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.

Yet someone on this very thread has decided the disabled child of another poster does not have a good quality of life.

Recently, someone told that weed was now 10 quid a gram. You aren't going to get much weed out of 400 quid a month.

Yes it should happen further.

My 93yo granny was kept alive, bed bound, incontinent with dementia for several years more than she should have been.

My best friend, 36, dementia, incontinent, nonverbal, frequently sedated, should not be kept alive simply because the rest of her body is intact.

@UserFront242 that was me, based on a hypothetical child that did not belong to the poster, but they stated that such children do exist.

You are naive to think that all pensioners have "paid in" for all their life.
I said upthread about my grandmother who worked a few years as a teen, and never worked again. For her generation, women leaving the workforce once they got married was normal. She did that, had kids, then became a full time carer for my grandfather. He died when she was a pensioner.

PIP is not awarded based on expenses.

Yes but it’s supposed to help with the extra costs of having a disability. If you don’t have any extra costs then why claim it?

Again, it is not based on extra costs. So how can you claim it based on extra costs? You make no sense.

Some people would probably say the same about my son who is incontinent amongst other medical issues.

They would be wrong.

Now, You get the amount proportionate to the contributions you have made. I retired early and will therefore face a shortfall. My choice.

She got Pension Credit.

Anyone can become disabled in the blink of an eye. Some people through no fault of their own are unable to get jobs paying no better than minimum wage -which is not a living wage, and have those wages topped up by Universal Credit. This can happen to graduates as well as older people who have been made redundant. Contary to your thinking this is not a subsidy to rhe worker, it is subsidising the business owner and incentivising them to continue to pay low wages, Before you argue the business cannot afford higher wages, any business in this position is not a viable entity.

In spite of what you read in the ‘Daily Fail’ benefits are not generous and it is extremely difficult to get PIP payments. People with mobility allowances do not get expensive cars ‘for free’ - those who are awarded the highest benefits can have the benefit paid directly to a motability scheme and if the car they want is more expensive than standard they pay the difference out of their own pockets.
Some people on waiting lists for operations that would relieve a condition that is preventing them from working. Many disabled people would love to work but find employers are not willing to make the reasonable adjustments that would be necessary to enable them to work.

So if you found yourself in one of those unfortunate positions would you not claim because the welfare bill is so high? Better still imagine yourself in a position to receive benefits and spend a month living on the amount ‘the law says you need to live on’.

State pension may well be classed as a benefit but it is not the same as other benefits. People have to pay decades worth of contributions into it in order to claim it at a retirement age set by the government. If you have not worked and paid in for the years needed, you will get a pro rata amount. If you have never worked or pain contributions you will get pension credit and with that a raft of other benefits not available to people who have worked for decades and paid into the system. You can only be a pound over the required amount to claim pension credit and you do not have access to all the other benefits you get of you haven't worked. Also, many state pensions are not the full amount, especially for women. For baby boomers, there was no provision if you were a sahm or worked for " pin money". So their NI contributions were lacking and not made up as I believe they are now. Our state pension is one of the lowest in Europe. If you want to reduce and not fight for it because you have not reached that life stage yet, there really will be nothing there for you if you do reach the age where you could claim it. Also please remember that many pensions are taxed. It is true that as a country we are becoming less healthy and more and more people are unwilling to take personal responsibility for their health and the cost to the NHS is going to balloon. We now hear that being obese is completely out of people's control because it is an illness that we can't do anything about. When I look back at photos taken in the 60's the number of overweight people are noticeable by their absence. The amount spent on "fat jabs" is mind blowing and apparently now it is known that as soon as you stop them, the weight piles back on bringing all the illnesses which will mean people will be off work on sickness benefits in huge numbers. This medication was not long ago hailed as a saviour of the NHS because Type 2 diabetes was going to be the cause of the collapse of the NHS.

Unfortunately I do not have the exact figures because the rent payments come out of different allocated pots of funding. You would need to know exact funding and spend for the dwp and local authorities

housing costs are paid in the following way

housing benefit - covers pensioner rent, temporary accommodation rents (sky high as can be hotels etc) specified accommodation for those who need care and support as part of their rent (private companies can charge the earth but offer little support)

housing costs element - universal credit rent payments for working age customers

then there is the dhp fund or the soon to be called crisis and resilience fund to help people with moving costs/ deposits and rent top ups as lha doesn’t come close to covering the rents.

We’ve got an aging population, and people on low incomes in work are also claiming benefits due to low incomes not covering costs, we also have an increase in mental health and physical disabilities who are also getting older and will need support. I have sat in PIP assessments with patients and can tell you people are having to basically dance a fecking jig with no legs to get disability benefits. Privatisation of the care homes is adding to this cost too, when pensioners money runs out the councils have to pay for their care which is in the thousands per week for very low quality care in a lot of cases unfortunately. You can be angry but appreciate this is thanks to years of austerity and underfunding and privatisation.

They already do. So many have had blanket DNRs placed on them unknowingly simply because they are disabled, have Downs Syndrome or are autistic. Because someone has decided their lives are not worth living/saving. It's immoral and illegal.

Fancy people getting old eh.

Yes, this happened during Covid.

I’m saying the welfare bill rising is inevitable? I’m not complaining about people getting old - just stating facts of where some of that money is going! Greedy care home owners who don’t give the care our elderly that they should for example

Are they going to give us the land that was stolen from us in Enclosure or the modern equivalent, buy-to-let times back?? Are they going to start distributing the resources of this island to all those who contribute by work instead of keeping it for a very very few descendants of the Conqueror’s allies?? Are they going to look the other way while individuals start to take it back by force, which is de facto happening via rural crime? Does robbery come under ‘fending for themselves’? Does doing drugs and being part of armed gangs? Does, in fact, playing the benefit system for all its worth not count as ‘fending for themselves’ in a time when there are not enough jobs to go round and few of those pay the cost of living and no e are worth the effort now demanded we put into them??

You might want to think about exactly what you mean by ‘fending for themselves’, in an island of 70 million people that can support maybe 40 million. Think you’re the natural survivor surrounded by armed men do you?

Sadly still happening. Its disgusting.

'Repugnant': Do-not-resuscitate orders being given to learning disabled people without consent | ITV News https://share.google/U7el2p9p4q3bLgu6h

Unless safeguarding was being ignored, DBS checks would be required for every claimant involved in that. Those checks are not free.

Separately, unpaid carers save the government many thousands of pounds more than the cost of their subsistence allowance.

Do your homework. Check if it's true.

This. 👍

So many have had blanket DNRs placed on them unknowingly simply because they are disabled, have Downs Syndrome or are autistic. Because someone has decided their lives are not worth living/saving. It's immoral and illegal.

@mumatlast14 Who is placing these blanket DNRs on disabled people? If it’s illegal why hasn’t the person/people responsible been reported?

My friend has a 14 year old. She has to constantly check on her to ensure she hasn't died of SUDEP / is still breathing.

14 year olds aren't in generally in nappies and are able to communicate, feed themselves, walk, etc. My friends 14 year can't do those things