Welfare spending to rise by £73.2bn to £406.2bn

[topicalaffair]

Over the next five years, the OBR is forecasting that UK welfare spending will rise by £73.2bn to £406.2bn.

How does everyone feel about this? I’m livid because I pay lots of tax. I don’t mind paying tax to maintain a civilised society - but this? This is surely taking the piss and will result in weaker and weaker services as the amount of £ available reduces day by day.

YANBU - it’s totally deranged. The every growing uk population can’t function effectively on such a benefits for all basis.

YABU - this welfare spending bill is truly representative of need.

What's the solution? Most is pensioners, housing support and in work benefits.

What annoys me is that there is a large chunk of the population who won’t be assessed further and are not required to look for work-ever! I know some never will be able to, but I think that with advances in medicine and possible adaptions to the work place, surely some could do some type of work, instead of being written off for ever!

I thought most of it was old age pensions

The biggest cost is rent, due to the lack of affordable social housing and the large increases in cost of private sector rent. Then the triple lock state retirement pension.

until we regulate rent and have better social housing stock and people are paid an actual living wage the cost will continue to soar

And there we have it - the result of many years fiscal and policy mismanagement by government. Not just the current and previous one but the ones before.

Strangely none of them have been able to conjure up an effective economy. In fairness it's not just the UK it's global.

I think both Labour and the snp think that the working population will forever applaud these decisions and bleat how happy they are to pay ever increasing tax…
is it just Scotland who’s further increasing payments to those who don’t work with the increase now of £40 a week child payment? And yes I know that’s only for infants as those between 1-16 will only get the additional £28 a week, on top of all other benefits!

Yes but they'll still need welfare top ups, which means it will cost more in admin, than we save. So what is the final solution ?

We need, living wages, full or nearly full time hours and the biggest issue, truly affordable housing. Buy-to-let, air B&B, property portfolios shouldn't have been a thing.

Is it to do with the rising costs of pensions and the triple lock?

High housing costs have also caused a huge issue for the economy.

Is that in real terms or just bare figures? In five years incomes will also have risen, as will house prices.
The tail end of the Baby Boomers are reaching retirement age in the next few years, often in ill health and needing support.
The triple lock increases the state pension above inflation and could easily account for almost all of that increased welfare bill quoted.
What would you do about that? The only humane thing is to bear the cost of the pension bill for a few years until the Baby Boomer generation dies off, then the pension bill will drop dramatically, as will the cost of elderly care.

It’s unsustainable, and the whole thing is going to collapse at some point.

Countless challenges to address that no one is brave enough to do anything about - and a dwindling population of working adults and children being born.

People have completely unrealistic expectations of what the government can deliver vs how much tax they’re willing to pay.

We have an ageing population, this costs but nobody wants to acknowledge it. We cannot afford the NHS and the state pension models unfortunately.

We also aren’t getting healthier so as the state pension age increases more of the working population need disability benefits etc.

What is the cause of the increase? Presumably an increased number of people at retirement age?

Wouldn’t have to happen if they taxed the rich.

The triple lock should be paused & the money put into investment but it won’t happen.

How do you suggest that is fixed OP?

I'd suggest doing a job search, without extensive qualifications and imagine a disability. Jobs which fit the criteria and give enough hours to live on, are non existent. For some disabled men, taxi driving was a go to, now you can't earn enough, as a single man. You used to be able to get driving jobs, now you have to be fit enough to load/unload. Pot washing is gone, in most places. Jobs for disabled people are actually getting less and less.

It's absolutely crazy, we should not be paying anyone who works any universal credit nor paying to top up people's rent! Just subsidising landlords and agencies for no good reason. Min wage keeps going up too, which is great, but not when middle/higher earners get taxed so much and lose free nursery etc.

I don't know what the answer is. Labour don't seem to mind and it's a long time until the next election. Tories obviously terrible and did nothing with their time in either. I look at USA news and it seems everyday Trump is enacting or changing laws/regulations etc - we don't seem to get anything pushed through or changed. Britain is so stagnant despite Labour having a massive majority, they announce things for 2030+! Obviously those things will be forgotten about by then.

AreyousureaskedNaomi Old age pensions shouldnt be included really .I am still waiting for mine! In my 60s still some way to go though.We have paid our dues and havent claimed any benefits at all.DH worked 40 years!I also think the job market generally is hard .Many younger people struggle with Interviews and are not really equipped for jobs nowadays .Should they all starve ?

🙄

Someone on a £100K salary in the UK pays 40% in taxes. Are you aware of this?

If you tax the rich so highly there’s no point in them being here they’ll move to another country - as is happening. Last time I checked the UK had lost 15% of high earners under the new Labour government.

AreyousureaskedNaomi Old age pensions shouldnt be included really .I am still waiting for mine! In my 60s still some way to go though.Wehave paid our dues and havent claimed any benefits at all.DH worked 40 years

This is the problem, most haven’t paid their dues which is why it’s a ponzi scheme. The trouble is the demographics no longer support it.

And the vast majority of us (i.e those of us who reach pension age) will benefit from this. How we fund it is a problem yes but at least we know that, in terms of the welfare budget, our tax is being used the right way - for people who need it.

Do you work for a newspaper? Or is this going to be used for some other kind of research?

At least half - two thirds of that goes on pensioners. The spend is only going to get larger as our population continues to age.

If you want to make any real change to welfare spending, you have to look at pensioners. I suspect few governments would be brave enough to tackle this in any meaningful way.

One way to immediately ease this problem would be to abolish the triple lock. It would cause quite a bit of outrage, however.

Wouldn’t have to happen if they taxed the rich.

we tax high earners on PAYE in line with other countries. Lower & middle earners not so much but that is generally to do with wage stagnation & stifling housing costs.

We could target wealth more but this again would hit older people who don’t feel they should pay.