People believe that the current system is unsustainable because this is what we are constantly told. It is government ideology that dictates that the welfare budget is un-affordable and that it will be the poorest people who bare the brunt of cuts to this huge welfare bill. And these cuts have increased the number of working poor.
We rarely hear the fact that the majority of the welfare bill is paid to people of pension age. The housing benefit bill props up huge rents paid to landlords, the tax credit system subsidises business profits where employers pay low wages. The bill for Atos, Maximius and Capita is £hundreds of millions but the system is seriously flawed. And all systems are open to fraud and error, focusing on fraud, which is the minority, draws away from the reality.
When big employers in the care industry, retail and service industry etc declare big profits it is because they pay no more than the national living wage and their employees rely on top up benefits. If they paid a higher wage they would have less profit but the welfare bill would reduce. Meanwhile companies use legal loopholes to avoid paying tax therefore they put less into the very pot that their employees rely on.
You will find many arguments as to why business should not pay higher wages, should not have to pay some of their profits back into the welfare bill and can legally avoid tax. But not many arguments as to why the poorly paid worker on a zero hour contract shouldn't wait 6 weeks for a UC payment.
There is no cap on rents, some landlords have built empires on housing benefit. Some homes have ridiculously high rents and are in a bad state of repair. If the government introduced a law that private landlords who wished to rent out social housing had to cap the rent, the housing benefit bill would drop, as would landlord profit.
Instead, the government chooses to cap the housing benefit causing financial hardship for the lowest paid. And while they made a big noise about the bedroom tax, benefit cap and reducing housing benefit for under 35 year old's, they quietly, massively, increased funds for the discretionary housing payments otherwise some of the big social landlords would have gone bust.
The medical assessments have long been carried out by private companies who assess disabled people on a computer system of points rather than a qualified examination. There are many examples of where this system fails and peoples lives are devastated, including deaths. The cost of the appeals process and tribunals is £millions to the government and as the majority of the decisions are overturned, the system must be flawed and yet it is the claimant who is punished.
This is my perception, but benefit bashing has almost become a sport and allows the government to implement Dickensian policies and when challenged Theresa May orders Tory MPs to abstain to from voting.
sorry for the rant