A Universal Credit

[Xenia]

As I had suggested, so now treads Iain Duncan Smith - merger of benefits and tax credits so you genuinely gain if you take a job. It also helps him with his sexist view women should be home with babies.
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Housing benefit, income support, council tax benefit, working tax credit and child tax credit would be replaced by one single benefit. This could then "taper off" at a uniform rate providing a simple and transparent path back into the workforce for those currently caught in the benefits trap."

It's not quite a universal payment to all adults whether in work or not or whatever their income but it would be a welcome simplification and could help ensure people did work.

What about people who live in remote rural areas who dont have access to childcare?

And you cant assume that mothers' mothers are available to be childcarers- some are dead, disabled or themselves working full time.

Absolutely barking - but I think I'm a little bit in love with Xenia

A universal credit to those in work and out arguably is a disincentive to work but it has the beauty of simplicity. One credit or one benefit as IDS proposes would be a great idea. Let's see if he manages it, better than the current complexity.

Xenia, you are assuming everyone has an extended family. My mother died when I was young, so no siblings (and raised by a single parent ). My father died when I was in my early twenties. We have no extended family on dp's side either. We have one child, and twins on the way. £20k/yr, yes, we could probably just about manage on, although childcare is going to be really tough when I go back to work. But if dp or I died (it is not only the feckless who end up as single parents), it would not be half as expensive for one of us to raise 3 kids as two. We both work, but I am the main breadwinner, and £10k + dp's wages would barely cover childcare for 3 children under 3.

Yes it is a disincentive to work.............if your a single person will no children living in a cheaper area of the country - £200 a week is more than many single people on JSA get including their HB and CTB now........

I think there's lots to be said for both a Basic/Citizens Income a la BeenBeta, and a fully integrated tax/negative tax system.

Unfortunately people (from both the left & the right) have been saying these things for at least the last 20 years to my certain knowledge (and no doubt longer) and it's never happened yet because its so hard to remake the system in its entirety, so I'm not holding my breath.

Governments have also been re-hashing Tax Credits/Family Credit/Family Income Supplement since about the year dot to try to deal with the fact that there is a tendency to generate 100%+ effective marginal tax rates with these benefits (as of course there is with out of work benefits when people move into low paid work).

(Not that I'm a cynic, of course.)

If anyone wants to get all excited about a basic income, there's lots of reading material here.

such a good idea, i heard about this on a radio programme some years ago and it struck me as clever. however, would put public service workers out of jobs.

And the other problem is that as the state susidises the rents of so many people and did I think since the 1950s with rent acts etc and the fact that everyone earnings under £50k or whatever it is with children gets tax credits we have developed a very socialist system where no one under £50k is supporting themselves. I am ignoring child benefit here as it is not so large a sum. Thus housing, live, family structures are all base don the staet will provide, not just if you're very hungry and homeless and need a soup kitchen and bed for the night in a hostel 10 beds to a room, but your whole life.

In some ways a universal income is even worse because people are paid to be idle but if it's cheaper and leaves more incentives than now to work it may be better overall than the current system. No one will be brave enough to do it so we will find we have to cut the benefits of the poor and icnrease taxes as has been doing for however long it takes to pay back the debt the nation owes.

did you all know, by the way, that when the govt takes over paying mortgages for unemployed, they do so at a fixed rate? five per cent or something? i know someone whose bill is 160 per month cos they're on interest only, and the govt is paying off their capital and at a higher interest rate, so paying 290.

that's mad, isn't it? explanation is that it would be too hard to manage if we weren't all treated the same. person i know is delighted, obv, while fuming at stupidity of govt.

But I don't need to and I live with adult children in an extended family anyway. It's a luxury to live as a single adult which if you want the state to pay for it then you may find the state cannot continue to do so.

i think the system has recently become more streamlined, saf, no doubt because of middle class unemployment. sorry to hear about what you went through, sounds disgraceful.

Are there not insurance policies one can take out to cover the mortgage in case of redundancy? I could swear I've read of such policies even here.

Ah, I see. I had a mortgage once, but it was in the US and we had something called mortgage protection insurance. It cost a bomb but we considered it essential because in teh US, any housing benefit there is is very limited and hard to get. It's very rare that someone is able to get enough benefit to live off entirely for long. Sure, there are people who fiddle the system, but it's not something you see very often.

And certainly there's no chance of getting help from the government to pay one's mortgage specifically.

I didn't know if there was something similar in the UK.