Quote:
Originally Posted by heero_yuy
Gruniad
7% of all the benefits in the world are paid to UK citizens - 30 million receive some sort of state benefit. 
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Looks as though we're in mid-table obscurity to me.
http://www.oecd.org/els/soc/OECD2014...014-8pages.pdf
What happens to this figure if pensions are removed from it?
Would it not be far less misleading to quote figures for working age cash benefits only, given those are the ones the Chancellor is going after with welfare cuts?
Perhaps if wages reflected the cost of living and their increase better reflected increases in productivity in our economy rather than going to the top, and over £20 billion a year weren't being handed to landlords, a fair proportion to help house people who are in work, we'd be in better shape.
Either way a really rather weak attempt to justify policies with an ideological, not practical motive. There are other ways to deal with the bill than welfare cuts.
EDIT: I see the forum humanitarian of the decade being his usual self going by the quotes and advocating aggressive welfare cuts.
Here're some comments from that well-known far-left bleeding heart liberal group the Institute of Economic Affairs indicating that simply cutting tax credits is grossly unfair on those it may affect.
I have no more time for those who can, but won't, work than anyone else. However simply taking a hatchet to the working poor is just cynical and cruel. It's not their fault our economy has spent a few decades pushing wealth upwards, or that it rewards non-productive investment so much more than productive labour, or that their housing costs are extortionate relative to incomes.
If we are going to reduce welfare we absolutely must make work pay via a combination of taking those on minimum wage out of both income tax and pretend National Insurance, aka income tax 2nd edition, and we must ensure costs of living and wages better reflect one another. In-work welfare should not exist. That it does indicates that our private sector is taking the taxpayer for a ride and that we as a country have failed to make work pay.