The autumn budget should cut benefits before increasing tax

[Leett]

There is talk of Labour breaking their election pledge and increasing income tax by 2p. I doubt they'd do that because voters will revolt. However they need to do something with the state pension due to increase by 4.7% next year.
I really hope they cut benefits / pensions before the deciding to increase taxes.

I know how it works. I live in one of those countries.

Precisely! It is all so short-sighted and often seems purely based on vindictiveness and resentment at someone getting something they're not, regardless of the awful circumstances that led them there.

Another one for the dramatic response club.
It's a myth that nobody was informed regarding increasing retirement age. HTH

🤣🤣🤣
not a poor pensioner then OP

Its worth noting that, as usual, this 2p increase being floated about is just for those already paying the higher tax rate.
surprise surprise

Id rather Labour increased the working hours requirement from 16 ( shared for a couple) to a full working week of 30 hours per person before UC approval. Why should a couple only be required to work 8 hours each. Absolute madness!

So yes I agree OP
The autumn budget should cut benefits and impose a higher minimum working week for all before increasing taxes
Those benefits however should not be for those who are too old or too disabled to work. They, after all, can’t increase their income whilst others have the means to by working !

Im also sick of the excuses not to work and sick of the enormous benefit budget whilst people spew hate at pensioners as the only benefit to cut.
People in this country need to learn to look after themselves and pay their way

I am not a pensioner

I haven't read the full thread, but I would hazard a guess that two topics which have come up already are:

1. All pensioners are millionaires, have BTLs and are laughing at younger people who do not have what they have. They should get nothing
2. Today's generation of young families are the most shafted ever, none have ever had it as bad and they will be poor for their whole life. They are too poor to even think about paying into a pension.

Both of which are nonsense of course.
I am nearer pension age than the young family stage, but I agree with the pp who said that there is nothing intrinsically special about pensioners that mean they are untouchable. The romance about this needs to go, along with the triple lock and free bus passes. Free prescriptions should also not be given automatically to pensioners.

What I will say though, is pensioners are not a homogenous mass, especially those with us today. Due to a much higher life expectancy, today's pensioners span women who never worked at the older end to younger pensioners retiring on a comfortable workplace pension. This is why it is difficult to come up with a 'one-size-fits-all' solution.
However. I am 58, and from when I started work at 18, I have always had the option to pay into a workplace pension. These were kept pretty low scale at first but over the past 15 years or so, with automatic enrolment, no one really has any excuse to ignore the need to pay into a pension.
I think that, starting from say next year, everyone under 30 should be unable to opt out of paying into a pension, and once that generation become pensioners, that would be the point when the state pension could be looked at, in the context of lifetime earning - no top-ups if someone had every opportunity to pay but opted not to. I realise this is a long-term goal, but, apart from getting rid of the TL and other 'perks', I can't see how the pension could be fundamentally changed in the near future.

So you'd rather take tax paying family members out of the system to support them?

Give them carers allowance instead?

So that person then will be unable to save for a private pension, pay a mortgage and will then cost the state much more when they are old?

An increase to income tax will increase the benefits bill paid to those who are working anyway. UC is calculated on take home pay.

UC is already the bare minimum- cutting it even more hurts the economy.

Yes there may be some who appear to have a high income on UC but that is because additional elements are added in depending on circumstances and there is a cap for that.

Tell me how I was informed?

I think a change from 16 hours to 30 would be sensible. 30 hours is still a pretty short working week.

I'd also row back some the massive increases to the personal allowance in recent years.

UC is already the bare minimum- cutting it even more hurts the economy.

How?

The point is that they had the whole of their working life to increase their wage and improve their
circumstances, prepare for retirement?

According to some posters on here its dead easy to just get a job paying more money and presumably then set aside some for retirement - why do we not expect current pensioners to have done this, just as we are being expected to?

Well said

I suspect posters like me who think people can improve their circumstances and that fate does determine our place, completely agree that pensioners currently are reaping what they sowed. To take the metaphor further if you want to improve the harvest in the Autumn of your life work harder prepping the soil and planting the seed in the Spring of it.

Well, for one if people can't afford a roof over their head, adequate food, heating, then their health will decline and it is more likely they'll need more state intervention in the form of NHS treatment, social care, housing.

Slashing benefits further is a false economy. Austerity should have demonstrated that but here we are calling for even more.

Well, what are they gonna buy?
A substantial amount of food attracts VAT
Fuel Attracts VAT
Any services or work that you have to carry out on your home generally attracts VAT
Clothing the most senior school children require attracts VAT
Transportation attracts VAT

UC is already the bare minimum- cutting it even more hurts the economy.

It really doesn't.
We somehow only consider the tax it takes to fund UC. But those UC claimants don't work/work min hours means they don't pay much/any taxes, don't generate revenue. It's double impact.

UC might not need to be cut in terms of amount if it's small enough already, but it has to be made very time limited. You lost your job? UC give you breathing space to find one, but after 3-6-9 whatever months it's over.

Then the amount saved on benefits plus amount generated by these people having a job can be reinvested in better services and support who really truly need it.

Goodness I never thought I’d be relying on benefits ever but here I am as a single parent and the father upped and left. I had a very middle class home and life and here I am back renting and struggling to make childcare and a career somehow balance. If benefits were cut it would impact my children hugely!

I hate the benefits stigma. Makes me feel like I failed.

This is a nonsense. UC is 100% taxpayer funded. You can't argue that because the taxpayer may see 20% of that money back in VAT that it is bad for the economy to cut UC.

Actually no
All Employees have only had the benefit of employer contributions since 2018
so prior to that we were very much in it alone.

We also didn’t have the benefit of employers having to take onboard existing pensions from previous employment. Many people ended up with a different pension every time they moved employers with some of us being required to pay 2% in management fees just not to lose the money in the old pension pots or losing large sums in transferring pensions over, if indeed that was allowed.

So No!
People who are pensioners now, or soon to be, did not have the protections of todays workers
People who are pensioners now, or soon to be, more often than not spent much of their working life without a single pension contribution from an employer and not a penny in UC

The LSE disagrees with you.

https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/cuts-and-caps-to-benefits-have-always-harmed-people-not-helped-them-into-work/

But many of today's pensioners didn't have the opportunity to do this.
You know the way 30somethings feel now? High housing costs, high childcare costs, living in the thick of money going out all over every month?
Well that's the way all 30somethings felt. My generation found it easier to buy a house, but jobs were way less flexible than they are now, with no home working or flexible hours.
When I was at that stage, I was grappling with 15% interest rates, three months maternity leave and working from 7am every morning because I could not change my working hours.
So although this generation really have a chip on their shoulder about their suffering, they really are not unique.

It’s not just the VAT though
How often do we hear middle class and upper class people announce that they can make one chicken? They’ve murdered themselves and 35 carrots that they’ve grown in the back garden last for a month?

When I was a single parent, I spent a lot more money because being poor is expensive.
These days I spend very little if I don’t want to.
Which does not help the economy

I think you need to do a lot of reading, which will clearly explain why the triple lock was originally introduced.

The answer is to increase the hourly work requirement for each individual whether in a couple or not.
Increased hours means increased earned income means a natural reduction in UC payments
and
more people live more independently of benefits
and
the countries welfare bill reduces

So OAPs are to find an even worse property with their own money due to the current economy. Whilst others claim housing benefit and continue to live a state dependent existence because of poor life choices. Rewarding failure.
Get real!!