Welfarisation has made people utterly entitled and unable to take responsibility for themselves and their families.

[hagchic]

I grew up in a working class family. The values I was taught were that you stood on your own two feet and it was no one else's job to do what you could do for yourself.

If you were hurt, you were expected to get up and go and clean yourself up - and stop whining about it unless it was actually serious. If you were ill, you went to bed and if you were lucky some magic lucozade appeared.

If you were sad, then you were sad. If life was unfair then that was just how life was and you needed to deal with it.

You never ever sought charity or took benefits when you were able to work or put up with less. You lived to your own means, not to what you saw on TV or at school - and if you wanted that lifestyle it was up to you to get it.

Today everyone has the expectation that someone must help them, that they are obliged to help them - even before they have made any attempt to actually do the work of helping themselves. They expect luxuries like holidays, pets, new clothes and treats when they do nothing to earn this.

I think self sufficiency is a value that needs to return to our society.

x

Where are other people's decency and compassion lacking in this situation? Do you just mean you would like more money, more time off or both? Or for one of you to have a job that starts a bit later? I don't think anyone would begrudge you wishing for these things but it's hardly the same as being treated without decency or compassion.

These people - that get out and work - should have a noticeably better life than those who don’t, because otherwise if those that get out to work were at all lazy they’d just think sod it, I can’t be bothered, I’ll claim benefits.

If they can’t afford to go on holiday people who don’t work shouldn’t be holidaying either.

It might be cheap compared to 2 weeks in 5 star luxury but doing it 4 times a year would still cost £2544 for a family of 4 and that's before you consider all the extras like travel insurance etc which don't look to be included on Tui's website. And most won't be choosing the cheapest holidays - there will be the full range of spending.

I don't begrudge anyone a few treats but with the NHS and national infrastructure crumbling and the poorest and disabled forced to use food banks or go without basic necessities it does seem wrong that such vast amounts are being spent on luxuries across almost the entire population. Surely we have a moral obligation to ensure the tax intake needed to fund adequate ambulances and maternity provision for example, as well as enough money for the poorest and disabled to be able to afford basic necessities before allowing a situation in which the average person can spend so much on going on quite so many holidays?

You have no idea how much people are spending on holidays from that document. Yes, people spend a range of money on holidays but frankly we have no idea what the holidays were from that document.

I agree we have an obligation to fund the above services you mention. I don't think I have a moral obligation though to fund people on long-term benefits who could be contributing.

How can taxes be increased on a regional level? Income tax is set nationally. To the best of my knowledge there is no mechanism by which people south of Watford Gap can be made to pay more, likewise National Insurance and VAT. Council tax of course varies by region as it is set by individual local authorities. I'm in the Midlands, wonder what Andy Burnham has got planned for us lot in the centre of the country when he brings in this increased regional taxation?

Well well well, 76% agree the OP is NOT being unreasonable … interesting

The proportion of UK households living in social housing has halved over the last four decades. From a peak of nearly 32% in the early 1980s, the share of households in social housing has dropped to approximately 17% today.

My older relatives describe it being very common to queue up for the dole, and some people used to somehow get away with queueing up twice.

But no, apparently back in the day no one used any kind of welfare support.

Land value taxes will disproportionately affect those in the south and also those with larger homes in the regions. Just as the mansion tax will disproportionately affect more homes in and around London than it will elsewhere.

Disproportionately? Or just proportionately?

Almost everyone who works full time does have a noticeably better quality of life than those that don't though - that's why the average person can afford to go on 4 holidays a year and many of those earning less than average still manage multiple trips away. Those who cannot work for whatever reason should not be treated like an underclass who are never allowed to experience anything positive. The majority worked and contributed when they could and shouldn't be condemned to absolute poverty with no way out. They are granted a small income (often far less than minimum wage) and they should have as much autonomy in spending that how they want as any working person. They shouldn't be punished further for whatever situation has prevented them from working to begin with.

There was welfare support, but there was significantly less of it. The benefits available then did not come anywhere near the range, scale or level of cash payments and other support available today.

Families sharing HMOs with other families were common. Outside toilets were still a reality for many, and central heating was far from common. Working poverty was widespread and, for many people, if you didn't have the money, you simply went without. There was a safety net, but it was much smaller and far less generous than the one that exists today.

Those making rose-tinted comparisons about how much better people had it then need to recognise just how different the welfare state and living standards were. Poverty today generally exists at a much higher material standard than it did in the 1950s, 60s and 70s. The 1980's was a transitional period, things were improving but it was far from a wealthy period for most people.

Well said, thank you 👏 👏 👏 .

Of course there are some who play the system, take the proverbial, but why should the rest of us who have worked and contributed ascl best we can until prevented from doing so be lumped in with them and be made to feel like dirt? Because that is the effect of all this rhetoric, no matter what anyone might say.

I think even assuming the cheapest holidays on the market, 4 a year for the average person with 2 abroad suggests a decent level of disposable income. And the almost 50% of the population going on 5, 6, 7 or 8 holidays a year are obviously not short of cash!

Nobody is allowed to stay on long term benefits if it's deemed they could be contributing. Clearly a small number of criminals will fraudulently claim but no society can achieve zero percent crime. The vast majority of what is paid goes to people who need this support. Many no longer get enough to cover the cost of basic necessities.

