Benefits bill to hit record high
Discussion
good40 said:
50% of the welfare bill is towards old age pensioners ,be it the pension , heating ,Tv Licence, Pension credits etc etc.
I'm fairly sure most of these people would have been paying there way ie your &mine mother & fathers.
Sounds a lot of b8lls, as usual!
No they haven't.I'm fairly sure most of these people would have been paying there way ie your &mine mother & fathers.
Sounds a lot of b8lls, as usual!
A person who is 65 today and was on a median salary throughout their lives will get back in retirement benefits a huge amount more than they've contributed in taxes.
And lots of them have amazing gold-plated pensions too.
And houses worth many hundreds of times the value they paid for them.
oyster said:
good40 said:
50% of the welfare bill is towards old age pensioners ,be it the pension , heating ,Tv Licence, Pension credits etc etc.
I'm fairly sure most of these people would have been paying there way ie your &mine mother & fathers.
Sounds a lot of b8lls, as usual!
No they haven't.I'm fairly sure most of these people would have been paying there way ie your &mine mother & fathers.
Sounds a lot of b8lls, as usual!
A person who is 65 today and was on a median salary throughout their lives will get back in retirement benefits a huge amount more than they've contributed in taxes.
And lots of them have amazing gold-plated pensions too.
And houses worth many hundreds of times the value they paid for them.
I still think that virtually all pensioners who worked on a median salary throughout their lives will get back in retirement pension and entitlements a huge amount more than they've contributed in taxes. I posted earlier that I am unlikely to achieve that because I was earning very serious money for much of my life, and paying UK taxes.
The reality of the cost of pensions has to be faced. In common with every other difficult decision in modern politics our leaders are funking the issue cross party by agreement and will continue to funk the issue cross party by agreement. Politicians do not take unpopular and difficult decisions funking these is a much easier option which they gladly seek. The reality is that early retirement and substantial pensions is a pipedream that cannot be sustained. Working well into the 70's will become commonplace in the future in the UK.
My concern is the great unwashed on Benefits in the UK, whom I call The Benefits Society who never bother with work and therefore never need pensions because their every need is provided by the taxpayers come what may, without any need for work. This problem is not being addressed and will not be addressed. The primary reason why the UK government is still massively overborrowing.
I was going to start a brand new thread here but this seems as good a place as anywhere.
On the telebox this evening is a program about large families. On this program there is a family with ten children, living in a large house in what seems like comfortable enough conditions. Through choice, neither works and the family is run off a combo of child benefit and carers/disability (ADHD) benefit. They actively choose to have many children "because we love it" and Dad wants more.
Just how much is child benefit per child?
Is that system being changed anytime soon?
How did we find ourselves in a situation where having that many children is a career decision?
Why do people think of having children as a right to be supported rather than.a personal decision?
On the telebox this evening is a program about large families. On this program there is a family with ten children, living in a large house in what seems like comfortable enough conditions. Through choice, neither works and the family is run off a combo of child benefit and carers/disability (ADHD) benefit. They actively choose to have many children "because we love it" and Dad wants more.
Just how much is child benefit per child?
Is that system being changed anytime soon?
How did we find ourselves in a situation where having that many children is a career decision?
Why do people think of having children as a right to be supported rather than.a personal decision?
Steffan said:
...
My concern is the great unwashed on Benefits in the UK, whom I call The Benefits Society who never bother with work and therefore never need pensions because their every need is provided by the taxpayers come what may, without any need for work. This problem is not being addressed and will not be addressed. The primary reason why the UK government is still massively overborrowing.
Technically isn't the pensions bill the single biggest drain?My concern is the great unwashed on Benefits in the UK, whom I call The Benefits Society who never bother with work and therefore never need pensions because their every need is provided by the taxpayers come what may, without any need for work. This problem is not being addressed and will not be addressed. The primary reason why the UK government is still massively overborrowing.
I agree with you. The people you note above concern me more too. But the financial problem that our govts have positioned us in is so great that we cannot cherry pick.
We as a country need to man up and accept that if we are ever to control our own destiny, it means really, really tough hits. Slash benefits right back to a "survival" rate. Cut pension payouts - no early retirement options. Draw it from 75. Cap what is paid to a "survival" rate.
And start with the pensions of MPs and the public sector.
Then start hitting the other untouchables - health care? Emergency service only. Etc.
We owe over a trillion pounds. And despite some thinking they are going through "austerity" we are adding to that to the tune of 120bn a year. If we cut 220bn a year from the budget (a trifling 30% cut) it would still take over 10yrs to pay off our debts. And the country goes up in arms at minor tweaks to child benefit etc. Pathetic.
(Of course this is all the faul tof the bankers. Without them, everything would have been just fine. Oh yeah).
turbobloke said:
Fittster said:
Well most benefits go to pensioners...
We've been here before, 42% isn't most and that's total benefits for elderly people not just pensions.www.ifs.org.uk/bns/bn13.pdf
See table with percentages on pdf p5.
