News article on Poverty

[BoredBloke]

Moaning about the cyclical state of the contracting market is a different thing to giving up work entirely to live off benefits. Out of work contractors subsidise themselves. Even if there were no more contracting work there would still be better options than scrounging.

Agree 100%. When I have been out of work and moaned about the market it tends to be that I'm going to have to take a pay cut, not that I'm going to sit an my @rse all day watching my mates on Jeremy Kyle.

[Churchill]

Agree 100%. When I have been out of work and moaned about the market it tends to be that I'm going to have to take a pay cut, not that I'm going to sit an my @rse all day watching my mates on Jeremy Kyle.

That's 'coz you 'as nicked a video, innit?

[Peoplesoft bloke]

......

Better way is to simplify the system - as Maggie did.

In what way did she simplify the benefits system? I must have missed that.

[Peoplesoft bloke]

We need to do it here in the UK ASAP. Only the Tories would have to do it though as New Lie would be hurting most of their voters.

Where is your evidence for this? Or have you just made that assumption like every other Tory on here who keeps chanting it without reference to any factual data?

[DieScum]

I started a thread about poverty int he UK on another forum. I basically said that I don't think poverty in the UK exists, that everyone is guaranteed a minimum subsistence income, plus health care, schooling, social housing if required.

It is a fairly left leaning invite only forum for which I have been a member for about a decade.

I have received a warning for "trolling".

[Churchill]

I started a thread about poverty int he UK on another forum. I basically said that I don't think poverty in the UK exists, that everyone is guaranteed a minimum subsistence income, plus health care, schooling, social housing if required.

It is a fairly left leaning invite only forum for which I have been a member for about a decade.

I have received a warning for "trolling".

Which "moderator" was it this time?

[HairyArsedBloke]

...I don't think poverty in the UK exists, that everyone is guaranteed a minimum subsistence income, plus health care, schooling, social housing if required..

This is not entirely true; especial the social housing which is not available for single people in general and single men in particular.

[TimberWolf]

This is like the Hitchikers Gukde To The Galaxy where you ask for an answer without defining a question. i.e poverty is a word that needs to be defined before you can answer questions about it

But doing this might spoil 99.99% of arguments.

[IR35 Avoider]

One of my friends has a theory, which is way too radical to ever be implemented. Everybody, man woman and child, in the country, gets a benefit of a fixed amount per week, say £60 - since it's not means tested, you lose all the costly state apparatus for dispensing it. This replaces all the income supports and dole money, and all tax breaks. Those who want to skive can do so. Those who want to work a little to supplement it, can do so. Those who want to earn a lot can work hard, and still get the benefit of the safety net.

I concluded a strategy like this would be best, and I've seen the same conclusion mentioned in passing in a think tank paper on introducing a flat tax. I've also seen this advocated in one of the many "popular economics" books I've read in recent years. The writer in that case was American, but he did talk about the UK system and was in favour of redistribution, and as an economist he reckoned this was the most sensible way to achieve redistribution.

I haven't fully crunched the numbers, but I think it is far more affordable than most people realise. I did calculate that you could set the "standard income" at a reasonable level and get virtually all the money you needed from reduction in funding to other benefits that would become obsolete, with the money for most workers coming from removing the personal allowance for taxpayers (thus simultaneuously simplifying the tax system.) (I think I may also have assumed an increase in the basic rate of tax, as I was thinking in terms of a flat tax system.)

In short, you give people say £60 a week basic income, then tax everything they earn at a single rate. Extremely simple to administer, no need to track employment status.

Another big implied change, is that benefits are now on an individual rather than household basis. So instead of a huge financial incentive for people to live apart, there is a huge incentive for them to live together, to share costs.

[dmini]

There used to be a major issue with benefits - in that for every £ you earned, you could end up losing more than that, at certain levels of earnings. It was an issue in the 80's when I left uni - and its still an issue now, to my knowledge. When I was on the dole for 6 months, if I earned over £4 I lost pound for pound on that alone. Take into account other benefits people could be on, for rent etc - I was at home - and you get a big issue. One person working in a pre-school round here had to restrict her hours - as if she went over a certain amount of earnings she lost far more than she could earn. It was a fine balancing act for her.
Also you have the issue of if your hours vary week to week, sometimes working and sometimes not, then you can end up with them stopping everything every so often, whilst you change onto a "different" benefit.
Until you can sort that mess out, you cannot get rid of the issue.
And before anyone decides to have a name calling session for me being on the dole - I was in Yorkshire - in the 80s and applied for EVERY job I could for 9 months before I finally got a permanent job - and only managed to get 2 temp jobs in that time. It was tough and demoralising