'Taxes are the price we pay for a civilised society'

[Bargepole45]

Having just paid an enormous tax bill, I frankly am fed up with hearing this. There are lots of civilised countries that have a far lower tax burden than the UK. It's just a form of blackmail designed to make contributors believe that there is no other way other than to pay sky high taxes to subsidise people's crap life choices.

Have too many kids and can't afford them? No problem, the state steps in. Have a terrible lifestyle and don't look after your health at all? No problem, the NHS will treat you. Spent all your money with wild abandon and have nothing left to pay for your care when you get old? Don't fret, the state will fund the same care home as someone that has saved all their life.

Don't people understand that these 'safety nets' just facilitate reckless behaviour? We can have a civilised society where people aren't cushioned from all of their bad decision making. I say this as someone from a background where I didn't have much money and I am so fed up with people pretending that poor people don't know that an apple is healthier than a chocolate bar or that it's a good idea to actually attend school. It's insulting and disempowering to keep making excuses for people that simply aren't incentivised to make different, better choices.

Would they have the right skills and experience to do the job as well as the current incumbent? We have a skills and experience shortage in lots of areas. Workers aren't necessarily interchangeable

You just seem bitter, so claiming all the fabulous wealth you believe benefits claimants get would at least be a solution if you genuinely believe claimants are better off.

I know it isn't though, because life on benefits is miserable and dangerous and is the reason so many non elderly people die every winter.

Because it’s their money you are spending on THEIR behalf. I don’t have a problem with my elderly next door neighbour asking for the receipt when I’ve picked up some groceries for her, but if she asked to see my bank statement I’d tell her to mind her own business!

I’m not convinced that the roles would be filled. If you’re a medical consultant you might be on £100k. You have kids. You don’t get childcare hours. You can’t alter your pension contributions easily, but you can drop your hours easily. Would this drop in hours be replaced by your employer? Probably if you live in London or another big city with large departments. Probably not if your specialty is relatively niche. The public will just get fewer appointments in that area.

Of course its prevalence isn't just because it is first alphabetically. That's a really strange assumption to make.

It will have been listed as the primary disabling condition for the claim. I posted another link that makes that clearer. The monthly average of new PIP awards where the primary medical condition was anxiety and depression has increased from 2,500 per month in 2019, to 8,800 per month in 2024. Perhaps you weren't aware of this change?

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/understanding-pip-applicant-experiences-the-experience-of-applicants-with-anxiety/summary-understanding-pip-applicant-experiences-the-experience-of-applicants-with-anxiety#:~:text=As%20of%20July%202024%2C%20there,in%202024%20%5Bfootnote%203%5D.

I think that where we differ. You think benefits are the recipients money. I say it’s the taxpayers money. Hence our disagreement.

I work for the NHS, is my salary taxpayers' money rather than my own too?

There are so many qualified unemployed people desperate for jobs currently. We're in an absolute employment crisis.

A solution for what? For the structural issues we have in a system that is incentivising worklessness and not contributing? No, you simply mean that if I thought I would be better off on benefits then why don't I just go on them. Lots of people are doing just that so what does this suggest? Lots of working people can't afford to turn on their heating or eat properly.

No. That is money you have earned.

Primary isn’t only.
It is actually just down to what the assessor on the day decides to list as your main condition. I doubt there is that much thought about the accuracy of it
There are other reasons for this, there was a change in law when the DWP were challenged on how they scored certain activities to do with metal health. Also a worldwide pandemic and huge cuts in MH services.

It isn’t for the most part though

there may be some outliers but the system is designed to taper down from earnings so you should always be better off working.

And it's shit that so many people struggle whether they're working or not. Doesn't change the fact that more people on benefits die of cold than those working.

Our society does not incentivise worklessness. It does however encourage it by creating a mental health pandemic with its generational poverty, lack of support for parents, lack of action on school bullying, rampant ableism and misogyny, abysmal and insecure housing, and a lack of decent mental health services to pick up the pieces. Change these and we'll have more people fit to work.

Slightly different, but related, angle. ND 9yo dd is currently in the midst of shutdown and school avoidance. Nobody can help, we've exhausted all avenues, and we just have to support her until her nervous system re-regulates and the storm passes. We don't know how long this will take. She barely dresses or cleans her teeth most days right now, we are mostly housebound - no fun stuff, no family days out (we go out in 'shifts'), no ability to plan anything, just an endless cycle of waking, eating and sleeping. Frankly, work is a very welcome distraction - as I've just explained to my boss. It's a relief to have something other than my daughter to focus on.

I've just paid an enormous tax bill myself. The DLA we receive for her will be used for private 'catch up' tuition when she's able to attend school again - to help her stay in school longer term.

I have never, ever begrudged paying tax - even before we were in this situation - because although we hear about the fraudsters and scroungers, the vast majority are not in their situation because of 'bad decisions' but bad luck. I wish more than anything that we had a normal life, but we're making the most of what we've got. I'd swap the DLA for a child who didn't find life so damned hard, and a family life that was 'normal', in an instant.

You are always better off working. What people fail to take into account for these outliers, where a family has a disabled parent, and four disabled children, or whatever the latest calculation is based on, is that if the parent took a job, they would still be entitled to disability and top-up benefits.

Actually that is a really good point. I genuinely don’t understand how people think that those on benefits (working or not, disabled or not) are better off?

No, because you actually work for it so are productive and EARN your wage.

I thank my lucky stars I'm well enough to do so. More than happy to pay towards those who cannot, rather than return to the days of Dickens. Making the unemployed provide receipts for every last bar of soap is an affront to dignity to people who often don't have the same privileges we do.

Yes but when you look at the amount people are actually earning per hour versus what they could get from benefits then are people enough better off? Would you work for a few quid an hour extra knowing that you were missing out on spending valuable time with your kids, had to be dealt with tricky customers and work stress and have to pay the costs of commuting to work etc? Would you blame people for deciding it's not worth it? When you're withdrawing from benefits it's also pretty painful when the government is taking 55p from every additional pound you earn. Where is the incentive to work more?

Because of potentially massive benefits like Housing benefit which can be as much as £1k a week if you are not subject to the cap e.g. you have someone claiming a disability benefit. Housing benefit is means tested so a working family with a disabled family member earning a decent wage would not be eligible. Obviously they would need to earn a hell of a lot to begin to fund privately housing that cost £1k a week.

You are a Daily Mail wet dream.

In what way? I think I’m just quite normal and responsible. I don’t know anything about the Daily Mail as I haven’t ever read it other than the front pages from my Saturday job at a newsagents.

If their rent were £1k a week, they would need to earn a hell of a lot of money not to be entitled to the housing element of UC, not to mention that the housing element is capped for everyone, disabled or not, based on the LHA rate.

The benefits cap applies to overall benefits; LHA rates are different from this. A four-bed house in central London has an LHA cap of £704 p/w. No matter what your circumstances, your housing element of UC will not be more than this.

Not saying the system is perfect. I am in exactly that position myself, but ultimately it isn’t ‘worse off’ as many people claim. I think a lot of people don’t understand the system and think that money is thrown left right and centre. 17 years ago I was a newly single mum, earning about £28k and had several people tell me I apparently got loads of perks and money (because I was a single mum) - I didn’t qualify for anything.
my point in this is that the misconception and trope that anyone who receives benefits is a scrounger / raking it in / living like a king has been around for generations, and the current government leaders making misleading claims and media perpetuating this makes it worse.
I do see your point. I don’t believe the system is fit for purpose

It is still only within the LHA cap, benefit capped or not. There are very few people getting full exorbitant rents paid.