We are screwed

[vetran]

Welfare includes pensions - which is what most of the welfare bill is.

Pensions are separate on the break down. The spending also ignores the extra tax that comes from private pensions for those that bothered to provide for themselves.

[mudskipper]

We (well the wife) got one of those "where we spent your tax" breakdowns and it was intersting 25% goes on welfare. I was going to try and do some back-of-an-envelope calculations to work out how many people actually claim benefits, or subsist on them, but couldn't be bothered. Is it reasonable to use the unemployment figures as a ballpark figure for this do you think?

Welfare includes pensions - which is what most of the welfare bill is.

[BrilloPad]

Jobs Lorna could have done are now outsourced. We need to provide people like her with work. Then reduce benefits.

[d000hg]

We (well the wife) got one of those "where we spent your tax" breakdowns and it was intersting 25% goes on welfare. I was going to try and do some back-of-an-envelope calculations to work out how many people actually claim benefits, or subsist on them, but couldn't be bothered. Is it reasonable to use the unemployment figures as a ballpark figure for this do you think?

[Platypus]

Keith was required to pay an extra £24 a week. After refusing to pay the extra cash, the couple were rehoused to a one bedroom flat and were forbidden by the housing association to bring any of their animals with them. Keith was forced to kill the pigeons and give the dogs away

Good. Pigeons and dogs are vermin anyway. He could have paid the extra £24 if he wasn't paying for animal feed. What a cock.

I might watch the program on catch-up, it sounds like a laugh

[vetran]

Benefits Britain: Life On The Dole | Channel 5

This week, ʻBenefits Britain: Life on the Doleʼ visits Liverpool. In a city where around 30,000 people claim Job Seekerʼs Allowance, more and more people are finding it harder to make ends meet since the introduction of the bedroom tax, which now affects over 83,000 people in the north west of England.
Lorna was living in a three-bedroom housing association home, but her children moved out, leaving two empty bedrooms, Lorna has been slapped with a weekly £40 bedroom tax, which she has to pay out of the £72.40 she receives a week in employment and support allowance. She has now fallen into arrears to the tune of £2,600 and is being threatened with eviction. This is not the end of the horror for Lorna, as she is convinced that her house is possessed by a ghost. At times, the fear of the demon forces her to sleep in a camper van in the street. At her witsʼ end, she calls in a ghost-busting team to exorcise the spook, who advise her to sleep in a circle of salt to ward off malevolent spirits. Lorna wants the housing association to move her to a one-bedroom flat, but claims that they do not consider paranormal activity grounds for moving up the ladder.
Keith also says that his life has been wrecked by the bedroom tax. 62-year-old Keith had lived with his wife Marie in their family home for 35 years with his two dogs and racing pigeons. However, with only two of them in a three bedroom house, Keith was required to pay an extra £24 a week. After refusing to pay the extra cash, the couple were rehoused to a one bedroom flat and were forbidden by the housing association to bring any of their animals with them. Keith was forced to kill the pigeons and give the dogs away.

watched it last night, I was a sympathetic to Lorna (despite her seeming to be a bit loopy) because she asked for a single bedroom flat and the council didn't have one but the others just seemed to think 30 years of subsidised living meant they deserved to stay in a 3 bedroom house another family could live in.

weird attitude.