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.

He doesn’t get extra money for being addicted to drugs. Drug addiction is not a disability. If he’s claiming PIP, then it’s been awarded on the basis of having a separate disability or one caused by the drug addiction. PIP is not awarded to addicts just because they are addicts, and if he has a legitimate disability, then the payments are justified.

Honestly I see a lot of people every week claiming PIP and a lot of those ‘disabilities’ do not prevent them engaging in virtually everything apart from work (where they are unemployed).

No, because this is the problem. Nobody is entitled to a state pension.
It’s a gamble if he’d lost both his legs the second week that he was in the country he would’ve benefited from all of the infrastructure that would’ve allowed him to survive. Maybe work.
Maybe not
You don’t pay into the part to receive something at the end. It’s just not how national insurance works. The clue is in the word Insurance.

PIP doesn’t assess for work, it assesses the extent to which a claimants condition stops them from participating in ordinary life. The aim of the benefit actually to allow disabled people to engage in things they wouldn’t be able to do without the extra funds. Everything costs more when you’re disabled.

I know that, that’s why I specified ‘where they’re unemployed’.

Europe is 12% of the world’s population, 25% of the world’s GDP and 60% of the world’s welfare spending. The UK is fairly average within Europe, but we are all impoverishing future generations to pay for welfare spending now. It is causing investment to flee. The founder of Revolut moved to Dubai recently. His tax receipts in the UK were the equivalent of 400,000 average workers. A lot of moderately well off people are leaving too. Those of us left behind are not rich enough to pick up the bill caused by the lost tax revenue and job opportunities. It look like state funded welfare, along with the economies of European countries in general, is speeding towards an almighty crash.

Let's say your wish is granted and there are no more private landlords. Are all the tenants going to purchase their property? I think a fair few landlords woukd be happy with this outcome. Nothing stopping the tenants buying now I fact.

if they dont buy where will they live? Councils cant have compulsory purchase orders on all these ex private landlord properties. The landlord would just put a family member in the property.

Where are councils getting the additional money, to house prople? The rich are leaving the country and higher tate tax payers are retiring early reducing their tax bill.

Ok but what happens when so many people are ‘disabled’ and elderly that there simply isn’t the tax revenue or rigorous economy to provide those benefits any more?

This isn’t a moral question, it’s a financial one. Nobody ever answers it

Exactly!

The answer is you stop making disability benefits available to everyone with a health condition and take it right back to its original meaning - to help those with permanent and substantial disability. The scope has been widened much too far and as a result those for whom the benefit was originally intended will lose out when the funds are exhausted.

And if they do, it’s only 16 hours, so they don’t lose benefits

The fact is we need more people to work and only those with verifiable expenses to receive PIP and DLA. There are people using the money for ‘rainy day savings’, ISAs, holidays… we can no longer afford these luxuries. If your disability is costly you should have no problem producing receipts and an amount should be agreed from there.

I’m disabled, don’t claim PIP but could easily produce receipts and hard evidence of what I spend if needed. It isn’t at all degrading or insulting to suggest people should only claim money they actually need. Not just some kind of stipend because ‘you have a condition and therefore just deserve an extra something’.

Perhaps something like Remploy could be reintroduced?

Yep. I see this endlessly - ‘anyone know if any jobs 16 hours or will affect UC’

There was a group moan on Facebook recently as they had the audacity to ask a woman to start job hunting as her youngest was nearly school age ‘but I want to be there for my kids before/after school, not dump them in clubs’. This person has had 4 kids with gaps of several years so she hasn’t worked in something like 12 years, benefits galore!

They can always find the money for a war

She’ll carry on too, will probably get herself on LCWRA next.

Maybe we could force companies to give disabled people trying to get back into the workplace priority over career changers who already have jobs.

If this is really about getting disabled people back into jobs, why can I be viewed less favourably compared to an equally qualified candidate because my last work experience was two years ago?

I explained in the post - the properties would be bought by the government (they would have to borrow to do this, and it would be an enormous investment, but I think over time it would more than pay for itself financially and in societal wellbeing). If people don't want to sell their property then they're fine to put a family member in, but they can't rent it out for money. The councils would collect rent on the properties, like they do now with council housing, and so their income would massively increase. More money would go back into the state rather than into e.g. overseas investment companies.

Basically Councils would go bankrupt?

Councils could buy outright at least 80 properties in my locality per year just with the interest that they generate on the money that they have in their account accounts if they didn’t have them in the Natwest current account. Which I believe they are required to do due to regulator restrictions
But there’s no other organisation that allows several million pounds to sit in a literal basic current account

I thought that’s where we were now? Disability benefits aren’t available to everyone with a health condition are they? I thought many who were entitled also lost out as they didn’t have the capacity to apply or appeal.

Do you think council housing is provided for free?

🥱

I know peoples livelihood and existence and survival is just so fucking boring isn’t it?

PIP is not an out of work benefit but I absolutely get what you're saying. The PIP system needs serious reform.