Isn’t £29k UK average household income?
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Er, no. I haven’t said anything like that
Define “those in need”. If you blow all your money on fast-food and weekend breaks, are you in need? If you are not financially able to support children, but decide to have a large family, are you in need? It was a critical point welfare was created in the 1900’s, and is still an issue today.
Also, is the way that its done today the best way? Is giving cash to vulnerable people, or the fiscally uneducated, the best idea? Companies like Ladbrokes and Brighthouse are built on this idea.
- Prevent cash payments and limit credit. This will help prevent companies like Brighthouse and pay-day loans from taking advantage of people.
- Introduce food stamps, with restrictions e.g. No alcohol. Whether it’s cause and effect, research has shown poorer parts of society are more likely to fall under the influence of drugs and alcohol.
- Have welfare as a benefit, not as an inalienable right. Commit any sort of crime, no benefits for 6 months. 2nd crime? No more benefits. (I’m also for the proven-to-work notion of the 3 strike rule).
- Have a time-cap on benefits. Whether it’s 2 years of 5, I wouldn’t know, but something should be done to prevent lifetime benefits. Got to have a stick and carrot. At the moment, it’s all carrot.
- If you conceive while on welfare, that family is exempt from receiving any for that child. The taxpayer shouldn’t pay for someone to have a family.
5ii. For new mothers, all state-paid items should be recycled and sent out to other mothers. Having watched drug dealers and teenagers receive brand new prams etc through welfare, while working people had to make do with charity store items, this current policy is less than fair. - Remove tax credits. Companies simply should pay more to their workers. Being bailed out by the government is absurd.
That’s the jist of it.
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Do you think that those categories of people are the only ones on benefits? You paint a very very narrow picture of what the welfare pot is used for/ on and makes you come across very privileged and ignorant to what some people may have to/ have gone through.
If someone who is disabled cannot work because of their disability and therefore vulnerable we shouldn’t give them money? Through no fault of their own they could have a disability but they are supposed to “get on with it” and “tough it out” because otherwise its “all carrot”?
There are too many assumptions made through your personal opinions as to how the welfare state is currently run and that’s clear by way of your 5 point welfare strategy.
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That’s a loaded question - the point of those examples was to get the poster to think about what “in need” actually means. It’s not clear cut. How would you define it?
Define vulnerable, and explain why cash is the best idea. Should we give cash to people with mental disabilities? They may not be able to work, but cash certainly isn’t going to help someone who may have little concept of finance.
Unfortunately, you seem to the one making a lot of assumptions. You haven’t defined at all what vulnerable means, but assume it is someone who is fiscally aware.
Granted, i’m no expert, but they are all based on personal experiences I’ve seen in the system, having grown up and lived in areas notorious for widespread and systematic abuse of welfare.
These two are particularly bad.
The former would increase the welfare bill (if you take away people’s flexibility to spend how they need then you have to give them vouchers of a higher value to ensure they’re adequately covered, plus it’d add additional operating costs by introducing what is effectively a second currency that shops have to take). Additionally you’d just create a secondary grey market where people would resell the products they can buy with stamps for a lesser value than the original purchase price, additionally impoverishing them.
And the latter is backwards. If someone produces £10 of value per hour for a company and the government insists they have to be paid £20 per hour then you simply destroy that job. If society (via the government) decides that someone morally deserves £20 per hour then its the job of government to top them up to that rate.
I agree it isn’t clear cut but you can’t manage how those who receive benefits spend it. Just the same as you can’t manage how I spend my wages - you can make an objective criteria for who obtains benefits, but not how they spend it. They’re two different things unfortunately.
Welfare isn’t just cash though is it? It is the wider spectrum of looking after those who need it (agreed we then get into the debate of who “needs” it). But someone who has mental disabilities shouldn’t be thrown to the fire because of that. They will still need cash to buy things, because you have mental disabilities doesn’t mean that cash becomes irrelevant.
The only assumption I have made is that people still need and can make use of money no matter what level of vulnerability they are - I don’t assume fiscal awareness but money doesn’t lose value because of someone’s vulnerability.
That’s exactly my point, you are allowing your personal experiences to infer your idea of a welfare state - your experiences may very well be the exception and not the rule. So to base the criteria and procedure on your experiences is unfair for those who do not fit your idea of someone living within the system.
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It’s always a hot topic on how the Government spends it’s money…
People want better services… but they don’t want to pay for it, or they believe it’s better to keep throwing money at how things are currently run to make them better, when the result often leads to inefficiencies and wasted public money.
Ideal situation would be to hit the big red stop button and start again… but where do you begin, which model do you follow… you’ll never please everyone.
Although from my perspective… I’d follow the German model for Social security
Ever read this?
Was one of the more interesting takes on solving a benefit issue.
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Nope, haven’t… might save it for my next holiday/business trip…
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I’ll have to disagree there due to the fundamental nature of wages vs. welfare. If you want to spend all your wages on Football cards, that should be your right as you have earned that money through work. Welfare however should be regulated as it is not a substitute for wages. Freedom of spending should not apply as it is designed as a last-resort measure, not a replacement.
