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.

Rent controls, stopping foreign investors buying UK property, building affordable housing and making companies pay a living wage instead of topping up workers. That would go a long way.

Fucking hell, being disabled does not mean suffering. Having disabled kids does not mean you are in it for the money.

Pretty much yep.

I also think the pp has a point when posters say don’t talk about it or go on the attack for one poster etc as below.

As a cost it’s high, tax is high so is borrowing, so if it’s unsustainable what should be done? At least have a discussion

Claim disability benefit only if the alternative is that you’d be on the streets, not because you want a bit of extra cash

Tells me all I need to know about you.

So what do you suggest IS fair for state pensioners, then? The pension is miserly anyway.

@Countingcro & @UserFront242 now i’m confused!

This.

Also, the pension figure must include the overly generous public sector pensions? Could be why the figures are so high.

Remove the triple lock, maybe it needs to be linked to how much you earn as opposed to a flat rate like they do in other European countries.

@Fluffypuppy1 no public sector pensions are not included in pensioner benefits from a welfare perspective!

HRTFT, but I’m livid because so many people have been set up directly by the government - through failing education, health care, policing, basically any organisation the government have had a hand in for the last 30ish years - to suffer.

The government reaps what they’ve sown and continues to blame the very people they’ve ruined.

I’d like to say I don’t know what the answer is, but I suspect taking politics and meaningless targets out of education would be a start. We’re at a point where rates of diagnosable SN are rising, in an education system that has narrowed and become primarily about meeting arbitrary targets rather than allowing children to learn in environments that suit them with a variety of settings and practices available.

People are ground down. Stressed to hell, in financial struggles. Increases in depression. More and more people are not coping. And then we blame them, rather than looking to the institutions that have systematically failed them.

Obviously rising welfare costs is a massive problem, but until someone addresses the massive elephants in the room it’s not going to come down.

If there is no suffering why is there any differentiation between disabled and non disabled and a cash payment. Let's do away with all the descriptive terms and stop cash payments then.

What about a yearly rise in the state pension- what would that be based on?

I started work at 17, and retired last year at the age of 70.

I reckon I've earned every penny of my state pension.
.

Or a car crash?

Also not all disability equals suffering. I mean they might suffer if, as a society, we decided to change the way we support disability, but its perfectly possible to be blind for instance and a fullfilling enjoyable life but need support with travel or finding the soap

Do you think children are born with ''I'm disabled'' attached to their foreheads? Some people can have 2 or even 3 children before it becomes apparent that one child has a disability. It isn't always obvious.

Not all disabled children ''suffer'' either.

Maybe they were all healthy until the benefits goat attacked them?

The point is, families like this are vanishingly rare, if they exist at all, but there are numerous ways it could happen, none of which include child abuse - disability being diagnosed later in life/sickness/accidents, etc.

There are many ‘benefit cap’ work arounds. It’s a pretty useless concept, meant to mislead people into thinking exactly what you have said.

@Allseeingallknowing not sure, what do you suggest?

It is not about suffering.
I honestly think you are up to no good with this line of thinking. It is pretty offensive.

Its only going to increase as the years go on. Pension age keeps rising but health is not improving, i see this working in health, after 60 peoples health declines significantly and the co-morbidities continue to increase year on year.

There are SO many jobs that will not be able to be completed by 67 year olds (or probably older)either mentally or physically including the vast majority of public sector jobs (teachers, nurses, drs, health care assistants, teaching assistants, police, fire brigade, trades to name a few). This will lead to people getting sickness benefits to cover them into state pension, its a fact.

Low wages being topped up with universal credit. Lack of jobs- particularly full time and whos going to employ the 65 yo with extra needs over the fit and active 20 yo.

I started work at 17, and retired last year at the age of 70.
I reckon I've earned every penny of my state pension

You may have, you may not. Plus there’s millions of you which is the problem.

It's totally unsustainable. The country will be going pop shortly

It's a seriously flawed system when you have a political party whose main demographic is people on welfare.

This applies to all parties! 😁

Advocate for employers to HAVE to employ a percentage of people with disabilities then (it will never happen…)