The Labour Government

The Northern Baptist said:
I want to share some figures to show what some people get. I work in a industry where I see what people get. An example from the other day.

You have a claimant on ESA, Housing Benefit and Pip. She has never worked in her life. She has an adult daughter living with her, aged 23, never worked and on UC and Pip. Her youngest daughter just came out of college, she is on UC now as well, along with PIP. My guess is she’ll never see the inside of a workplace either.

I totted up what they all got a month. It came to around £4400. Renting in a northern town.

What does this equate to? It’s the tax receipts of 7 average earners. It’s the same someone on about £75k gets.

Completely unsustainable.
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What sort of industry has access to so much personal data? You have access to peoples personal health records?

Surely that is illegal under the data protection act?
 
Rascal said:
What sort of industry has access to so much personal data? You have access to peoples personal health records?

Surely that is illegal under the data protection act?
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You don’t believe these figures and that this situation can exist?

Deal with the issue at hand, that is generations of the same family being too ill to work. We need to find the root cause and help these people.
 
The Northern Baptist said:
I want to share some figures to show what some people get. I work in a industry where I see what people get. An example from the other day.

You have a claimant on ESA, Housing Benefit and Pip. She has never worked in her life. She has an adult daughter living with her, aged 23, never worked and on UC and Pip. Her youngest daughter just came out of college, she is on UC now as well, along with PIP. My guess is she’ll never see the inside of a workplace either.

I totted up what they all got a month. It came to around £4400. Renting in a northern town.

What does this equate to? It’s the tax receipts of 7 average earners. It’s the same someone on about £75k gets.

Completely unsustainable.
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I genuinely believe that something needs to be done, given the rise in claimants - but that's because no decent society should accept a situation where, for example, there are 5 times as many people who can't work in some parts of the country compared with others. That's society failing those people, and arguing that we should just stick with the status quo is cruel.

However, I don't think you're right to compare the three people you're discussing, to a £75k earner. That makes it sound like they're rich.

If it's £4400 total, then that's about £17.6k each, which is equivalent to them earning £19.5k a year before tax. That's quite a lot less than minimum wage for a 37.5 hour a week job (which is over £22k).

So, you've got three people, with disabilities, who each have less money that someone on a full time minimum wage job. Knowing nothing about their disabilities, I would say that seems reasonable, rather than unsustainable.
 
ganganvince said:
My Mum wouldn't claim attendance allowance for years took Reeves taking her WFA allowance to make her do it.
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My parents and mil were the same until I eventually put claims in for them all around 2009, they were all well into their 80s by then and felt like they didn't deserve. All brought up before the welfare state took over.

Anyone who is genuinely disabled should claim.
 
bluenova said:
I genuinely believe that something needs to be done, given the rise in claimants - but that's because no decent society should accept a situation where, for example, there are 5 times as many people who can't work in some parts of the country compared with others. That's society failing those people, and arguing that we should just stick with the status quo is cruel.

However, I don't think you're right to compare the three people you're discussing, to a £75k earner. That makes it sound like they're rich.

If it's £4400 total, then that's about £17.6k each, which is equivalent to them earning £19.5k a year before tax. That's quite a lot less than minimum wage for a 37.5 hour a week job (which is over £22k).

So, you've got three people, with disabilities, who each have less money that someone on a full time minimum wage job. Knowing nothing about their disabilities, I would say that seems reasonable, rather than unsustainable.
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That’s a very reasonable position to take. I have highlighted the figures to show what it costs the tax payer though.

Yes, we don’t know what the disabilities relate to. But there will be (many) instances where we could have prevented the next generation getting into the workforce. That is where the failure comes.
 
The Northern Baptist said:
That’s a very reasonable position to take. I have highlighted the figures to show what it costs the tax payer though.

Yes, we don’t know what the disabilities relate to. But there will be (many) instances where we could have prevented the next generation getting into the workforce. That is where the failure comes.
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I do think it's depressing that what I'd see as typical of the Tories (in the last 14 years, and during the 80s), of leaving huge swathes of the country behind, seems to have caused such a dilemma for the left.

A country where the rich are getting richer, and they simply throw a little charity to the "hopeless", yet ignore their lives, or fail to offer them the opportunity for anything better, seems to be a few hundred years out of date.
 
The Northern Baptist said:
No, because the increase in benefit claims such as ESA and PIP are all working age benefits. Take a look at some of the plots in the following link, look at the increases and look how poorly we compare to peer countries.

ifs.org.uk

Health-related benefit claims post-pandemic: UK trends and global context | Institute for Fiscal Studies

How do post-COVID claimants of health-related benefits compare with pre-COVID claimants? Where in the UK are they? How do other countries compare?
ifs.org.uk ifs.org.uk

There are towns and cities where 40% of the working population are too sick to work!!

www.centreforcities.org

The UK’s army of hidden unemployed people - Centre for Cities

www.centreforcities.org www.centreforcities.org
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The centre for cities publication is interesting in saying that there is an army of hidden workers in northern towns. Unsurprisingly one of the reasons for this is the years of London centric investment, leading to fewer jobs and significantly less high value jobs in the north compared to the south. The more jobs you have on minimum wage, relative to those paying higher salaries, the more people you are likely to have not wanting to work as there is little financial incentive by comparison to being on benefits.

The favourite politicians go to term of "levelling up" should be dealing with this but instead all we get are big visions and no budget. Meanwhile if the project is in the south, money appears to be no object.
 
Dave Ewing's Back 'eader said:
I wonder how long I'll have to wait to hear the news that HMG fills part of the fiscal hole by trimming back MP's expenses and totally removing civil servants' credit cards.
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12th of Never.

