David Cameron suggests cutting housing benefit for under-25s

[doodab]

"The fact that 25% of working people cannot afford to pay" What does this mean? is it the "lead in" to justify whatever point you are making? Is it a statement to illicit a guilt reaction to make us think that you have the moral high ground?

It means that 25% of people with jobs cannot afford to pay their rent. It's not the lead in to anything, or designed to make you feel guilty, it's a simple fact. It's also a fact that most of the recent increases in the housing benefit bill are down to working claimants, not the feckless lazy people with a sense of entitlement that you seem to think. If you want a reduced housing benefit bill then that is something you need to change.

What is interesting is how you have tried to move the debate from arguing about the desirability of paying benefits to people to not work onto the availability of benefits as a "fill in support" between jobs. You have completely ignored in true left wing fashion the underlying problem of people living off benefits. I have argued that any form of benefit disincentivises people, but I will cede that in a civilised society such as ours not only must we look after those who genuinely cannot easily find work (terminally ill/severly disabled) but we must help those who are caught on hard times. The caveat is that this has to be paid for by someone else and money paid to people "not to work" is dead money, again something that the "money on trees" brigade conveniently forget.

What is interesting is that is that I haven't ignored the underlying problem at all, I've tried to point out repeatedly that to reduce dependence on benefits you need to not only make claiming less attractive but make working more attractive. Unfortunately you are so blinded by your obsession with labelling me a leftie that you haven't actually understood what I'm saying at all.

This individual has also started a diatribe of cliche ridden garbage about "living wages" and "cannot afford". I am sorry but indulging people in this way is simply ridiculous. If they cannot afford to live for example in London then move somewhere else. This is how economies rebalance themselves and how wealth is spread around. Also these people talk about job provision as if jobs are somehow conjured up out of thin air. They are not. Jobs are not being created because we as a society are instead choosing to spend money on paying people to not work instead of creating a climate of job creation. We are choosing to heap ridiculous job prevention laws and we are telling people that if they work hard most of their money will be taxed (to spend on welfare).

The point I am making is that we are providing a clear message to people that if they work hard they still won't have enough money to make ends meet. How in your myopic worldview does telling them that it's just tough tulip and they have to move away from their families, friends and roots provide them with an incentive? How does being forced to move away from the south east to somewhere with worse employment prospects achieve anything? Who will do all of the tulipty low paid jobs in London?

It really isn't about "indulging" individuals. It's about looking at the big picture and realising that after a decade of debt fuelled property price and rent inflation with little real wage inflation, we have a situation where a sizeable minority of employed people cannot afford to live without state aid and that clearly isn't a sustainable way to run an economy. You can take umbrage at my terminology if you like but you aren't going to get those people off benefits unless the cost of living comes down or their non-benefit income goes up.

Looked at another way, tax credits and benefits paid to working people are nothing less than a state subsidy artificially depressing wages. So yes, I agree we need a "climate of job creation", but we need to avoid a situation where jobs are so low paid that the people that take them need handouts in order to survive. That is what I mean by paying a "living wage", because like you I believe that people should be able to support themselves if they are prepared to work.

It is a vicious circle and we cannot have it both ways. As manufacturing and IT are shipped off shore we remain hostage to the left wing idiots and their "entitlement". They want to maintain this welfare state because it patches up the failings of the rest of the useless left wing institutions (The Euro, the state education system, the welfare industry, public sector in general) and it makes these left wing liberals feel smug about themselves. One thing is for sure is that they dont give a sh*t about the people caught in the benefits trap.

Mate, just for once, try moving beyond the simplistic left vs right game of noughts and crosses in your head and start looking at the actual world the rest of us live in. I'm sure you find it convenient to dismiss everyone who disagrees with you as a lefty and therefore an idiot but the world is a lot more nuanced than that.

I will accept that it is desirable for this country to make it as comfortable as possible for people on low wages to live and I thus endorse the building of "social housing". I also believe that the public services should be made to perform for lower earners by subjecting them to consumer style competition instead of pandering to their monopolies and allowing them to deliver services on their terms rather than those of the consumer.

So why can't you accept that it's undesirable, from anyone's perspective, that people on low wages are so much poorer than everybody else that they need helping out?

[doodab]

There are many workers in this situation who are perfectly aware of their circumstances who are quite capable of working it out for themselves.

Yes, I know. The poster I replied to seemed blissfully unaware however.

Also they are perfectly capable of moving up the job ladder to earn more.

You need to consider the aggregate. It stands to reason that if a proportion of jobs don't pay enough to survive on then however hard particular individuals compete for better jobs, there will still be a proportion of people who end up with the low paid ones.

