Was furloughing worth the National debt

[HMSSophie]

Government funding of furloughed employees has resulted in huge national debt. But massive redundancies are pending. Was it worth it? We seem to have arrived at the worst of all worlds: national debt plus massive unemployment.

I know three or four months of additional income will on an individual level would be very meaningful (my DD is furloughed) but job losses are coming none the less (my DD for one, again). Was it the right thing to do or has the Government made a balls up?

Furlough scheme was needed, absolutely.

Eligibility should have been tighter, however, and I think it should have been directed at businesses directly affected by lockdown (ie hospitality and their suppliers/retail and their suppliers/holiday and travel industry etc), and perhaps should also not have been able to be claimed by larger businesses with large profits who could have swallowed the short term issues.

There should have been more emphasis on the original message which was that you should continue to work, from home if you can, and if not then you go to your workplace. Furlough and shutting offices/businesses should only really have been for those who needed to shut, rather than many businesses choosing to shut.

@DanRadcliffeisME

NO

The very vulnerable need to stay home (if they want to).

Tell the ones that are scare to also stay home but they are probably doing that anyway and twitching the curtains and screaming murder at anyone who dares walk outside. Some of them are loving the mass hysteria.

The rest of us can work/play and get on with living.

The rest of us would not have been able to work, play or get on with anything at all if we had not locked down when we did.

It wasn't a case of saving lives OR saving the economy. It would have been impossible to keep the economy going without preventing Covid19 from spreading and overwhelming the NHS. We would have been in a much worse position now if we hadn't locked down when we did, and a much better position if we had locked down earlier.

I can't understand why people find this basic fact so difficult to understand.

I agree with it in principle but I think there should have been restrictions on industries allowed to use it.

I know a lot of companies that abused it.

Replacing trident is expected to cost £200 billion

Sunak has so far committed around £100 billion to COVID protections

Cancel Trident and its all covered

I agree with it in principle but I think there should have been restrictions on industries allowed to use it.
I know a lot of companies that abused it.
But the point is that the furlough money is taxable.
Sunak will get part of it back in CT and VAT and ERS NI over the coming months
the net cost
is a lot less than the headline figure

in some cases he'll get 49% of the self employment money back next year

Absolutely wasn't worth and never was going to be.

I fucking hate this government. But I don't think furloughing was a balls up.

I'm happy to cancel Trident & HS2 to cover the furlough costs, but the scheme has been way too generous. In the small company I work for everyone was furloughed and self-employed people (cheaper wages) were brought in to cover them.
I imagine this was happening a lot, plus very large companies were furloughing people even if they could afford not too.
I'm 100% sure furloughing helped make the lockdown a success, I'm not sure how many more people would have died if we didn't furlough so many.
I'm glad the NHS didn't crumble (and am really sad about all the health care workers who died).
I think the pensioners will have to shield (along with the medically vulnerable) so the rest of us - including schools - get back to normal.

Are they going to check furlough claims later? If there was widespread fraud then they should pursue this as vigorously as they pursue other fraud.

Are they going to check furlough claims later? If there was widespread fraud then they should pursue this as vigorously as they pursue other fraud.
If you look at the claim form, you just had to list the members of staff at possible risk of redundancy who could not work.
If it was abused that is not fraudulent.
But as the furlough money is taxable I cannot see HMRC wasting their time on it.

All depends how many of these jobs will still exist in 12 months.

The situation was unprecedented. The mistake was with all of us at every level of society not having a plan. Hindsight is a great thing. It is what it is. All those things and every other platitude you can think of. But...
I would also question the £10,000 grant awarded to businesses who receive small business rate relief, which occurred within days of lockdown commencing. Many of those businesses are zero rated, they never paid any business rate. For many of those businesses, £10k represents a year's rent. March quarter day, when rents were due, was the 25th so most small businesses would have paid their rent already. Next rent would have been due on June 25. There was time to think about how best to help. The grant was a total knee jerk reaction, it could have waited, it could have been done on a sliding scale depending on actual loss. Within weeks, most of the traders receiving the £10k will also have received a payment from HMRC of approx a quarter of their annual profit.
On a local basis we will all pay for the hundreds of thousands, if not millions, handed out in the space of just a few days upon sight of a UBR reference number. We will pay in the loss of local services, in increased council tax, and increased business rates for the larger enterprises who do pay rates and employ more people.
The actual health aspects of the handling of the virus were appalling. Some of the financial arrangements were knee jerk and over the top. At least the food chain got its act together swiftly, and thank god communities showed they weren't willing to throw their neighbours under the bus.