And include in that local authority Chief Exec salaries and associated pension costs. Plenty for that but sweet fa for adult social care and pot hole repairs.
 
bluenova said:
I do think it's depressing that what I'd see as typical of the Tories (in the last 14 years, and during the 80s), of leaving huge swathes of the country behind, seems to have caused such a dilemma for the left.

A country where the rich are getting richer, and they simply throw a little charity to the "hopeless", yet ignore their lives, or fail to offer them the opportunity for anything better, seems to be a few hundred years out of date.
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People talk about going back to Victorian times but social and earnings mobility was pretty good in the late Victorian era and probably better than it is now!

The Overton window has shifted so much I'm not sure left and right actually has much meaning anymore. Basically what mainstream party is prepared to tackle wealth concentration and inequality? The Tories and Reform will make it worse as part of policy. Labour seem to be split between the complicit and the impotent, I suspect Lib Dems would be the same. Maybe the Greens?

It does feel like we need an alternative to vote for before we all head off the cliff face. Any restraint the super rich have shown in previous decades has gone completely. They are acting with impunity and in some cases actively trolling the rest of us. There needs to be some sort of correction because without it we're heading to societal breakdown and arguably we're already in that process.
 
On Facebook earlier and one of the newspapers had something on about PIP.
Someone had commented that they get pip as they struggle to work because of a physical disability.
Their (recent) profile picture was them at the top of a mountain.

Absolutely no way that over 8% of the working age population should be getting a financial benefit due to a disability.
 
threespires said:
People talk about going back to Victorian times but social and earnings mobility was pretty good in the late Victorian era and probably better than it is now!

The Overton window has shifted so much I'm not sure left and right actually has much meaning anymore. Basically what mainstream party is prepared to tackle wealth concentration and inequality? The Tories and Reform will make it worse as part of policy. Labour seem to be split between the complicit and the impotent, I suspect Lib Dems would be the same. Maybe the Greens?

It does feel like we need an alternative to vote for before we all head off the cliff face. Any restraint the super rich have shown in previous decades has gone completely. They are acting with impunity and in some cases actively trolling the rest of us. There needs to be some sort of correction because without it we're heading to societal breakdown and arguably we're already in that process.
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Recent increases in the wealth of the rich are directly explainable by property prices. We seem to think that the resources of the country are all being redirected to the rich but that's false. Everyone always mixes up profits/cash with assets.

I see a lot of people on this forum for example say that companies are making record profits and the rich are taking poor people to the cleaners but this is again false. To prove this look at GDP, GDP growth is currently almost 0% so there is just zero evidence of some massive profiteering. The truth is most businesses are struggling to grow at all and you can't grow without profits so there must be no profits.

The real reason why income inequality is increasing is because the country isn't growing whilst physical asset values continue to increase massively. Therefore certainly something like an asset tax (on asset value, not sales) should be looked at, especially on property (not just houses) and especially in the south.
 
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We all know of someone whose getting PIP who probably doesn't deserve it, who's playing the system. However yesterday's announcement in the new criteria to care the care component will absolutely devastate disabled people like myself. I get enhanced for both care and mobility, I score lots of 3's in the care section but no 4's, meaning I stand to lose a minimum of £108 a week. My condition will steadily deteriorate as it's muscle wastage so I'm never getting better. How can they judge me to be disabled today but not say in 12 months.
 
inbetween said:
Recent increases in the wealth of the rich are directly explainable by property prices. We seem to think that the resources of the country are all being redirected to the rich but that's false. Everyone always mixes up profits/cash with assets.

I see a lot of people on this forum for example say that companies are making record profits and the rich are taking poor people to the cleaners but this is again false. To prove this look at GDP, GDP growth is currently almost 0% so there is just zero evidence of some massive profiteering. The truth is most businesses are struggling to grow at all and you can't grow without profits so actually there aren't really any profits.

The real reason why income inequality is increasing is because the country isn't growing whilst physical asset values continue to increase massively. Therefore certainly something like an asset tax (on asset value, not sales) should be looked at, especially on property (not just houses) and especially in the south.
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I possibly should have been more specific, I wasn't suggesting companies are wholesale rinsing employees/consumers etc or at least that's not the fundamental issue albeit clearly profiteering took place during the pandemic etc. I'm talking about the passively generated asset driven wealth (including but not exclusively property) of the very very wealthy. My point was Labour titting about with stuff like NIC is not going to do anything meaningful but wealth/asset taxes could, but it's a politically and technically difficult challenge that they won't face into. I think we are agreeing?
 
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bluegray said:
We all know of someone whose getting PIP who probably doesn't deserve it, who's playing the system. However yesterday's announcement in the new criteria to care the care component will absolutely devastate disabled people like myself. I get enhanced for both care and mobility, I score lots of 3's in the care section but no 4's, meaning I stand to lose a minimum of £108 a week. My condition will steadily deteriorate as it's muscle wastage so I'm never getting better. How can they judge me to be disabled today but not say in 12 months.
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The crux of the problem is that the genuinely disabled will always try to downplay their disability, whereas the people playing the system will aways over exaggerate theirs.

Unless it goes back to the claimant’s actual GP giving the evidence, any attempt to cut disability benefits will affect the genuinely infirm far more than the ones playing the system.
 
BrianW said:
One factor is that this is a low-wage economy, and many people top up their wages with Universal Credit and/or Housing Benefit. My argument is that these benefits are not really for the claimant. They are corporate welfare for employers and landlords.

I read today that the average person is only 7% better in real terms than in 1970. Where the (really rich) elite are up by thousands of a per cent. While I haven't checked the source, I find it easy to believe.

The 1% are laughing at us. The sad thing is they have the support of millions on middling incomes who imagine they are rich.
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Nailed the issue right there.
 
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