It's the government's fault work doesn't pay, because of the way they grant benefits, impose tax and allow housing costs to become insane. And stop blaming employers for it.

[Batmanisaplaceinturkey]

"Oh but employers need to pay more!" I hear some of you say. I will say one sentence to that: wage growth impacts inflation.

Had this conversation about public sector pay rises, people struggled to understand that while inflation was already running high mass increases would be a bad thing.

Crikey, they’ve managed to create all that in 18 months?

Which government are you referring to?

This!

Wage growth impacts inflation.

And inflation erodes wages FFS. So we've to simply allow our wages to be eroded usually for the benefit of shareholders.

Yeah but then interest rates go up to rein in inflation and then you ask for a oay rise and on it goes…

I agree.

If we subsidise rents with benefits, rents just go up. So people on benefits get their rent allowance topped up again and again so rents get higher and higher. So you can make money as a landlord, particularly if you cut corners. So house prices go up, rents go up, benefits go up…

Meanwhile wages don’t, people can’t afford to buy and can’t afford to rent without a top up.

Spiralling madness.

Yep exactly.

All of them. None have the brains/effort/will to tackle the welfare and taxation conundrum.

Add into the mix, putting things in place to make life harder for landlords/safer for tenants, and the smaller guys get out of it leaving only those prepared to play the system.
My dad was a small landlord. Initially just one house, then a small set of 4 flats. It was supposed to be his pension, as he was self employed. He was a good landlord, looked after his tenants and his property. I remember him going out on Christmas Day to fix something that unexpectedly went wrong.
It’s so complicated now, and so hard, they’re trying to get out of it.

People say that London ( financiers -not the street cleaners) pays the most tax which funds the rest of the country -but how much is paid to Londoners for housing benefit where a small flat is £1K a month.
It skews it so that people on v low wages can live there whilst the rest of the country gets the crumbs.
if you stopped the benefits, businesses might have to move to cheaper areas (ie the rest of the country) to get employees.
And there might be jobs out of London. The benefit system skews things totally and some people just get stuffed. Where I live there are lots on benefits alone but there are also no jobs.

End stage capitalism…

International investors are buying up swathes of properties. They wont be paying taxes here for sure.

So, we've simply to allow our wages to be eroded?

Dss is a lecturer in economics.

Hes not a fan of the increasing wages leads to inflation thing.