I needed the furlough . Our outgoings are quite large . DH can cover them just about but we need my wage for extra breathing space, we would not have been entitled to UC based on his earnings
I couldn't work , the whole place closed down , I havent a choice ,I needed the furlough payment
Thankfully I'm back Monday, I do think my particular shop ( big retail chain) will go and it was unstainable to trade as it was , that particular shop is a loss maker and I do expect to be made redundant, probably around august

The furlough scheme was thought up really quickly and while I'm sure there have been some abuses hopefully it has kept more businesses solvent...who will potentially go on to pay taxes etc.
I work in manufacturing (small business) Boris Johnson said manufacturing could continue to operate (its not open to the public and we could potentially be 2m away from each other majority of the time) so to an outsider there may be no need to close/furlough staff.

Except we've had no new orders since the begnning of March...so there has been nothing to do and the only income generated was from the orders placed in march and completed at the beginning of lockdown.

I would also question the £10,000 grant awarded to businesses

If the small business owner is a higher rate taxpayer, the Govt will get back £4,200 of that in tax/nic on the next self assessment tax return.

If a basic rate taxpayer, the Govt will get back 29%.

Definitely worth it to keep small businesses alive and ready to start trading again.

Absolutely in favour. If the government are forced to make it illegal for you to work they should absolutely cover your expenses until you can safely return to work. My issue is I work in a live events, I physically do a technical job relating to a performance that happens in a 1600 seat theatre. About an hour before curtain one day in March we were all sent home. Now the job retention scheme stops paying out in it's current format end July and I see no way we're going to be allowed to re-open theatres in Aug.. so what happens in the gap between them stopping the support and them allowing us to re-open? My worry isn't 'overuse' or 'fraud' or anything like that, but I worry that unless we make sure we support the very few industries that legitimately cannot re-open for a little bit longer until they can get going again - the money spent on people like me didn't fix a problem, but just delayed it. Me and the hundreds of thousands like me will be made redundant in Aug rather than back in March. And THAT seems like a waste of money to me.

People have complained in the media about the billionaires and tax exiles using it for their companies. Thing is, withoutit I reckon they would have just later everyone off. It's not the wealthy who lose out. I know 3 people who were furloughed and 2 are back at work already. The pub owner I know wished they could have part unfurloughed, so the chef could do evening take away cooking and add something to the books / economy. But doesn't want to completely unfurlough them as not a full time wage available.

Yes. I work in an office job in the construction industry and have just returned from furlough. I can say without a doubt that if the scheme didn’t exist I would have been made redundant

I absolutely agree it was the best thing to do and one of the measures I applaud this government for. I feel very lucky when I read accounts of Americans who received a one off $1200 cheque (if they got it) and were left applying for unemployment benefits from overwhelmed systems.

However I do think the furlough policy needs to be scaled back to only being available to those industries that are going to be severely restricted for a lot longer yet (hospitality, leisure and tourism) because I’d like to see as many of those businesses survive as possible and they’re models are unworkable at the moment in many cases.

For context myself and DP have worked throughout (NHS and private manufacturing) but understand the importance of keeping the economy frozen to be ready to pick up where it’s able to recover.

Of all the things governments have gone into debt for, this is one of the better things. Whether it will be 'worth it', I'm not sure we can tell yet, but making sure people can eat and maintain more jobs to do that later is better.

I think the scheme was correct.

I think it needed stricter guidance and rules though.

But then that also needed better childcare and school arrangements and also I think having to pay uk tax.

Time will tell...
Some of the jobs will still be there but it may take a long time before businesses can open up (hospitality and entertainment industries especially).

It's hard to know what else they could have done in such an unprecedented situation.

I haven't personally benefited or been affected by this in any way, I'm self-employed.

I think it was the right thing to do, the country plummeting people into poverty through no fault of their own would be awful, people, regardless of their income needed this otherwise the problems created would be worse.

I will have been furloughed for four months, but I'm being made redundant after that. I hope it has saved some jobs - I do know a few people that it has saved.

For me I'm grateful. We have saved a little extra to tide us over and it also ticked me over another year for my redundancy package.

We bailed out the banks to the tune of 500bn but people kick up a fuss over helping our own people to a fraction of the cost.

I despair of this country, I really do.