Quote:
Originally Posted by danielf
It should also be noted that £21k is pretty much the median full time salary (before tax) in the UK. For the uninitiated: this means that 50% of the people in full time employment in the UK earn less than £21k. I consider myself firmly left of centre, but I cannot see any justification for benefits of that order being paid out to a family just because they have lots of children and live in an expensive area. It's a travesty...
Why should anyone be paid benefits so they can live in an area they could not afford if they were working? What incentive is there for these people to get back into work? As Ig says: it's an insult to the 50% of the UK population that earn less than that. Given the levels of deprivation that we have in the UK we really have worthier causes to spend this money on.
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for what its worth I do think child related benefits are too generous, their needs to be a cap on number of children it will add support for.
in regards to housing costs there also needs to be a limit but it needs to be sensible, eg. the tories plan to have local housing allowance be set to the average of the bottom 30% of rents, that is not realistic. Simply setting as the average is enough it will cut off the most expensive places still.
---------- Post added at 01:47 ---------- Previous post was at 01:44 ----------
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ignitionnet
It being so late I'm feeling rather lyrical.
Welfare is a safety net, to catch people when they fall and stop them hitting the ground. It must never be a trampoline that puts people in places they wouldn't normally go.
Housing Benefit is the big thing here. Some who previously made 300GBP/week couldn't have afforded 400GBP/week rent, why should they be able to live in a property of that cost when others are paying for it for them?
As a disclaimer though I think that benefits such as HB and JSA for the unemployed should be paid as a sunsetting % of the previous 2 years income prior to becoming unemployed and this fund should be ringfenced, that way at least some of an individual's taxes feel more like an 'insurance' and less like throwing money into a bottomless pit and people neither gain nor lose massively from spending a brief period on welfare, with the sunsetting encouraging a return to work sooner rather than later.
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NI is supposedbly like that in that if you fall ill eg. the government will take care of you with IB(ESA) but as we have learned with that they dont like to keep their word, will take the taxes but renegade on their side of the deal.
If I understand you right you propose JSA is paid out at a level based on previous income? (sort of like france) and also capped to 2 years? currently JSA is capped at 6 months if contribution based.