What will it take for the Government to enact welfare reform?

[Schlossadler]

What has to break, before the Government is finally willing to enact welfare reform?

I think it has merit, really.

I don't. It would be bloody awful.

All of this.

The State can unilaterally cut PIP, yet makes Equality Act enforcement something that the wronged disabled individual has to take to civil court or tribunal at their own cost. This transfers the costs of being denied work to the same people who've had their safety net reduced.

If the State can enforce HASAWA through the criminal courts, it can enforce EA through the criminal courts too.

What do you think of the Timms suggestion below?

because they’re family and that’s what loved ones should do for one another? It’s surely the fundamental constituent building block of society. If families aren’t prepared to look after one another goes can society at large be expected to work?

there’s a certain irony in your proposition that it’s unrealistic to expect family members to support one another yet completely ok for people to feel entitled to support from others that are completely unknown to them

Do you think families should pay for their parents when they need care in old age? Lots of people don’t want to pay for it themselves let alone pass the burden on to their dc

@bingobangssorry I don’t follow your question? What does what look like.

Vouchers are a stupid idea.

• Vouchers cost the State more to administer than cash, because of the overheads of issuing them and reconciling them afterwards. This alone is enough reason to say "no" to them.
• Vouchers don't work when the washing machine breaks down or the car needs its MOT.
• Vouchers assume that everyone needs to spend the same on food as everyone else. They don't allow for turning the heating up and eating more cheaply to reduce the symptoms of Reynaud's Syndrome.
• Vouchers add a lot of time, and I speak from retail work experience here, to checkout transactions. You are creating an enforcement workload for the retail sector that will cost these companies money. Many will simply refuse to accept the vouchers.
• When a claimant bursts into tears at the checkout because her shopping basket doesn't match her vouchers and she's going to have chose between san pro and shampoo, the retail staff will bear the psychological burden of that.
• When a claimant becomes abusive at the checkout, the retail staff will take the brunt of that.

Rubbish. There’s many for factors including points of principle.

What’s hypothetical about insisting that people live within their means?

The fact they don’t is what causes individuals and society problems.

£££ is cold hard countable and real at the end of the day. Balancing the books is a realism not a hypothetical necessity

Why should families shoulder the full cost of one of capitalism's required core features: the reserve army of labour?

Unemployment benefits should be paid for by businesses, as they are the sole beneficiaries of the reserve army of labour.

Yes of course they should. Either pay for it or provide it themselves.

why should others pay for it if they’re not prepared to pay for it themselves?

@ExpectMoreone of my relatives was in a care home (she paid). It was 1k a week and that was a long time ago. What about if you don’t even like the family member? What about if your parent was an alcoholic or feckless etc, the children should have to pay? Where do you draw the line?

This policy would just shrink birth rates even more

Welfare costs can’t be addressed until the cost of living is addressed. They can’t cut housing benefit because there is no social housing and the local housing allowance already doesn’t even begin to cover private rent. For example, near me (north) the average cost of renting a 3 bedroom house is 1.1k. Local housing allowance in my area for 3 bed is £850. That’s the maximum housing benefit someone needing a 3 bed could get. So that’s £260 a month someone needs to deduct from their non-housing universal credit payment. When that happens, people can’t pay their bills or buy food. So they get taken to court and have to use food banks.

So if we are to lower housing payments, we need to force private landlords to lower their rent so the payments actually cover it. Or, we need more social housing.

Which option would you go for, OP?

The UK spends about 5% of GDP on non-pension-related benefits. The welfare budget overall is almost exactly the same % of GDP as it was in 1999. It''s demonstrably sustainable.

When people say "it's unsustainable" it simply means - "I want to cut people's benefits." There is no urgent fiscal reason to cut benefits. We can afford benefits then, and we can afford it now.

The welfare reform I want to see is to remove all cliff edges from benefits, so that you don't have a high marginal rate of taxation if you earn money when you are on benefits. What stops people working isn't benefits, but being financially worse off if they work. Another thing that demonstrably doesn't work is cutting benefits to "encourage people to work." I'd also like to see the removal, as far as possible, means testing, and claw back the money using income tax instead. It's cheaper, more efficient, and less intrusive.

When they've tried UBI experiments, it increases the number of people employed rather than decreasing it. If poor and disabled people have a sustainable baseline they are more likely to work and contribute to society in general.

Finally, remove the corporate benefits in the form of low minimum wages, high rents and the charitable status of private schools and similar organisations.

Two big reasons, on the child benefit cap specifically. Firstly, because when it comes to children being pushed into poverty, those children are citizens in their own right, and not responsible for their parent’s choices. The state therefore has a duty of care towards them - not just a moral duty, also a practical one because it is no one’s interests to allow those children to fall behind educationally and therefore risk falling into long term unemployment in future.

Secondly, all the evidence is the two child cap benefit does not save the state money, it simply shifts the costs of child poverty to the tax payer elsewhere (into health, housing, social care etc). So the two child benefit cap does not in fact balance the books at all.

You're treating children like their parents' property instead of as vulnerable human beings with an internationally-accepted right to special protection within society. The "living within their means" rhetoric treats the children like objects that the parents could rehome like a dog when times get tough.

You're also assuming that every three-child parent had that third child whilst poor. You are assuming that no parent ever had all their kids during a time of plenty and employment.

Every SAHM or mother who is paid less than her husband is one DV incident away from poverty. It is the children caught up in such awful situations who are hurt the most by the two-child cap.

So you would scrap all benefits? Older people should not get pension credit? Take away all social housing?

remove the corporate benefits in the form of low minimum wages

Highlighting this. When someone works full-time and still needs a UC top-up to survive, it's their employer who is actually getting the handout.

@ExpectMorewhat does affording your dc look like? How much do you need to earn. If people now have to pay for their parents potential care needs very, very few will be able to afford dc.

Labour has already pledged to deliver the largest increase in social and affordable housebuilding in a generation, targeting 1.5 million new homes over five years. and they have already implemented the Renters Reform Bill.

Rayner has made numerous comments re both policies.

I'm not as familiar with pip because my disabled son is young and I get DLA for him but I'm not completely against all of the suggestions including other support options mentioned, though I did read that would be alongside cash payments too (maybe less?), not instead of it unless I read it incorrectly.

Though I do wonder where this therapy etc would come from considering NHS waiting lists unless they are talking about private therapies and in that case, I wonder how much money would actually be saved.

I think your era is gone. It ended in ‘92 when it was proven it didn’t work.

True

Here's a job creation proposal:

• Identify brown-field sites, derelict buildings, and other suitable sites. The council buys the sites.
• In each site, build low-rise blocks of around twenty two- and three-bedroom flats on three sides of a square with a small children's playground and some parking in the square. The open side faces the nearest road.
• Ensure that the flats are properly insulated, sound-proofed, etc so cheap to heat and pleasant to live in.
• Let the flats out to people who need housing.

Building and maintaining these flats will need tradespeople, creating long-lasting jobs. It also creates that housing you rightly state that we need more of.