I'm certainly not rose tinted about it - there was serious poverty as you described. It's just annoying that there are often threads like this which sort of suggest no one used any kind of welfare "back in the day". Whereas some forms of welfare (e.g. social housing) were very common.

I also think sometimes that the "look" of poverty has changed. In previous decades it may have been fewer calories on plates and more severe material deprivation, these days it's more likely to be cheap calories on plates (highly processed food much cheaper than fresh food) and smartphones to access benefits.

Disproportionately. A person in London in a very ordinary family home will pay wealth tax on it while a person in the identical house in the north won't. Neither profit from it, they need to live in it. The time to tax it is when it's sold.

You can't base government policy on a sample of 2000 people from an industry study. All those holidays may be staying with family. Who knows? You are making broad statements about what you seem people deserving of - holidays abroad not being one of them.

I know doctors reducing their hours as it's no longer worth them working more. Just taxing more doesn't work - there will be huge behavioural changes associated with it

If your earnings are modest, you are disproportionately affected by an additional land value tax. A high earner might barely notice the cost, but someone on a modest income or pension is will be forced to get into debt, downsize or sell.

Do you consider being forced out of your home to pay the benefits bill to be a proportionate consequence of taxation?

Low earners are already disproportionately affected by VAT, council tax and stamp duty, but you are in favour of those?

So your argument is that because some existing taxes already have disproportionate effects, we should introduce another one?

Yeah, let's race to the bottom. Some people are already disproportionately affected, so the obvious solution is to leave those problems in place and create a few more.

If VAT, council tax and stamp duty have disproportionate consequences, surely the sensible response is to reform them, not use them as justification for extending those consequences to even more people.

They clearly aren't all staying with family. The study was done by market research professionals who have qualifications that ensure they are able to select a representative sample. There's no "Who knows?" about it. And 2000 is an adequate sample size from a statistical point of view - hence why it's so commonly used.

Taxing people more can work if done intelligently (I agree they need to design a better system in many regards). There are plenty of countries where people pay higher taxes - they have better public services as a result without it seeming to affect workforce participation rates. Their doctors aren't all putting their feet up either.

It would be lovely if we could afford for the average person to go on so many holidays but surely anyone can see that we can't. Our public services are collapsing around us and it's not like austerity was a huge success first time around. It just led to hundreds of thousands of excess deaths and weakened the economy further. We either work out how to tax the super rich or everyone with means has to chip in a bit more. Given most people aren't struggling I can't see why that's going to be so hard.

Social housing was aspirational in the early days! The rents for council housing, with hot water, bathrooms, gardens etc., was often more than people were paying in tenements, back to backs, or renting rooms. Lots of poor people couldn’t afford a council house.

And yet 1/3 of the population did live in one in the 70s and were heavily subsidised to do so by the state. And 54% of the population in Scotland according to some. I think this is a positive thing but it doesn't support the argument that everyone was self-sufficient. Government support just took different forms.

I grew up on a council estate and a lot of the houses were what were termed as tide housing. My father worked for the local council and the house came with the job.
In fact there were a few estates with tide housing over a area in the town we lived in.
Whether you retired or left the job you didn't have to leave the property.

Edited to add the rent was full payment of the time.

I appreciate what you're saying....and that isn't ideal at all, of course not. It seems crazy that both parents need to be working just to survive these days. It's plain wrong.
Perhaps, however, we are demonizing the wrong group? The money needed to fund benefits is a drop in the ocean compared to amount of tax lost from multinational corporations who avoid paying...and then we have these fat cat CEOs whoe receive eye-watering sums and bonuses, even when they deliver a crap job (who was that water company CEO who received a huge bonus despite serious failures?)
I'm one of 4 and when I was growing up my father worked full time (yes, getting up at 6am also) and my mum worked part time in the evenings so that there was always somebody at home (apart from maybe an hour at teatime), but my mum would feed us before she left for work. The money coming in seemed to be sufficient to raise 4 children. Bus fares to school were free and everything seemed more affordable somehow. Granted, my parents were frugal. No foreign holidays (apart from staying with family in Eastern Europe), no central heating unless it was literally snowing outside (we made do with a gas fire downstairs and we would jump into a warmed bed that my dad would pre-warm with an 2 bar heater lol. My parents were extremely hardworking - my dad worked overtime at every opportunity and when we were older my mum switched from evening work to working full time nights for the last 15 years of her working life. They saved like mad, we didn't live extravagantly and as a result they helped all of us on to the property ladder. Our parents instilled their strong work ethic in us. We all work and have never claimed benefits (apart from child benefit). I worked full time before having my children for approx 15 years. I was then a SAHM for nearly a decade owing to some serious chronic fatigue (which I had been struggling with since I was 20 but it got worse when I had our DCs). I've also struggled with MH issues (anxiety, depression) since a teenager. Not sure if this is genetic or linked to my experience of child sexual abuse? I could just about force myself to go in to work every day before having my DCs but now with being a mum and running a household on top of my MH challanges, I struggle to hold down a full time job, so I work part time (even though we could do with the money). I could perhaps force myself to go to work full time but I worry about having a nervous breakdown and I'm determined to keep well and survive as best I can so that I can function as a good mum. Because of my experiences I have so much compassion and understanding for people who struggle in this way. Granted, there may well be people who are taking the mick and claiming benefits when they really shouldn't, but there are so many people who really do need this help and safety net.