Could you live on £7.50 a day?

[VectraMan]

Actually, as the graphs in here, on p18 show they are. Fig 4.2(b) shows that social security spending, as a %age of national income, was flat between about 1999 and 2007. It's been on the up since then, although of course that's largely due to a massive recession.

And figure 4.2(a) shows the social security spending going up through those years in real terms. And those were boom years, when unemployment at least should have been falling. I'm afraid it's the old "failing to fix the roof when the sun shines" cliché.

[doodab]

And figure 4.2(a) shows the social security spending going up through those years in real terms. And those were boom years, when unemployment at least should have been falling. I'm afraid it's the old "failing to fix the roof when the sun shines" cliché.

Yes, and the problem is the state pension. That is the benefit that labour put up most of all.

[VectraMan]

It's very easy to blame the poorest and powerless in society because they have no voice.

No voice? Pretty much all the press reports, and certainly all you hear on the left wing telly media is about how this affects the poorest in society. Okay, so to be fair it's quite often others claiming to speak for them, champagne swilling LSE graduate Labour politicians right through to IT contractors apparently seem to like to do that, but you'd have to say the poorest have the largest voice, certainly in proportion to the very small percentage of the population that actually fall into that bracket.

It's all of us in the middle, the vast majority that actually pay for everything that don't get any public say, even though we have the votes that the politicians need the most.

[doodab]

It's all of us in the middle, the vast majority that actually pay for everything that don't get any public say, even though we have the votes that the politicians need the most.

Clearly they don't, or they wouldn't keep tulipting on our heads.

[minestrone]

The data I a looking at from UK Central Government and Local Authority Public Spending 2014 - Pie Charts Tables shows that labour took welfare spending from about 50 million in 97 to 90 million in 2008, then it shoots up to 110 million in 2010 and it is budgeted to stay just below 120.

Nearly doubling it in 10 economic feast years was madness.

[Zippy]

Would it be out of order to point out that in Victorian times they stuck the poor into workhouses. While this was not exactly nice accommodation it gave them the basics, and by putting everyone together allowed them to benefit from economies of scale in the provision of the accommodation itself, food, and heating, saving enormous amounts of money.

And allowed everyone else to get on with the business of making the country prosperous, which they were stupendous successful at (the industrial revolution in Victorian's reign made Britain the richest and most powerful country in the world).

No, I don't think it's out of order to mention workhouses.

I traced a family through the Shoreditch workhouse (on behalf of a friend) and the girls were sent away to school out of London aged about 9 and 7. They saw their mother once a month and were sent in to service aged 14. Admittedly they could at least read and write by then, something I don't think their poor mother ever managed. Their brother got on a boat to Canada (many kids weren't given a choice).

These places were so grim, people used to run away and starve or turn to prostitution to get out of them.
The mother got out of the workhouse eventually and went to work for a family of 7. I hope the story had a happy ending but I couldn't find any trace of her after that. She just didn't exist. I suspect the syphilis got her in the end.
So, yes, we could go back to that system and save a few quid, but it wouldn't be the civilised thing to do.

[KentPhilip]

These places were so grim, people used to run away and starve or turn to prostitution to get out of them.

What was grim about them?
I expect the answer to that is they didn't feed or heat them sufficiently - certainly Charles Dickens tales seem to bear this out.
No I think these days, in keeping with your idea of a "civilised society" we could have a better class of workhouse where food was edible and heating sufficient.

The aim would be for people to feel motivated to get out of them, but not to the extent of making them desperate to leave.

[formant]

The data I a looking at from UK Central Government and Local Authority Public Spending 2014 - Pie Charts Tables shows that labour took welfare spending from about 50 million in 97 to 90 million in 2008, then it shoots up to 110 million in 2010 and it is budgeted to stay just below 120.

Nearly doubling it in 10 economic feast years was madness.

You may want to look at the distribution in percentages, rather than the actual amounts spent. Or alternatively take into account the overall increase in public spending over the years.

[doodab]

No I think these days, in keeping with your idea of a "civilised society" we could have a better class of workhouse where food was edible and heating sufficient.

The aim would be for people to feel motivated to get out of them, but not to the extent of making them desperate to leave.

I suspect this might backfire as people would make a beeline for them in preference to the average tulipty office.

[SimonMac]

To be honest its hypocritical of any of us to be pushing IDS to live on £53 a week when we ourselves have paid more than that for a steak on a Grub Club night out, as others have mentioned benefits is supposed to be the basic, an incentive for people to strive to earn more