Attendance Allowance
Disability Living Allowance
Personal Independence Payment
Council tax reductions
Housing benefit
Health benefits
Even when the scroungers do the decent thing they claim one more benefit, Funeral Payments.
Edited by Fittster on Wednesday 27th March 00:31
Fittster said:
turbobloke said:
Fittster said:
Well most benefits go to pensioners...
We've been here before, 42% isn't most and that's total benefits for elderly people not just pensions.www.ifs.org.uk/bns/bn13.pdf
See table with percentages on pdf p5.
Attendance Allowance
Disability Living Allowance
Personal Independence Payment
Council tax reductions
Housing benefit
Health benefits
Even when the scroungers do the decent thing they claim one more benefit, Funeral Payments.
Edited by Fittster on Wednesday 27th March 00:31
Attendance Allowance for retiree aged people only.
DLA for working-age and children only.
PIP replaces DLA (except for the huge number of people being arbitrarily kicked off it)
So any one individual would only get one of the above.
And what is a 'health benefit'?
Puggit said:
Excuse me - only 43% of welfare payments are to people who have paid NI?!
Ok, so there's people receiving welfare who've never worked. But please take a moment to consider WHY they've never worked.Sure, some of them are feckless and the sooner we cut them off the better. But there will also be payments made to people who're born disabled, etc. So we can't really begrudge them not working.
Obv I don't know the full mix of who gets benefits, but my point is that you've wrong to assume that people who've never paid NI are automatically undeserving of help.
Jasandjules said:
Sadly as always those who genuinely need help will likely be denied it (I am trying to persuade a friend to proceed with her DLA Appeal) whilst those who don't will know how to work the system and get all the money going..
This seems to be a common theme. Those who are undeserving make such a noise about things they get help to shut them up, those who are in genuine need are often too proud to tell anyone.
Jasandjules said:
Sadly as always those who genuinely need help will likely be denied it (I am trying to persuade a friend to proceed with her DLA Appeal) whilst those who don't will know how to work the system and get all the money going..
To true.I close friend is unable to do much due to her health. She is bedridden most of the day everyday. Yet can't get a penny from the system.
tim2100 said:
To true.
I close friend is unable to do much due to her health. She is bedridden most of the day everyday. Yet can't get a penny from the system.
Get her (or do it for her, with her permission) to contact the welfare rights officer at her local council.I close friend is unable to do much due to her health. She is bedridden most of the day everyday. Yet can't get a penny from the system.
Edited by Deva Link on Wednesday 27th March 12:06
Terminator X said:
Tis crazy, there is no way the state should be funding families with 10+ kids. Cap it at 2 ffs the sooner the better.
The problem is the laudable ambition that no children should be raised in poverty coming into conflict with the capacity some people have to put themselves and their family into poverty with anthing less than a blank cheque from the state. If you protect them from the consequences of their irresponsible behaviour, some people just get more irresponsible. Ultimately, we will not be able to afford to protect all children from the bad decisions of their idiotic parents.otolith said:
Terminator X said:
Tis crazy, there is no way the state should be funding families with 10+ kids. Cap it at 2 ffs the sooner the better.
The problem is the laudable ambition that no children should be raised in poverty coming into conflict with the capacity some people have to put themselves and their family into poverty with anthing less than a blank cheque from the state. If you protect them from the consequences of their irresponsible behaviour, some people just get more irresponsible. Ultimately, we will not be able to afford to protect all children from the bad decisions of their idiotic parents.That suffering must be the responsibility of the shirkers concerned who fiddle and cheat in preference to working. The taxpayer cannot be the fall guy that they currently are in the UK. It has to stop.
chrisw666 said:
Jasandjules said:
Sadly as always those who genuinely need help will likely be denied it (I am trying to persuade a friend to proceed with her DLA Appeal) whilst those who don't will know how to work the system and get all the money going..
This seems to be a common theme. Those who are undeserving make such a noise about things they get help to shut them up, those who are in genuine need are often too proud to tell anyone.
And then if or when they DO get their courage up to ask for help, they are denied it, either because some bugger has moved the goalposts or because their ATOS assessor lied through their teeth.chrisw666 said:
BoRED S2upid said:
Theres a link to a benefits calculator on the BBC website so we can all see how much worse off we will be. Or not worse off as it turns out.
What is mad is how many different benefits exist. No wonder there is so much deliberate planned fraud involving benefits. The system in common with most of our governments administration is not fit for purpose.
Steffan said:
No wonder there is so much deliberate planned fraud involving benefits. The system in common with most of our governments administration is not fit for purpose.
The one that has always stuck in my mind was a guy in a 1 bed flat who briefly took custody of his child, and was given Child Benefit without having to ever prove the child existed, after his child left he kept adding new kids without anyone questioning him. I think he got to 10 or 12 kids before someone realised he lived in a 1 bed flat on housing benefit.
This wasn't an intelligent or complicated fraud just someone who spotted a weakness in the system.
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