such vast number of conditions. For sure no other country pays it based on self declared impact which cannot be confirmed by objective medical tests, e.g. bloods, CT, MRI etc.

So I can go to my GP, complaint about depression, anxiety, CFS, whatever, something which doesn't have defined investigation. Get antidepressants, CBT, whatever else prescribed, it doesn't help of course. Or long waiting list. I'll spend 6-9-12 months "working" with GP to get my condition established and then I'm set for life. Ongoing reviews of course, but nothing helps. In the meantime because of life with no purpose my mental health truly deteriorates.

Hear me out - there are absolutely horrifying disabilities that of course should be supported, probably much more generous than now, incl carers support.
But funny that the number of PIP claimants increased so drastically with transition to UC which I believe is less generous than the previous benefits set up.

Basic rate PIP for daily living is £29 a week. A lot of people will only qualify for that, hardly enough to live on, but as far as I know there isn't a breakdown of how many get highest rate and how many get lowest rate.

What is the point in tackling your addiction if you end up worse off financially for it?

How many people end up financiallly better off for having an addiction than for not having one? Addictions are extremely expensive. And you can't claim benefits just for having an addiction; you would have to prove serious mental or physical health problems as a result, and even then it's not that easy.

That is the basic rate for standard mobility which very few would get alone. The standard rate for daily living is something like £75 and many many people get standard for both which amounts to over £100 a week. PIP is also not an amount to live on, it is money for the extra costs of a disability. basic living costs would be covered by Universal credit or ESA if someone could not work. There work in this area and very rarely see someone just getting £29 a week PIP. It's more often enhanced rates for both amounting to over £750 every four weeks. or a combination of both components.

Speaking as someone with a 25+ year history of mental illness.....it really is not that easy at all. 🤦🏼‍♀️

Essentially unless you're under secondary mental health care (which is rare as hens teeth even amongst the long term mentally ill-the focus now is very much on stabilization of crisis and being discharged back to GP asap) it's highly unlikely. Despite what the media like to tell you...

My brother has paranoid schizophrenia and was on the lowest rate of Daily Living Allowance for PIP for years.

He's incapable of visiting his immediate family the other side of the country independently. Every time he's tried he's ended up in trouble. Unfortunately he always focused on the things he can do in his assessments - it took a loooong time for me to explain they aren't deciding if they like you 😂

He hasn't been under secondary care for 15+ years. He survives as he refers himself back into a local mental health support service when he needs to and gets 6-8 weeks of face to face from a support worker.

I can’t see the post you’re responding to, but surely there are many more who are entitled to it given the fraud rate, how many have to go to tribunal and the success rate (if they can cape with that process), how many whom lack the capacity and required support to access the benefit, some who choose not to access, some who are denied but shouldn’t be etc

I've been away a few days so may not have read the thread attentively. or all the ideas proposed since I went. But I do think that the benefit system needs to be fairer all round. And in the eyes of ANYONE working FT hours paying a little tax, a person who works 16 hours a week, which suits supermarkets in particular, is a passenger. My DC works in horticulture and is paid NMW for 39 hrs per week. In the SE, where a two bed rental house is going to cost more than £2k per month in rent, before any other bills, that is hand to mouth economics.

I think all benefits will have to be time limited, to 6 months for non-disabled people under 25, to a year for a young parent, to clamp down on people becoming long term claimants. Obviously, for people who are incapacitated from infancy, there should be different rules. Older people is a harder call because frailty increases with age, and becomes more common. But I think we are reaching a point at which there will be a point at which benefit payments stop dead after a period, unless you are old with a history of contributions. None, nothing at all past the benefit expiry date without a history of paying income tax. .... so there is always a reason to get up and work. Apologies, this is just off the cuff... I don't have sources to quote. ANd yes, some people will hate the notion and tell me I'm awful.

As this is a site for parents, I'd like to suggest that a decent percentage of the cost of child care should be tax deductible for either parent. Not the whole cost, but around 40%, so someone (like me 30 years ago) could have a nanny to hand over my baby to my DH at 6:30. If I know that I shan't or can't be back before 1120pm, then I need long hours childcare. Making childcare costs an allowable expense on a tax return would do more for economic health and growth than any other single measure that I can imagine. I would have continued to work and earn a lot, and pay a load of tax every year for more years. Instead I retrained for a career that paid much less. Idiocy.

