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?

Nobody wants that - you deserve the support, and no reasonable person would suggest otherwise.

Yes I know sad really

As a former recipient of CA, I noticed there was no mention of registered carers until your post @DoubleShotEspresso

Carers who try their best to get by on the bare minimum while saving the social care system so much expense.

Norway does not have a large benefits class and they have a large proportion of the population in work. Work and getting people into work is seen as the priority rather than being on benefits for life. Having said that they have high welfare spending and things like care homes for the elderly are fantastic. They are an example of a country that can afford to spend on welfare. They also have extremely good public services. As I said earlier, the advantage of being a rich country with a low population.

Yes, with wealth derived predominantly from hydrocarbons, and invested.

What are you defining as a benefits class though? After a very quick google ( I would normally check properly but about to head out the door so I'm relying on AI - open to correction if it's got it wrong) Norway apparently has 5.7 million people with 924,675 residents receiving benefits while in some sort of employment. Around 1.77 million people are outside the labor force, with many relying on state welfare programs like retirement pensions, disability benefits, and work assessment allowances. That sounds like a pretty enormous benefits class to me unless you have a different definition (or the figures are out - can check later if nobody else does it for me as going out now).

Plus their higher taxes are for low to mid earners. I doubt people will suggest the same.

Agree totally with this. I am genuine and hate being made to feel like a burden and freeloader, just because I have the misfortune of poor health/disability. And genuine people will be impacted by any changes to the health and welfare systems.

Absolutely. The non-genuine should feel ashamed.

How does on define genuine and non genuine?

Easy.

lazy and feckless. Not trying to help themselves = freeloaders (non genuine)

Individuals out of their luck through no fault of their own = genuine

Beat me to it.

Agreed.

You shouldn’t feel like a burden or a freeloader.

No reasonable person would advocate for slashing the support you get. Many, myself included, believe more needs to be done to support those genuinely in need.

The issue is the actual free loaders (coupled with the need to balance the books). They are hurting those in genuine need like yourself as there’s less to go around.

I’m always curious as to why someone comments on a thread re. reducing benefits for the freeloaders, a lot of folk in genuine need pop up outraged and advocating for why they need benefits. When they’re not the demography being discussed.

It pretty much happens without fail and usually ends up derailing conversations.

They can only spend the income not the capital. Genius

You make a really good point - the legitimate should call out the undeserving.

Because everyone on benefits are largely lumped into the same box.

Not to mention the fact that those who are genuine are going to get caught up in the cuts or would be included in suggestions such as communal living unless communal living is for those who are deemed to be feckless only but I very much doubt that would happen.

1.7m outside of workforce are mainly pensioners and children.

Benefits in Norway are universal, e.g. childcare, unlike here, where you lose your free childcare hours if you're on 100k+

So it's not benefit class at all - these are people who live within social contract, they work, pay their taxes and receive universal state support.

Unemployment benefit in Norway is linked to previous earnings and is time limited. Norway doesn't have equivalent of PIP either.

Social contract in UK is completely broken - people can live their entire life without contributing and those who do thrive to do better are being squeezed till last drop.

And how do you decide someone is feckless?

No fault of their own, again, how do you define that?

Benefit fraud numbers say the majority of people are genuine. So are you going to reassess every case?

How do you define 'undeserving'?

But we do have a pretty decent education system. Our PISA rating is 11-13th in the world.
It's not our education system fault that many parents (usually the same benefits class) don't value education and teach their kids the same.

I can understand the concern re. getting caught up in the melee risk.

It does however detract the focus from where is needs to be.

Out of curiosity may I ask what the concern re. communal living is?

I ask as it seems a sensible model to not only reduce costs but also provide a better environment for folk (community, food including for those who may not know or care for a good diet, better able to target services and support).

It’s also something I’d be happy with myself and in many ways, an option I’m actively considering for my old age in terms of supported living type arrangements.

It’s also just how most students live and they get by just fine with it.

Not forgetting our beloved Chelsea Pensioners who scramble to sign up for it!

It is statistically dubious to have nearly 1 in 5 of the adults in an area on PiP - you agree, I hope.

I might agree with your fraud assertion if there weren’t numerous YouTube and Tictok videos on what to say at your GP and PIP assessment.

I suspect that for a significant number of people the benefit system has become their skill set. It has broken any link for them between productive activity & money. Until this is addressed, it will continue to get slowly worse.

Exactly this, it is impossible to weed out (a relatively small proportion) of feckless or undeserving recipients without hurting the genuine as well.

I totally agree and that’s a crux of my point: we need to invest in our education system to improve it from present.

Having grown up in a poor background, it’s not hard to learn to want to not have to live a lifetime like that and to learn a bit of self drive and ambition. A little hard facts discussions with children / teenagers around the choices can only help shake a few onto the right tracks.

You suspect and your suspicions are based on tiktok and youtube?