Completely agree. I think welfare for the physically and mentally disabled should be vastly improved if anything; victims of bad luck should be cushioned, victims of poor decisions should not.
Not true if you suffer from a debilitating mental illness. Anything ranging from severe autism to bipolar disease and personality disorders can result in limited capacity to handle money.
Maybe, but it’s a moot point. The suggestions I made should be based on the merit of if they improve the fairness of the system rather than the cash return. Murder impacts few people, but it’s still a crime ¯_(ツ)_/¯
But then you are dictating what people are to spend their benefits on, how do you regulate that? How does someone come up with the procedure for that? If someone on benefits manages to save £15 a week until they can go on holiday or have a meal out, should they not be able to because they’re on benefits? They’re still people who should be able to do the same things as others and not be prescribed to a certain way of life because they don’t receive a wage but receive benefits.
I agree and disagree, people can make poor decisions/ mistakes and turn around from it - sometimes they need help to do so - should we forsake everyone that has ever made a bad decision?
Handling money and needing to make use of money are separate things - someone with severe Autism doesn’t forgo the need to ever buy things again - their spending may very well be done on their behalf/ by proxy
I may have to disagree that your suggestions are “fair”.
I’m not sure what this adds…
It’s this all-too-familiar, all too frequent fallacy pedalled by the rich that makes everyone else blame immigrants and poor people when times are hard. I’d counter that and argue that welfare spending isn’t high enough; that taxes aren’t high enough, particularly for those earing 6-figure salaries.
- The average house is 10x the average salary;
- Shops are closing in their hundreds every week (therefore jobs are being lost)
- Public sector spending has been flat or falling since 2008
- Universal credit has has turned our city centres into shanty towns - people with a few weeks to live told they’re fit to work.
- If governments don’t spend, their contractors go under, therefore more jobs are lost.
Everything ties back to the 2008 crash, the sub-prime mortgage market and the bubble it created. It was never immigration, it was never the poor or the sick, but the boneheaded policy of austerity. We now have public debt over 110% of our GDP, double what it was in 2008.
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In the day and age of digital banking, this could easily be done. Look at Monzo! 
And yes, I believe while on welfare, if the person is capable of work, all luxuries should be suspended. Welfare is there in order for someone to get back on their feet, not to travel abroad, or have a meal out.
And welfare could still do that, but can definitely be reigned in.
Laws are made on what is fair and considered just, not done on the utilitarian thinking that it must impact many before it is considered.
Taxing people who are already giving at least 40% of their earnings to the state is ridiculous. These people are not only the least like to cost the state money - private healthcare, no chance of welfare claims etc - but they are also the most geographically fluid. Tax them enough and they’ll simply, and easily, move abroad.
Shops closing has nothing to do with 6 figure earners, but everything to do with the average person deciding to purchase online as its cheaper, due to less staff outgoings and less property rent.
Local authorities have received less money, but the actual budget has increased YoY.
Universal credit has nothing to do with that. It’s again an expense issue.
The government doesn’t have contractors…That’s not how the tender system works.
Everything doesn’t tie back to 2008. It stretches back to the 70’s and has been the product of both Conservative and Labour policies. Also immigration definitely has played a part in the problem, but as part of a population issue. More people while a housing shortage is ongoing will result in even greater demand over supply, increasing living costs.
There’s no shortage of housing, they’re just not being lived in…
This just seems mad to begin to regulate what people can and can’t spend money on - it sounds like something out of 1984.
I agree, but that doesn’t appear to what you are advocating for.
This still doesn’t add anything? What is fair to you is a completely subjective view-point and in some areas doesn’t address the wider issues.
I’ll leave it here as I don’t think there is much more that can be said and are going around in circles.
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If only that was the situation. There is a massive housing crisis. Not enough homes have been build since the 80’s: https://www.theguardian.com/money/2015/jan/12/the-housing-crisis-in-charts
Handing out free money without any limitations to the way it can be used would seem like staggering stupidity to a lot of cultures. Controlling it is simply sensible.
My point is that the idea that if a change doesn’t impact many people it shouldn’t be done, doesn’t hold true with how laws and legislation are determined.
I’d say it was dystopian.
All this is doing is putting the blame onto the most vulnerable in society, playing into the hands of the people who caused this mess in the first place.
As a carer who has had to help someone through the benefits system, it’s already a degrading, unfair system as it is. The PIP process assumes that you can complete a 30-odd page, invasive application form by hand and that you can get yourself to one of their processing centres.
If you can’t write because your hands shake so much; if you have memory or mental health problems; if you have nobody to help you through the process, you’ve had it.
Meanwhile, capital remains in the hands of those who already have a surplus of it; the middle class continues to be hollowed out and; the safety net continues to be eroded, aided and abetted by people who have been told to blame the most vulnerable.
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In a country where education is free, and most people have access to Google, it’s hard to claim it’s the governments fault if someone is on benefits. If someone is medically unable to fill in the paperwork, then yes, they should unquestionably be given help. But I fail to see how being on welfare = fault of the government.