The last year that I worked on self employed basis, my accounts show that I worked 30% of the time to pay for (PT) childcare, 35% for MHRC, and the rest was mine. I earned well back then, but there is nobody earning comparable money in my old line of work.

I've been a long supporter of this. This measure would transform the economy and society for the better. Until it's implemented it's not even a managed decline anymore

And what happens if you can’t find a job after 6 months

You might not find a job you want, but you will find some job. Even if it involves longer commute, whatever.
No working age person without significant disabilities should be supported by taxpayer forever.

You support yourself via petty crime, or do sex work.

Or you beg.

Or you just die sooner.

Studies that looked at the impact of austerity policies for the decade following 2010 have pointed to about 335 000 excess deaths from 2010 to 2019 believed to be linked to cuts to public services and benefit cuts.

But there are now lots of people in the UK who if you asked them whether they’d rather we had a wealth tax/an increase in inheritance tax, or policies which would result in the culling of disabled people and the poor, ABSOLUTELY would go for the latter.

All the “THE UK IS FINISHED!’ blather we’re seeing from the right is very predictable. It’s a way of preparing you to accept genocidal social welfare policies.

Almost all Western economies are struggling right now, for a whole host of reasons. The UK has got the fastest growing economy in the G7 (modest though that growth is). But we’ve got one of the worst cost of living crisis because our housing situation in this country is a disaster. London councils are currently spending about 90 million pounds A MONTH on keeping people in temporary housing. It was a shit idea selling off millions of council homes and not replacing them wasn’t it?

You don’t know that.

Some people won’t.

Unemployment rates among the over 50’s are rocketing. There are people who apply for hundreds of jobs and never get a look in.

Okay Doomer…

Ah, the many hundreds of thousands who died because of ‘austerity’.

And next we’ll hear from some Labourist about how the Tories didn’t reduce public spending at all.

The last I read it was that over 50s retire en masse and the government want them back.

Early retirements are certainly true where I am, mostly driven by stupid taxation and exacerbated by IHT change by Labour.

You support yourself via petty crime, or do sex work.
Or you beg.
Or you just die sooner.

Why not just, you know, old school, get a job?

FT at NMW gives you £1750 net per month now. It's totally liveable income, at least outside of London, not lavish but liveable. For a FT couple both on NMW it's an absolutely acceptable amount to live on.

If people can afford to retire in their 50’s then clearly they’re pretty well off - I assume you live in a very affluent area and are surrounded by comfortably off people.

The vast majority of people will be working into their late 60’s.

The only change to IH under Labour has been the changes on how farms are taxed, which will obviously only impact on a tiny subset of the population.

Because some people will always struggle to get work.

You can’t force employers to offer someone a job.

Some people have really poor physical and/mental health. Not enough to qualify them for PIP but bad enough to make them completely unreliable in employment.

Or they’re like me - that they care for an adult or child who is unwell and has a relapsing illness.

Or they’re gone through a period of incarceration and that’s on their work record.

You name it - some people will always struggle to get and keep a job. Particularly a full time job, which by the way, aren’t easily come by and many jobs on NMW involve part time and casualised working, split shifts, zero hours contracts. Really tough for people who have children and don’t have access to totally flexible childcare or evening/overnight childcare. These people make up a high percentage of those working part time and claiming UC.

Seriously - go look at Indeed. Have a look at the types of jobs on offer and the sort of contracts people are being offered.

I feel like a lot of people on mumsnet are completely out of touch with the way the poorest people are living in this country.

@DenizenOfAisleOfShame

"Ah, the many hundreds of thousands who died because of ‘austerity’.”

You don’t accept that large cuts in public spending have an impact on the mental and physical health of communities?

You are making ignorant statement, sorry.

Labour included pensions in estate for IHT purposes. It's a massive change and affects nearly everyone in private sector at least.
And I'm not in a very affluent area of London, but if you own any property in London and have some private pension than it makes sense to retire as soon as you have enough to sustain you.

Some of people I'm talking about are on packages of about 50-60k.