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.

They can pledge all they like but we all know they won't have the balls to do anything radical about it. They'll just carry on facilitating the gravy train and expect/hope the next Government to tackle it. But in the meantime, they'll say the right things, pretend they're tackling it, but actually doing the square root of bugger all! Smoke and mirrors.

Also unemployment is tougher in your 50s or 60s when you face losing everything you worked for and not enough time to replenish lost money before retirement. Their plight is overlooked.

Exactly, nail on the head. The numbers simply don't stack up, hence the ever increasing Government debt We've had decades of the simple fact being swept under the carpet because successive Governments don't have the ability to do anything about it "because it's hard" and no Government ever does "hard" things - they just put a sticking plaster over the problem and expect the subsequent Government to clear up their mess. Both major parties are the same. Two cheeks of the same arse indeed!

Exactly. And these pensioners who have not paid enough also got extremely cheap houses which they were able to pay off whilst still relatively young . They were then able to save for retirement.
So alot of these pensioners are in a win win situation and not struggling.

I've not seen any improvement under labour for working class people.
I would slash benefits tomorrow and tell pensioners with savings to give something back either now or when they die.

Very sensible. Way to go to discourage people from saving for their old age and paying into pensions. Pensioners with savings lose them if they need care and you have heard of this thing called inheritance tax?

I think that ALL benefits should be means tested. There are far too many OAPs who don't "need" the state pension, but automatically get it. The means testing of the WFA was a good start - shame that Starmer took fright and u-turned on it. I don't care if people have paid NIC all their lives - it's just a tax, and a huge number of OAPs havn't paid much, if any NIC at all, and still get state pension due to unemployment credits, caring credits, credits due to part time work under the threshold etc. We just need to set the threshold for means testing at a relatively high level, such as the same £60k that workers suffer where they start to lose child benefit or £100k where workers lose the tax free personal allowance and free childcare.

How many pensioners do you know on £60 or £100k? All you do with this spiteful nonsense is disincentivise people from making provision for their old age.

You can't take away state pension from those who have sufficient working year NI contributions (I.e move the goalposts at the last minute). Especially if you continue to offer pension credit for those who never paid in.

Realistically you have to change the system for those starting out on their careers ( with the NI contribution diverted to their private pensions) .Although as another poster said Governments just kick the can down the road.

But it isn’t benefit bashing. People who are working are seeing less of their wages due to taxation. Cost of living is going up. Everyone is struggling. The difference in what people receive in benefits and what people in work receive net is not much. I can see where the resentment is coming from

Well you can - you only have to look at what Osborne did to WASPI women but it would be completely unethical.

Ofcourse it is bashing when you make out it is so easy to receive and live off benefits.

Nobody likes paying tax and nobody likes crumbling public services so let's blame benefit claimants.

@Smeuseis it easy to have a full time job and juggle raising a family and working full time? Do you not think those people deserve to get more net than those who choose to work 16 hours AET or not work at all? And there are some that make that choice

As I have been saying, people should be paid enough not to need a top up.

Sure, a few will live on benefits as a 'life style' but that is not the majority.

If you want people off benefits you will need to provide the services to support that. I haven't seen Reform or Conservatives mentioning any of that, have you?

@SmeuseI don’t think a lot of people would have a problem if people were working full time and needing top ups. But the statistics show that’s broadly not what is happening. Rather, only 37% of working age UC claimants work at all, and with the AET thresholds set where they are at to qualify, a large amount of this won’t be minimal hours

Actually sorry just to correct those figures - the latest report came out for December 25. Only 32% of claimants are in any type of work, and a majority of those who do work are very part time. 180,000 didn’t meet the AET of 18 hours work

And how many of those claimants can't work more hours due to health issues, caring issues etc?

Do you have any stats to back up any of your assertions @Smeuse? 8.3 m people are on UC, not all of them can be disabled or caring for disabled surely?

So...........

There are a few statistics that matter

Firstly the percentage of GDP that goes to wages which has dropped since the mid 70's while the percentage going as profits has risen

Then the distribution of those wages which has increasingly gone to high earners.

The rise in house prices and rents in real terms while

The cost of building has risen in line with inflation

In short a perfect storm

I didn't say that, I just asked a question.

I simply thought you might have some information on it as you quoted the numbers

Very sensible. Keep throwing money at pensioners. Meanwhile uk debt is rising and youngsters dreams of owning expensive homes dissappear.
But its ok. As long as pensioners are comfortable the youngsters can pay all the debts back and continue in expensive rental accommodation and struggling with the cost of living

The state pension is hardly having money thrown at you. Anyone with a private pension is a taxpayer anyway.

A very quick google shows that half a million pensioners have an income over £50k, so that's quite a lot who don't "need" the full state pension benefit as they have incomes of around £40k or more from other sources, presumably such as occupational pensions, buy to lets, investment portfolios, etc.

Nail on the head.

Add into that, the general consensus among todays youngest workers who believe they won't get an automatic state pension when they retire in 40 years' time, i.e. it'll be means tested or age raised into the 70s!

And you can definitely see where the resentment comes from.

Especially as they're being "nudged" into workplace pension schemes where they have to pay a few percent of their wages ontop of tax and NIC and on top of student loan repayments. Of course, the boomers didn't have student loan repayments and weren't forced into paying into workplace pensions as they expected the state pension! So two new "taxes" that boomers didn't have to pay.

You have to have made NI contributions for state pension. How much have the non working UC lot contributed?