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.

Especially now that the initial part of the recruitment process for low level jobs by a lot of large organisations uses AI to sift applications. Applications are automatically rejected if they don’t include key words, unfortunately applicants aren’t told what those keywords are.

At present it's pretty normal to send out 2-300 CVs to get a job. Yes AI does screening, esp for mass recruitment like in retail, but some people do get these jobs?

What's the alternative? to tax people into oblivion to support ever growing army of people on benefits? Whose health, esp mental, will certainly deteriorate after years of living with no purpose or structure

We need a UBI. Young people are struggling to get even retail jobs. Over 50s are struggling too. It will only get worse with AI and increased automation in many sectors.

The alternative is to have recruitment processes that don’t require 2/300 unsuccessful applications. Perhaps more people would get jobs more quickly if that wasn’t the case. You can’t whine about unemployment and then defend a system that appears designed to support it.

who and how will pay for UBI?

If someone can find a way to tax Magnificent Seven - by all means, this would be great. But there isn't such option unfortunately, esp with Trump. So how do you plan to fund UBI?

It’s a difficult one when it’s ingrained into society that you must work for your bread and if you don’t, you’re a scrounger. Socialism is seen as a bad thing due to elites and plutocrats making the rules.

Those tech companies (and others in manufacturing and business) will be creating more and more wealth due to not having to employ humans. However who is going to be able to afford the products they are making if there are no jobs? It’s in their interest to dish out some of that wealth to keep the cogs moving.

We actually used a form of UBI during Covid which worked extremely well. That alone should have been seen as proof of concept. People of course blamed it for inflation, but that inflation was really more the result of the supply chain crisis from the pandemic and the lockdowns creating shortages, not from money printing per se.

But you don’t pay inheritance tax.

Because it’s not paid until after you die.

And it’s not paid by you.

"Some of the people I’m talking about are on packages of about 50 - 60K."

50 - 60K salaries? Or 50 - 60K retirement income?

Of course you could easily take your pension out of IHT by - radical idea here - spending it. After all that’s what it’s intended for.

salaries. They retire from these salaries.

We actually used a form of UBI during Covid which worked extremely well. That alone should have been seen as proof of concept.

Do you understand what you are saying? we're still paying huge debt for Covid "UBI". That "UBI" (I didn't receive anything, it wasn't UBI after all?) was "funded" by more borrowing

Most people I know are saving some of their pension in case they need care in old age, whether care home, home carers, or private medical treatment, as they'd rather have choices rather than be reliant on what the state will provide, especially when it comes to care homes!

If everyone spent their pensions, then the cost to local authorities, NHS, etc would be enormous if everyone went cap in hand for state funding old age care!

exactly. Hence I stopper working many years earlier and you don't get my many k of taxes which I'd pay. Who's funding your UBI now?

@BurntBroccoli

We actually used a form of UBI during Covid which worked extremely well. That alone should have been seen as proof of concept.

It was "proof" that it was completely unaffordable, unworkable and completely stupid. Millions of people being paid to sit on their arses whilst the economy ground to a halt because few people were actually working and being productive, total collapse of the supply chain, the NHS, construction, and massive damage to hospitality and tourism industries. Yeah, like we need more of that. We were billions in debt (more debt) because of it which is completely unaffordable.

Millions of people being paid to sit on their arses

Yes and many never got off them.

No, they wouldn’t because people with pensions large enough to worry about IHT usually own mortgage free houses that can be sold to fund care home fees. Obviously private medical treatment comes under the category of spending and the vast majority of people who use their money for it are doing it to queue jump.

I said it worked as a concept. If it was funded by wealth (AI companies) and not borrowing, it could work.
We just have to get past this arbitrary must work all the hours rhetoric. Why do we have to work 40 hours a week for example? There gave been several trials on reducing the working week to 4 days:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/nov/21/iceland-36-hour-working-week-stress-job

We actually see 5 working days as normal but in the past, a normal working week would be 6 days.

@nearlylovemyusername

"salaries. They retire from these salaries."

Luckily for them they won’t have to pay IHT. Because it’s not paid until you no longer exist.

You forget about equity release.

It did make sense to have funds assuming you can pass it on to your kids. If not, everything over threshold needs to be reliably spend. You'd still end up in care home on the bed next to someone funded by LA and you'll be paying many times more for the same quality of service. So I'd rather go on multiple holidays abroad whilst I still can and if I don't have enough, well, there are benefits for this.

And how would you get around there being a severe lack of employment which could be a very real issue in future?

Just maybe keep that reasoning in mind when you’re considering why someone might choose to stay working part time on UC rather than take up a job where they’ll not be significantly better off working full-time.

Sauce for the goose and all that.

Fine @nearlylovemyusername, you do you. @Badbadbunny was talking about the financial behaviour of the majority of pensioners.

@BurntBroccoli

Work as much or as little as you want, just don't expect any support from taxpayer.

There are thousands of people who charge e.g. £2k/day, by all means they can work two days a month if it's enough for them. If you get £100 a day you need to work as many days as you need to self fund yourself.

I didn't have this view and my life motto was completely different until the last budget.

I worked in my twenties and thirties about 60-70 hours a week and then never less than 50 hours in my lifetime.

Then I realised that whatever I worked for and earned will be taken from me and my DC. All whilst other people salivate over UBI and four days a week. I'm sorry I don't want to pay for this anymore.

ETA: you must be challenged if you don't see a difference with UC - I never ever had state funding me, even my kids were privately educated until this year. I paid for myself and many other people, unlike those working part time and sponging from state to the detriment of all public service.

Really? People make irreversible financial decisions that affect the rest of their lives and change their entire philosophy on the basis of one budget? I find this implausible.

Depends on how a Budget changes someone's current and future financial plans. Since last Autumn's Budget, I've had several clients who've made very major changes to their working future (such as emigration, retirement, business sale) and longer term financial plans, including setting up trusts, emigration, etc.