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.

My relatives get AA, they legitimately qualify but they are also property millionaires so I’m not sure whether it should be means tested.

It doesn't surprise me. More and more people flocking to the country with no skills or qualifications and they end up on benefits. Even low skilled workers who come and fill roles don't earn enough to support their family, so although working and doing the right thing, they still don't end up as a net contributor.

As far as I am concerned, pensioners who will have paid almost 40 years worth of tax during their working life are the most entitled to get something back.

Added to the list I posted, should be cut overseas aid and slash money spent on illegal immigrants.

It irks me when people refer to asylum seekers as illegal immigrants. Does it leave a bad taste in your mouth to suggest leaving asylum seekers on the streets?

Although I suppose illegal immigrant is better than boat people.

The highest amount of benefits paid out, without any contributions criteria, were UC and housing benefits.

What do you propose for those who work and do need UC for rent? The workhouse?

Well, we’re leaving army veterans and our own homeless on the streets. Perhaps we need to sort that out. 🤷‍♀️

Exactly.

What about someone who has paid 30 years of tax?

Which is the reason for this?
I bet you is due to a higher proportion of elderly people in the service.
And it will only get worst. We need proper solitions to this.

1. Invest in early wellbeing to try to keep people healthy for longer (better healthcare for young patients, including a flipping appointment with the doctor, regular check ups, avoid keeping peoole on long waiting lists where the health just gets worst and then affects other parts of their body or mind, encouragements to sports and healthy diet and so on)
2. Reduce the cost of treatment. All these locums and off sourcing to private companies is a money drain. Carers and healthcare should be part of NHS, only. Employ enough people. Produce the equipment and medicines needed here.
3. Offset the cost. This is the painfull one. It will mean higher taxes or measures like selling someone's home or assets to pay for their care. Or increase the amount is put into pensions per month; though I am not fond of private pensions at all. The less we do of this, the better.

But society needs to find a solution to this, pronto. Not only UK, but the whole world. I think the education and healthcare or other services for young and working age people should not suffer because of this. Currently, the services we are getting are worst than what we got in the past and this is not acceptable. Governments had plenty of notice to do something about it!

We should only be accepting people into the UK who will fulfil some sort of Labour.
The government needs to organise work for these people.
The government needs to assess disability (both mental & physical) and have/assign work depending on conditions. The government should be creating jobs people can do.

There should be no such a thing as sitting at home on Welfare, you should be deployed by the Council to litter pick / clean graffiti / basic gardening / low skill work one or two days a week in exchange for your money.
Stay at home benefit mums should be organised to work in creches providing childcare for working parents.

They're called illegal migrants because they're just that.

They dispose of their documents and cone to the country 'illegally'. Many of the going on to commit heinous crimes against women and girls, and also men.

We have a quadriplegic man in my workplace who works in the research department.

For those who want to work, even with disabilities, it is often possible.

Too many people fall back on relatively minor disabilities as an excuse to not work. I understand the appeal, given how close benefits and the minimum wage now are, but as a higher rate taxpayer I begrudge that it’s possible to effectively “choose” not to work.

Of course some people cannot work. But I don’t believe all people on benefits are entirely unable to provide for themselves. For many, it’s a choice. And the rest of us pick up the bill.

I hope, given how unsustainable our public finances are, parties soon wise up to reform of the benefits system (including triple locked pensions), and bring in a significant overhaul so there is a greater need to find work wherever possible for working age adults who cannot otherwise support themselves through savings. For those truly unable to work, of course benefits should be available.

The Government itself, including the Home Secretary, refers to them in this way- that’ll do for me!

There are issues around means testing that would make it very expensive.

Apart from the admin costs, there are millions of unpaid carers out there who are just anout hanging on by their fingernails. Means testing AA and PIP would mean a proprtion of those carers would lose the small amount of Carer's Allowance they get, and so might simply not be able to carry on caring.

Also, losing AA and PIP will have wider knock on effects as the benefits act as a gateway to other forms of help.

They've still paid tax.
Maybe it should be proportional to how much you've paid in?

In work benefits annoys me as its because employer's have successively been absolved of paying decent wages ... not that people claim it, but that they need to. But I think our bigger concern will be that given the need to expand our Defence budget all of this will be a drop in the ocean.

Most of this is the State Pension and the constant increases to it

What happens to the people who were already employed to litter pick, maintain parks and do low skilled work? The people already working in childcare?
If you want someone to do labour, then you need to pay them properly for it, and with all the benefits that employment brings such as sick pay, annual leave, pension.

Agree generally, but homeless veterans often have drink and drug problems which don’t help when considering housing programmes, plus many shelters won’t accept pets. Some actually refuse help offered.

You said that you were disabled and a higher earner as if it were some kind of gotcha, like disabled people have no excuse for not working. I think you're the one who was suggesting that disabled people are a homogenous group.

They need an extra 5 plus years for full state pension. They would receive a reduced rate SP.

Constant? You mean yearly increases, which others also get in their salaries and benefits?

Have you actually seen the criteria to get disability benefits? You wouldn't get anything with a "minor disability"