Or are you suggesting that they should be taken out of work and paid more to sit at home?

No, I'm not, and you know damn well that I'm not.

[Robinho]

Not at all, I'd be glad to see rents and house prices fall. I think house price and rent inflation, coupled with the failure of wages to keep pace, particularly for the low paid, has resulted in a large increase in the number of working people claiming housing benefit to the point where something like 25% of working households claim housing benefit. Which brings me back to the point that you need jobs that provide a living wage. The fact that 25% of working people can't afford to pay their rent is a pretty damning statistic IMO.

The root cause of this is bad government IMO. We've had 20 years of it.

Replace the word bad with big and you have the answer.

[DodgyAgent]

Replace the word bad with big and you have the answer.

You can see where the bleeding heart liberalism comes from. We have infront of us a diatribe of "feeling sorry" for sections of the lower paid. What happens? the liberals then step in with a benefit here, a tax credit there and a patronising desire to interfere. The unintended consequence with this continual interference is to condemn millions to lives on benefit and make employing people very difficult for private sector employers. The other consequence is to make government bigger.

It is a self perpetuating cycle. The more they interfere and the more they pay in benefits the less incentive there is for others to set up businesses and the more people come to rely on benefits. There will come a point when the state takes everything.

Why dont they just get on with what they are supposed to do and run a decent public sector before interfering with everyone else.

[Robinho]

Well, yes, but my argument was that the best way to achieve this was to structure the economy in such a way as to ensure that working results in people earning a living wage. The blackshirts unfortunately seem to disagree and think everything would be much nicer if slavery had never been abolished. I'm surprised DA thinks like that to be honest, cos his profits are going to take a hammering if his contractors are bringing in 15% of nothing. I suspect he seeks to reinvent himself as a slave trader.

The best and only way is to lower taxes, regulations and spending so the economy thrives and the demand for work increases for all which drives up wages. There is no reason in modern times why a person cannot earn a liveable wage.

[Robinho]

You can see where the bleeding heart liberalism comes from. We have infront of us a diatribe of "feeling sorry" for sections of the lower paid. What happens? the liberals then step in with a benefit here, a tax credit there and a patronising desire to interfere. The unintended consequence with this continual interference is to condemn millions to lives on benefit and make employing people very difficult for private sector employers. The other consequence is to make government bigger.

It is a self perpetuating cycle. The more they interfere and the more they pay in benefits the less incentive there is for others to set up businesses and the more people come to rely on benefits. There will come a point when the state takes everything.

Why dont they just get on with what they are supposed to do and run a decent public sector before interfering with everyone else.

We are in a bad situation where we have been living beyond our means for years and have been increasing benefits to people that under normal circumstances could not be justified. Now we are in a position where we have to revoke these benefits but the left are going to resist with full fury, and the economical backlash will lead them to demand more benefits to protect themselves.

The idea that we are currently going through austerity is laughable. The Tories are stupid for trumpeting that and diminishing market confidence, whilst at the same time not cutting to anywhere near the necessary degree.

[DodgyAgent]

We are in a bad situation where we have been living beyond our means for years and have been increasing benefits to people that under normal circumstances could not be justified. Now we are in a position where we have to revoke these benefits but the left are going to resist with full fury, and the economical backlash will lead them to demand more benefits to protect themselves.

The idea that we are currently going through austerity is laughable. The Tories are stupid for trumpeting that and diminishing market confidence, whilst at the same time not cutting to anywhere near the necessary degree.

Quite

[TimberWolf]

I wonder what we'd save if we let Scotland and Wales go independent? When I say 'let', I mean a make a small investment into advertising/propaganda/pay-offs, so that they vote for it themselves. Of course that might have the unfortunate consequence of no more Scottish Prime Minsters or Labour being voted in again.

[darmstadt]

Why dont they just get on with what they are supposed to do and run a decent public sector before interfering with everyone else.

Sadly the public sector no longer exists due to 'get rich, pay less' principles fobbed on to the populace by right wing governments and elected officials. Now we have outsourcing, the PFI and other countless privitisation efforts which although run by corporations are paid for by your taxes.

[DodgyAgent]

Sadly the public sector no longer exists due to 'get rich, pay less' principles fobbed on to the populace by right wing governments and elected officials. Now we have outsourcing, the PFI and other countless privitisation efforts which although run by corporations are paid for by your taxes.

It is nothing to do with "right wing" .It is a sad phenomenon that governments are so inept at running anything that they have to let public services be run by private enterprise. The disaster is brought about by the absence of competition.

One only has to look at the incompetence of the left wing's grip on public services to realise that private sector is the lesser of the two evils.