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.

If the imf step in they will expect both tax rises to some areas and spending cuts. They wont do one, not the other. We are not close to the imf stepping in. So dont expect tax cuts from the imf.

Our finances arent great but they are not that bad that we are about to get intervention.

Some of us can't get insurance

I don't know your friend, so I can't comment on their situation. Nor am I making any comment on the money vs vouchers issue. What I do know is that many people are denied benefit that they are entitled to. This is why the majority of appeals succeed. I don't think people in the UK are "taxed to the hilt", in fact rather less than our European counterparts. I agree there is an issue with people being "better off on benefits" but the issue is a) low wages & b) loss of benefits being a cliff face rather than a gradual taper, not one of benefits being too easy to get. I also think the work prospects for anyone who would chose not to work must be extremely grim and we should support them into work rather than just withdraw the benefits.

It’s so irritating that nobody ever makes the very obvious connection that lower income/lower financial resilience means greater chance of costing the state an absolute fuck ton more. We spend the most money treating the illnesses and crises that poverty and inequality creates.

There’s so much ignorance on this thread it’s really upsetting.

People really believe that ‘good people like them’ don’t claim benefits. We are all one bad stroke of luck away from being entirely dependent on the state in multiple ways - and finding out what a desperate and unattractive prospect that really is.

You’re so wrong on the tax take! Anyone on the higher rate is paying roughly what their European equivalents are. We need to raise the basic rate of tax to 30% and lower the personal allowance to approximately £5k for the lower paid to be paying enough!

You said earlier you live in penury? never met a tax advisor who cannot afford a haircut.

Offshore, company subsidiaries, trusts, transfer pricing, UK is renowned for tax avoidance, legal yes, wise? no.

That’s pretty fair and balanced , thank you. Do you think though that PIP is to pay towards the disability ? I can see why people who pay tax don’t think it’s fair to pay for benefits for those who don’t spend it on the disability for which it’s given. I understand why this isn’t fair.

Policy decisions also matter. For example roughly 1,000 additional children per week (averaged over a year) get long covid (England). We could pay to reduce this number or pay the cost of not reducing this number.
There are people who cannot get help for easily addressed health issues - one that comes up alot on MN is people struggling with low iron, where they feel completely depleted, yet have been told bloods are fine.

As for childcare, I was ‘fortunate’ enough to be able to take the hit for childcare - many don’t have the wiggle room in their wages to do that.
Some carers can’t afford to buy in support and will have to reduce hours/stop work, depending upon level of care needed.

When someone has to stop work due to ill health, it can have an impact on the whole family - they have the double whammy of adjusting to a new quality of life due to health limitations, whilst also taking a financial hit.

Nonsense.

We cannot do that because our housing and energy costs are so much higher than most of Europe.

It may be increasing at a faster rate, but is still less than many other areas of spending.
ALSO: part of this is because we have an ageing population, yet ill health gets the most attention.
And the reason ill health benefits are increasing might be because health care is so hard to get. I've spent 6 years fighting for treatment which might (fingers crossed) enable me to return to work.

"Please excuse my ignorance, but why do carers need to give up their jobs and claim carers’ allowance; why can’t they continue to work and use the money from that to pay for carers for the person in need?"

Try thinking about how much paid carers cost and some people need 2:1 or 3:1 care when it's a professional carer doing it.

The key is daily living and mobility - the money is SUPPOSED to be to pay towards additional costs associated with those,

Nope. The assessment uses daily living and mobility criteria to assess the likely overall difficulty and therefore level of extra cost incurred by disability, and therefore the barrier it presents to participation in daily life. Benefit is then awarded at the appropriate level according to the difficulties disability presents.

There is absolutely nothing in law that dictates how the recipient should spend that benefit, which is why receipts are not asked for. The level of payment reflects a contribution to the overall cost of living with substantial disability and it’s left to each claimant to decide how best to spend their award - because no disability affects any two people in the same way. So the person best placed to decide their needs is the disabled person themselves.

What about all the other benefits, housing, uc etc don't they add up ?

@Countingcro
That would just penalise the lower paid and make inequality worse.

I don’t live in penury, I just save more so I’m not f’cked if I or my kids get ill. I could retire tomorrow, 20 years early if needs be.

Offshorefunds are perfectly legal. You invest offshore and pay UK tax on the income received from it. If you don’t that’s evasion and a crime. Company subsidy are a bad thing now are they? Baffling! Transfer pricing is the bedrock of international taxation. If you think the UK can do anything about single handedly it you’re very naive. As the former director of the IFS put it in his excellent book ‘Follow the Money’ there are no magic money trees. There are no ‘wealthy’ tax evaders or avoiders who are going to bail us out. If you want more welfare, taxes have to rise, we hsve to borrow more or other services need to be cut. The forth way is growth and the government doesn’t seem keen on that.

Taxes need to rise on the lower paid first, because the higher paid are already paying their fair share.

@griffindor1979 Yes, I do, but I think we need to have a fairly open view on what that could be. For example, my food bill is a lot higher in part because I can't usually manage to cook from scratch and Long Covid limits what I can eat. My spending is more careless than it would be if I didn't have brain fog and other conditions. It's not simply equipment and I'm not sure providing receipts is pragmatic. The other issue is that the basic ill health benefits aren't really sufficient to survive on in the long term, so people on PIP who are unable to work might necessarily end up spending them on day to day expenses.

The deliberate higher price in offshore and low price in UK, is a way to avoid higher levels of taxation and i, at no point, said any of it was illegal - attention to detail?
& thats just one example.

You also never addressed how the less well off would be able to afford to live on a TH of 5k and a tax rate of 30%, given our very high housing costs.

What would happen is we'd have a General Strike, any extra tax eaten up by high wages, benefits and damaging lower productivity as we wreck industrial relations.

BTW "Fair Share" doesn't exist in law, what you really mean is you think you pay too much tax and want to pay less.

I understand. My friend though works , but recieves pip and now just uses it as part of his income, it doesn’t go towards what it’s intended for. In any case I appreciate the conversation with you and realise it’s a difficult topic.

Just because there is nothing in law doesn’t mean that it’s fair game in my opinion. I’ve given examples

The Vicky Pollard clone who lives in my street will be pleased. It will encourage her to get pregnant yet again and produce even more mini Vicky Pollards. And then the Left wonder why I’m not happy about paying more tax!

He works and the PIP is in the same account as his salary but it is definitely the PIP money that buys chocolate and not his salary? How do you know that?

Do you think people should have separate accounts for PIP/DLA?

@griffindor1979 Thank you. It's really painful, & I would much rather be working! Even if I was still entitled to PIP I probably wouldn't apply if I could survive without it because every assessment makes my health so much worse. I can see how the situation with your friend would be frustrating.

So she had multiple kids pre July 2024? or has she just become a mother to 8 or 10 children in the last few months?

I assume you've asked whether a few extra £'s will make her happy enough to have more kids?

The working poor?
Look at the numbers, most low paid working parents are entitled to some kind of support, so they can simply survive..

Not unreasonable at all. Crazy workers who rent are propping up a system that folk can have unlimited housing equity and still claim means tested benefits.