Labour increase benefits bill. AIBU To think what’s the point in working?

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https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15520831/Labours-push-lift-two-child-benefits-cap-hand-25-000-windfalls-thousands-Britains-biggest-jobless-families.html#

‘Official estimates suggest the cost of scrapping the cap will total £13.6 billion over the next five years.

The Tories said families currently affected by the cap are in line to receive windfalls worth an average £25,000 each over that period.

But the biggest families will gain far more. Thousands of families with five children will receive around £10,900 a year while those with six children will get an extra £16,600 a year.
Almost half of the families involved have no one in work.‘

But many work and do not earn lots of money.

Why can't the benefit claimants work and earn lots of money?

Where would you like those people to go when they get old then? Or indeed before they get old?

Repeat after me: many people on benefits are working. I think it's around 60% off the top of my head.

I personally know plenty of people in receipt of benefits who are working, for example, one of these people is blind and the benefits she receives helps pay for the people and the resources that make all sorts of things more accessible to her. Another had to escape a relationship due to DV, she is working but in receipt of UC to help keep her head above water, vital to her after the financial abuse she also experienced in that relationship.

I would prefer to live in a society where disabled people, carers, people on low incomes, and people who for all sorts of reasons need to have support to live a healthy life. Think of the times before the welfare state, in Victorian Britain when people were reliant on charity or ended up in the workhouse or dead. Think of the selfish I'm-OK-Jack approach of the USA. It's completely inequitable.

Yes, I also know of some people who've never worked but I'm not jealous of them! What a shit way to live. How boring and what a tiny little life they have. Work and volunteering give me self worth and are in sectors I'm passionate about and get a proper buzz from.

Are disability benefit claimants really ready to work? - Big Issue

Not sure about that. Have a look at the thread can my 18 year old claim UC. Appalling .

Oh yes Im including the two main parties. The system is stuffed at the moment but wont change under Labour.

We seem to have an awful lot of non working people on sickness benefits of working age though who wont be Boomers....

If someone was on benefits their whole like they would get the full state pension. They wouldn't qualify for Pension Credit unless disabled.

A women who doesn't qualify for full state pension because she stayed at home to look after the kids would not get a full state pension. You think she shouldn't get Pension Credit?

Which ones? The disabled ones? I don't know, maybe you should ask them.

Plenty of people who claim UC also work. So yeah. Wages in general should be higher definitely.

I hear what you are saying but what do we do? Just let old people die on the street penniless? This doesn't seem civil to me by any stretch of imagination.

Likely only with this username...and for good reason when people constantly go snooping through posters' profile and posts.

It doesn't mean it's all they've done on MN in general. People always seem to forget MN's namechange feature.

True

It did and it has. Just like small boat crossings (Tory policy to use hotels to house them) and immigration more generally in fact.

On the point of benefits. It would be interesting to see some analysis on how much DLA is awarded to neurodivergent individuals (either diagnosed or not). It's common to hear people on here talking disparagingly about people claiming 'just for mild adhd and autism'. But given that assessment waiting lists are now so long, it's feasible that people (particularly children) remain unsupported for longer, exacerbating mental health related problems. So people may be applying for DLA where they wouldn't have done so previously in order to fund private assessment and treatment - plus finance the fallout from all of the horrendous difficulties that result from undiagnosed, unmanaged neurodivergence.

If the government want to look at reducing the welfare bill, it would be better to look at the whole picture holistically and look at where cuts to healthcare, including mental health services, may have exacerbated reliance on welfare.

Which ones is a very good question.

That's an issue with threads like this, 'benefits claimants' are all lumped together like they are all the same.

Yeah lots of snooping by those with too much time.

No we phase out pension credit. Make it very clear to school leavers that there is state pension and no pension credit.

This is false. Please stop spreading disinformation.

On UC, only 38% are in work.

On PIP, it is only 17%.

I am getting rather tired of correcting people with your views.

There is no magic money tree in the UK. And the country cannot afford to keep giving money to unproductive people in greater amounts every year.

Thats how you get much poorer as a country. You may have noticed?

Its not as simple as that with pensions. The bill is predicted to carry on rising for decades.

Millenials are actually the biggest generation at the moment. When they retire they have some very small generations coming up behind them.

Its a really long term issue with no quick fix.

Labour are in now and benefits and crossings are going up.

Yeah I hate this shit. It just becomes ableist reverse snobbery and ill intent squared.

It's complex and the benefits system needs a complete overhaul, including disability benefits.

Housing is where it needs to start. So long as the only way many people can access social i.e affordable housing is by having multiple kids and/or being on disability benefits, the incentive is too great.

As I said above That should tell you something. People are fed up with funding other people’s lives

Like I said, better that they look at the whole picture then, rather than focusing on the short term, low hanging fruit. Repeated short termism and putting proper reform on the 'too difficult' pile is what got us here.

You have to take the 'good' with the 'bad'. Most people focus on the 'bad' which is really what makes these threads long running and causes a lot of derailment. It can look like deflection.

Where can you get social housing purely because you are on disability benefits?

And be taxed more for it too. So reducing the 'lots of money' you earned for some who can't be arsed to earn anything at all and contribute.

That is a fair point. Also is it not the case that millenials are more likely to be renting? Given how high rents are that is going to be a massive strain on the benefits bill when millenials start to retire.