Cable Forum - View Single Post - The state benefits system mega-thread.

**Chris** · 01-04-2013, 13:03

You're putting the cart before the horse. Frank Field made this argument at the end of the 90s but Liebour chose to open the immigration floodgates, depress wages as a result (wage levels being a function of supply and demand, just the same as everything else) and silence the non-working indigenous population with benefits. Now it's coming home to roost but the Left seems unable to recognise the contradiction at the heart of its argument. If you keep benefit levels up, then you simultaneously disincentivise a certain part of the population from working at all, while also subsidising low wages through the tax credit system.

IDS's reforms so far are aimed at making work more attractive than worklessness. They have also - slowly - begun to erode the real terms value of in-work benefits. We are on a very long haul here, but where we need to get to is a situation where welfare helps those that cannot help themselves and provides incentives to those that can, with a nudge in the right direction.

01-04-2013, 13:03	#5
Chris Trollsplatter Cable Forum Team Join Date: Jun 2003 Location: North of Watford Services: Humane elimination of all common Internet pests Posts: 36,904	Re: Poor affected - The Rich not affected again - why? You're putting the cart before the horse. Frank Field made this argument at the end of the 90s but Liebour chose to open the immigration floodgates, depress wages as a result (wage levels being a function of supply and demand, just the same as everything else) and silence the non-working indigenous population with benefits. Now it's coming home to roost but the Left seems unable to recognise the contradiction at the heart of its argument. If you keep benefit levels up, then you simultaneously disincentivise a certain part of the population from working at all, while also subsidising low wages through the tax credit system. IDS's reforms so far are aimed at making work more attractive than worklessness. They have also - slowly - begun to erode the real terms value of in-work benefits. We are on a very long haul here, but where we need to get to is a situation where welfare helps those that cannot help themselves and provides incentives to those that can, with a nudge in the right direction.