Social security spending out of control?

[Wizeman]

The UK spends about £334 billion on social security. Around £177 billion of that goes on pensions, which as a young person I’d definitely want when I’m older — especially if I’ve worked all my life and paid into the system. What I don’t understand is why some younger people are against older people getting a pension, because one day they’ll want one too.

About £145 billion goes towards working-age benefits, which is a massive amount of money. Around £76 billion of that is for disabled people, which I think is fair and necessary. But you hear so many stories about people taking advantage of the system, and a lot of those stories turn out to be true.

They say about 1 in 3 people in Britain are on some kind of benefit. I’ve personally been in hospital with serious injuries and had operations that put me out of work for months, and it never crossed my mind to claim benefits. I’ve also been out of work for about a year before while working towards getting a new job, and I just lived off my savings.

That said, I’ll be honest — I’ve always had support from my parents, like being able to stay at their house. I know not everyone has that kind of support.

But it does feel like fewer people want to work and some would rather claim benefits.
I also don’t think removing the two-child benefit cap will really solve the problem.
In Poland, for example, people get tax breaks for having kids, which encourages people to work.

Either way, £334 billion just sounds like an insane amount of money to me.

Yes and this is where I disagree. Our population has exploded over the past 20+ years meaning our infrastructure has been completely over run meaning spending goes up to try and make up for it.

Then you need to ask why, when increased population means increased tax take, there has not been a commensurate increase in public spending for provision of services to accommodate the needs of increased population.

Imigration must come down

Yet time and time again, research proves immigrants are net economic contributors, contributing more per head to GDP than indigenous population, so if anything, if you want to better the economic situation in your country, you should be begging for more migrants, not fewer.

Since Brexit the UK has had to massively increase the number of work visas being granted to migrants from Africa, Asia, and the former Commonwealth countries simply to meet the requirements of the health services and care industry. If we hadn't done this, there would be an even greater shortage of provision that the crisis the care industry is already trying to deal with, the end result being UK citizens wallowing in their own filth simply because there is nobody to care for them. It's bizarre watching the issue continually be reduced to an argument about too many people arriving from foreign shores, when the entire problem stems from the fact that industrialising care provision turns it into a profit-making venture like any other, and therefore, costs and overheads will always be cut in order to drive and maintain profit and dividend. Private companies don't give a hoot about the wellbeing of granny or grandad, but they do care about making money, hence why care roles are invariably underpaid, the jobs are under-resourced, and nobody has the blindest bit of interest in doing them aside from people who can be tempted here from developing nations, yet when they do come here to care for our grannies and grandads, we turn around and pillory them for hogging and clogging our public services and start demanding the government sends them back home?

Make it make sense.

I agree with pp that much of the current system effectively subsidises private employers and landlords, which is a crazy use of public money, but I don’t see any easy solution.

I agree with Mrs Thatcher that everyone should contribute, even if a small or fork amount. I think effectively taking people out of the taxpaying system in terms of income tax and council tax contributes to thinking wrongly about tax and contribution in general. I realise of course that everyone pays VAT and is a taxpayer, but I think it’s a big mistake to have a large segment of the population feeling they don’t have to contribute. It’s just as bad as the crazy right wingers who think because they don’t use the NHS or local schools or whatever that they shouldn’t have to pay.

For ‘fork’ read ‘token’ - and I don’t agree with Mrs T on much

Very very few are unable to do anything. (I said there would be extenuating circumstances in serious cases).

Surprisingly, if a person needs money they reasses their situation and will take on whatever job is available. Other countries do not offer social security as a career choice and neither should the UK.

If everyone makes the effort the country would be a much better place.

You haven't really thought this through, have you?

Which countries would you use as an example of the model you think the UK should follow?

Make it make sense.

It doesn’t make sense at all!

USA. Or the UK of old.

The USA?

You look at what is happening there and you seriously think 'yes I want to copy that'?

The UK from old. What time period?

Even the USA has a welfare system of sorts.

Along with an insane war-mongering President, huge numbers of shootings, including by and of children, and a massive opioid crisis.

I prefer the UK.

I suspect pp is not being serious.

God almighty.

If you genuinely believe the USA is some sort of model example of how a nation should care for its vulnerable and deprived, then I don't know what to say aside from you either being staggeringly ignorant of the reality of life for poor, sick, disabled, and un/underemployed people in the self-proclaimed "greatest country on earth", or you are simply at the wind-up.

The "UK of old" also used to chuck anyone considered remotely aberrant in asylums and leave them there for eons, including women who had the temerity so stand up to or try to escape abusive husbands and families. I'd rather not go back to the days of your options being 1. having the shit beaten out of you and your kids, 2. the workhouse, or 3. being punted into bedlam for the rest of your life because your husband paid a doctor to agree you were "hysterical" and that was the best place for all concerned.

Terrific post, thank you.

What do you suppose we do then?

They like driving in France, a country with a more generous welfare system.

@Inthenameoflove is actually right. If you look at the graph in figure 2 on your link. 2.2 million people on UC were working, and 1.6 we are not. I think you are forgetting about the people who are not required to work, which are presumably sick people, disabled people and carers.

Even the USA has a welfare system of sorts.

Exactly. We need an adjusted tightened social security system.

Name 5 countries that have a more generous system than the UK?

I like your sense of humour.

Agree housing is big part of issue as we are paying HB for loads of families and it is high. Cost to rent our house would be about 2k a month. So 24k if that couple then continue without buying they will be getting equivalent of 2 extra pensions spent on them. But say 50-70 years of housing costs..

If you want to cut welfare, stop handing companies and conglomerates who syphon billions straight out of the UK economy a subsidy in order to top up the pittance salaries and wages they pay UK citizens.

This "they'll leave" stuff is tripe. While there is a profit to be made they will always continue to operate in that market, just as they operate in developing world markets selling the same products and services they do in the UK to a market with far less disposable income.

Contrary to the narrative, the UK's Welfare spend is not actually "out of control" or anything close to that in any case. We still spend less as a percentage of our GDP on Welfare than most European countries do. This simply yet another facet of a UK where media is totally controlled by wealthy individuals with an agenda, and our mainstream political parties are utterly beholden to their private enterprise financial backers. The narrative in the UK is driven by people with a vested interest in painting all the financial woes of the UK as a problem which lies at the feet of an underclass, meanwhile, the politicians govern entirely in the interest of those wealthy individuals and commercial entities who back them, and not in the interest of the actual public who elect them and who they are supposed to represent.

It's ridiculous how we're continually expected to buy that the country is in dire financial straits because of people who are claiming a couple of hundred pounds a week in benefits, yet companies are syphoning billions upon billions in net profit out of the UK economy and straight into private bank accounts in the form of dividends, and quire frequently it's these very same companies lobbying the politicians to push policies which permit them to continue to pull wealth out of the UK.

The idea UK finances are in a state because of people who don't actually have any money is palpably ridiculous, when it's transparent where the wealth is actually going.

You don't need to "name 5", because you could just pull them out of a hat and there is every likelihood you'll pull a winner.

https://www.rightsnet.org.uk/now/post/61733

Did you intend this for me? Do you have evidence for this?

The stat doesn’t include child benefit. If you look on the gov.uk website, 24 m people were in receipt of some kind of income support. Including UC, PIP, pensions etc.

Not required to work is still not working though.

The majority of people on UC don’t work.

Don’t be ridiculous. Some people don’t get the opportunity to “pay into the system” due to lifelong disability. Are you proposing we let them starve?

universal credit also tops up income for hard working but low earning families.