(I am not familiar with benefits tbh)
This is abundantly clear, and yet you seem to think you know enough to say we need to get rid of as much welfare as possible.
The incentive for benefits fraud is clear. You get a tax free cash payment of up to £10k per year which is not means or employment dependent. Applications do not require a physical assessment and there are plenty of “PIP coaches” on social media to “help you understand the system”. (Search YouTube)
Again, this demonstrates just how little you know about disability support, PIP is incredibly difficult to qualify for, the application system is confusing, convoluted and ignores so many aspects of disability and focuses on a few small things. The assessors are all healthcare professionals, but rarely have any knowledge of the individual conditions the people they are assessing struggle with. The questions are ambiguous and contradictory, one assessor asked me repeatedly if I could peel and chop carrots, despite me telling them that I can’t eat carrots as they trigger gastric issues connected to my long term incurable condition.
The median salary is £33k. After tax this is £27k. If you get PIP you get an 37% net pay rise. No wonder people are clamouring to sign up. PIP should be restricted to severe physically disabilities and mental disabilities that make it near impossible to work. It should be means tested and not available to those who are employed (as employed already legally have to provide reasonable adjustment for those with disabilities).
I have worked full time for most of my adult life, but now only work part-time due to my disability. I have never earned £33k, no matter how many hours I’ve worked. This ‘median’ figure is misleading as it’s skewed by the super high salaries of the 1%, and many people with disabilities will have their earning potential impacted so be on lower paid, minimum wage type jobs. You don’t have to be so disabled that it’s ’near impossible to work’ to need support. And whilst there may be a few PIP recipients that are high earners and don’t need the financial support, they do need the other support that qualifying for PIP gives you, like a blue badge for example. However, being disabled has been shown to make daily life more expensive, around £1k a month more expensive on average, and these costs can be varied, along with obvious things like physio (not always available on the NHS) there are expenses that wouldn’t occur to able bodied people, like increased heating costs, higher grocery bills due to needing to buy pre-prepared food, increased fuel due to having to drive more, or take taxis, because of mobility problems, help with basic domestic tasks like shopping (budget supermarkets like Aldi and Lidl done do online shopping with delivery, so online grocery shopping is more expensive) house cleaning and laundry (although housework and laundry are not covered in the PIP assessment, only preparing food, eating, walking and washing and bathing, as well as communicating, planning journeys, budgeting and managing therapy/medication. So, as long as I can drive my car, and put food in my mouth unaided it doesn’t matter if I can’t vacuum my floors, clean my toilet or do my laundry….) I know, crazy.
It should be assessed in person and where possible provided not in cash but therapy or vouchers.
Again, the assessors are rarely knowledgable of the various conditions the claimants need support with. In person assessments would be more expensive and still no more effective. What would help is if medical evidence was actually taken into account, but even though the DWP asks for evidence, it’s regularly ignored. A Doctor who’s diagnosed and treated a claimant would be able to tell the DWP if the claimant is impaired by their symptoms, but instead a general nurse who’s never met them will ask the PIP questions without any understanding of the individual or their condition.
Therapy or vouchers. What therapy? Most disabilities are not short term illnesses that can be cured, and whilst therapies can help manage symptoms, it won’t make the disabled person able to work full-time or gain professional qualifications so they can advance in their career and earn more.
Vouchers for what? Supermarkets so we can buy food? Petrol stations or taxi companies so we can get to work etc? (We already have ‘vouchers’ for this, it’s called ‘money’) Ok, who is going to issue and process these vouchers? Are they valid for only certain things?
So, @Schlossadler, when you’ve finished fixing our PIP support, then we can move on to the next ‘benefit/welfare’ bogeyman, Universal Credit. One solution is to legislate a proper living wage as the minimum wage. Make it so that anyone who works full time is able to live on what they earn. No UC top-up required. That would slash our welfare spending significantly.
I’m not sure what you propose to do about our pensions spending, after all, we’ve all been paying our NI and therefore that money is actually ours, so the govt can’t stop paying pensions, not really. So that chunk of ‘welfare’ spending is pretty stuck, sorry.
The other way to resolve or welfare spending is a Universal Basic Income. It’s been proven to work and be cost effective everywhere it’s been implemented. Everyone gets enough money to cover their basic living needs, if you want more, you can work to earn more. No means testing so that you get stuck in a benefits trap, just everything you earn, you can keep. This way you can choose to not work and be poor, or work as much as you need to to earn the extras you want.
Have I covered everything? I’ve not sworn in this so hopefully it won’t get deleted.