To wonder on the future of generous welfare in the UK

[happybug1234]

It seems increasingly obvious that many middle-income families are becoming frustrated at how squeezed they are financially, while at the same time seeing people on universal credit receive a growing range of subsidies and support — £1 attraction tickets on days out, a 6% rise in benefits this financial year, childcare costs reclaimable through Universal Credit, housing benefit, and so on. I see thread after thread on this on this site and also increasing momentum in the media on this issue (income cliff edges etc)

In my own extended family, 1 unemployed parent with the other on min wage, in social housing appear to have more holidays and more disposable income than we do, despite us both working full time with a household income of around £95k. Once childcare, mortgage, insurances, commuting and tax are taken into account, we 100% have a lower level of disposable income than they do as they do not have any of these work related costs and their rent is paid. They have recently gone on a 2 week holiday whilst the most we can ever afford is 1 week.

Quite a few teachers in my friendship circle are declining promotion opportunities or TLR because the extra pay often doesn’t feel worth the additional stress once tax, pension contributions and childcare costs are factored in. Instead, some are putting more effort into private tutoring, which is tax free cash in hand.

What is stopping the government from addressing this as people seek to be responding accordingly in their behaviour!

Its really sad. If i could work more i would. But cant.

How are you equating access to key historical sites that tell the story of our island, such as the Tower of London, with a luxury like a designer handbag? Absolutely false equivalence, absurd argument.

Yes I hear that a lot.

Not my problem

Leave it alone. You are getting nasty.

NRFT but I'm thinking it you on benefits and housing payments, then you never going to live in a nice part of town/neighbour. Like it's always going to be a poor bit of town with all it's associated problems.
Plus u don't have your own house/buying an asset and something that u can pass onto your kids. Also it's good and rewarding to have a nice job and earn your own money and not b dependant on anyone.
I do see people who live on benefits go on nice holidays/get endless take aways/get nails done etc etc. But do I think they have a nicer life? No, not really. Houses always look pretty messy and not in particularly desirable areas. Sitting around all day not working is depressing.

God knows. Somewhere else I presume. It is an appalling policy. The rent they charge no doubt will be nothing like the social rent they have to pay to the LA.

Swap places and live in a HA home for a couple of months on UC.
Then come back and see if you’re still so envious and resentful

I live in a nice part . I was lucky my parents bought my house.

@Walkyrie
Try being the parent of a severely disabled child.
Your out of hand dismissal of every parent other than a single parent and the other comments you have written on this thread are reductive.
Universal credit isn’t always an option for parents of disabled children or for those with a disability themselves or a disabled partner.
Hence no discount on that basis to attractions - it’s not like there’s a big pie of great options for low income families (for whatever reason they find themselves being in that category) that taking from it means other people can’t also enjoy those things.
Im not on UC and never will be as far as I can predict. I also have no burning desire to go to the Tower of London. I’ve never thought about whether I could go on a discount with my disabled child- maybe I could get in but it’d be pointless if there aren’t the necessary changing facilities and she’d rather I took her for a walk anyway.
The across the board distaste for families with disabilities is a rising problem for people like me and my child- and neither of us to anything to deserve it. She wouldn’t learn anything from the Tower of London or from any fucking free exhibition. I’ve had people on MN tell me she probably shouldn’t exist and relishing when the welfare state “inevitably” collapses.
I might be a single mother too at some point in the near future. I don’t expect I’d gain your support then either.
Maybe there’s more to the generalised assumptions the media want everyone to swallow (for their own agendas of course).

We need teams going round checking on social housing - check who is paying bills, council tax, who is living there etc .

Everything said here is true.
Topping up benefits with some drug dealing / working with local crims. And we are such a weak snowflake nation now that nothing much seems to happen.

Not true for a long time, its a 5 year lease at a time

AFAIK they have yearly inspections anyway. My DM recently had one, which she was scared about as DF died recently as she was worried she would be evicted.

I've lived in 2 HA flats in 2 different areas of town. The first area has a bad reputation and the street was known as the cities poorest area. Crime was high

I remember asking my dad where exactly it was when I got offered my flat and he said it's awful and has a reputation

I'm now in a different much nicer area

So sorry for being retired and cluttering up the place, will book Dignitas asap **

This. What is going to happen...Reform will get in or get a huge number of people in government. Large swathes of left leaning but sensible people with good salaries and paying big tax bills will leave. Benefits will be reformed quickly and money will be removed universally including for those who really need it. Everyone will be unhappy.
We are moving abroad to get away before it implodes. I feel sad for families who can't afford things but we don't want to subsidise everyone else while struggling forever.

It's well documented that a strong welfare system massively benefits the economy long term, it helps to provide better health, education and crime outcomes.
This increases productivity across nearly every sector and saves money in healthcare and education.

It's really not that hard to grasp, benefits are essential to the economy of a population in the long term, not just the bare minimum but a good standard of them, they creates jobs, keeps shops on the high street and allow opportunity for learning.

When there is constant discourse about welfare cuts you need to sit back and ask who is it benefiting in the short term and why are you being told this because the people who are making the policies are well aware of the positive data and economical benefits to providing support to the poorest of people.

And you don’t have to pay the crippling costs of routine maintenance of a property which are subject to eye watering recent increases - labour costs for trades are 4 x my hourly pay rate. Materials are off the scale.

Definitely nothing sinister about the social engineering of class and money defining where more people will be coming from in the future.

And start checking all the ' single ' mothers living with their partners and 5 kids on benefits

They're announced that under 22s won't be able to get LCWRA. Happy?

I was just calculating how much I’d get if I were to become unemployed and claim UC. these things worry me as I have health problems, and have been out of work before (due to aforementioned problems) I would have about £100 per month to spend on food, wouldn’t able to put the heating on ever even in winter and probably couldn’t afford the water bill. (I’m a single person) dunno about discounts, ect

We actually need to take this further - it's much more than a supply and demand problem. We've got a million long-term empty homes in the UK, due to probate, investment, market turnover and renovation. Plus the problem of short-term rentals in holiday spots. Over the past 40 years, the tax regime in the UK has made it more profitable to invest in housing than in anything else. As a result, our business sector is starved of capital, whilst the housing market is overinflated, and council tax makes no sense.

• We need a land tax on properties instead of council tax - this can be administered through a digital land registry
• Aim for 25-50% of pension funds going back into UK business, tech and industry as other countries do (currently 4%)
• Build more social housing, by allowing councils and housing associations the chance to access cheap credit to do so (borrowed against guaranteed returns)
• Offer cheap or free qualifications in areas where we have skills gaps.

None of this is rocket science. Likewise, if we want to get more people off long-term sick leave, we need a medical system that allows quick operations or help for mental health, decent rehab, skills coaching, and incentives for employers to take them on (in the case of lifelong disability). It's expensive in the short term, but much more costly in the long term.

As ever: quit and claim then 🤷🏻‍♀️
Another benefit bashing thread...
This! These threads are getting really old.

Do posters think they are being pithy and/or amusing by responding the these threads with smartarse soundbites like these?

Clearly they are interested enough in the subject matter to click on the thread, then don't engage in the discussion and plop a silly comment on the thread. Just why?

Apart from the fact that dismissing the many posters on the thread who agree with the OP is exactly how Reform are getting a foothold, it also shows they have no actual answers.

My partial solution (which would at the very least get more money into the economy and make benefits less desirable) would be to tax EVERYONE once their income reaches the tax-free threshold.

Pensioners, benefits claimants, pensioners, children, maintenance recipients - once their annual income crosses £12,750 (or whatever it is currently), they are taxed. Pensioners take a lot of flak on here (by people who seem to not realise they will be pensioners themselves one day) but they are one of the few groups who actually DO pay tax on anything they receive over the threshold.