The fact that the system is not perfect does not translate to "the system is broken". It is far too difficult to get, and keep, invalidity and disability benefits: and the measures used are deeply flawed. But however you do it, and whatever criteria you use, there will be some who fall through the net and some who get what they are not reasonably entitled to. So long as those are few either way the system is defensible. At present the balance is not good: far, far too many who qualify do not get the benefit. This is a consequence of the belief that there are all these shirkers who are getting benefits they do not deserve.
There have been attacks on the disabled many times in the last couple of decades. A great deal of money has been spent in the effort to find and bar from benefit all those shirkers. That money has been wasted. For example there was a major "crackdown" in 2004 reorted in a review called " Fraud, Error, and Incorrectness in Disability Living Allowance"
It claimed that 9% of DLA was overpaid and 2.5% underpaid. Of this 9% overpayment 0.5% was due to fraud. The bulk was due to changes in circumstances. Not good, but not quite a justification for the picture often painted even if you accept the figures at face value
This kind of reporting goes on and on. For example:
http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/news/article.html?in_article_id=512751&in_page_id=2
Note the disparity between the headline implication and the body of the article: not also that these are not real figures
Given the history of this issue I could not give a tuppeny toss about what "officials believe". We have heard this song again and again: always the same tune and always the same bum notes
The same story goes for other benefits as well. Figures for "fraud" have been bandied about and have contributed to the public perception that this is very widespread and very serious: it has been used as justification for introducing measures which are neither effective nor fair, to address a problem which has not been shown to exist. I want to make it plain that I am not denying the existence of fraud: nor am I suggesting it should not be tackled: but I am opposed to thrashing about looking for the questing beast in the bushes at great cost.
http://www.cpag.org.uk/info/Povertyarticles/Poverty108/fraud.htm
It is worse now than it was when that article was written, however. We are now paying out large sums for woo which is used to underpin those estimates. Voice recognition software, forsooth
http://www.benefitfraud.org.uk/total-benefit-fraud/index.html
This hostile website is not untypical of the kinds of utterly indefensible means of estimating the level of fraud: and of course we are now paying private firms to detect fraud: no vested interest in chasing people off benefit there at all, naturally. And of course those private firms are doing something never done before: not. Fraud investigation into cohabitation has always existed: it took the welfare rights service to challenge those disgraceful abuses and make the Benefits Agency actually provide some evidence in support of their decisions.
I understand that that is your opinion
Ok
Most people have never had non-contributory pensions, actually. But a lot of people did have work based contributory pensions. The poor? Not so much
Sure. But you still have to wear something. And so does someone who works for a minimum wage
No. actually what you sought to argue was that you had a similar amount of disposable income to those on benefit and on the minimum wage. It is very far from irrelevant to that.
They have no such right. Your point throughout has been that there are people who prefer to live on benefits as a "lifestyle choice" and that they should be prevented from doing so. To sustain that point you have sought to show that such people are living as well as you were, as a high rate taxpayer. I have shown that this is not supported by the facts: you have countered with opinion.
But if you were correct then it follows that you personally do not work for money: you would live just as well on benefit, so that is not your motivation. I infer from your opus that you see it as a moral obligation, and that is why you do it. Oddly, most people would partially agree that there are incentives other than money: and that work has some intrinsic value, and some social value. It is curious, then, that we have to pay our very high earners great big bonuses in order to motivate them, is it not? They are obviously going to work without them,so why bother? It is curious that we have to cut benefits in order to motivate the poor as well: we would cut the deficit much quicker if we just set a national maximum income. And it would make no difference at all, according to you. So I suggest that is what we should do. We will pay everybody the national minimum wage from age 16: with the proviso that they all work 35 hours a week. Vote for me to see the logic of your position implemented
But I suspect that is not at all what you mean.
This is irrelevant to the point you were making: you attempted to hide a portion of your income in order to demonstrate that you were exactly as well off as people on benefit. It is what tax avoiders do, as well. They hide parts of their income so they do not have to pay tax on it: but just because it is in an offshore account does not magically change its character: and that you choose to save some of your income does not magically change its character either. Certainly you are doing nothing wrong (unlike the tax avoider): but the mindset is the same.
But on your other point: We are talking earnings. How much are you saving from your £65 per week? You said that everyone can save something: so how much? Upthread you said it is impossible to live on it, but yet you are saving from it. That is a good trick and I would like to learn it.
Your have not explained it well: for example you have said that the "knuckle draggers" you meet at the broo are all better dressed than you: and you have said that they can't get jobs because they don't wash and are badly dressed. You have said that they drive brand new cars: but you have not explained to me how they manage to do that on £102 per week and I am anxiously awaiting the secret: as you must be as well: I don't see how you are going to manage that car once you are entitled to that £102 when your savings run out and you are eligible for it. The extra £37 pounds a week is going to do it, presumably? Can't see how you are going to buy it and run it and tax and insure it on that, myself. Are we to conclude that you are incompetent? Funny that: I am incompetent in just the same way. We should both give up the idea of working and let these financial geniuses take over, methinks. You have said that these "knuckle draggers" do not have to make any effort to get work: and you have said that at the end of your 12 weeks you are going to be forced to take a job in a sandwich shop or whatever: and you have said that you are not trying to argue that you are specially harshly treated. You are all over the place, I am afraid
"The system" (whatever that means) does not do that at all. You save when you are working: I save when I am working. I bet lots of people here would say the same. As I said above I have read that most people have a cushion of about 3 months wages: that is not enough, for sure. But sound financial planning is exactly what that is, contrary to your view. The rate of interest you can get on savings is below inflation. So if you save you are losing money. That is not a sound financial decision. It is a sensible decision for other reasons: but not on financial grounds. What is sound financial planning is putting your money into property, as you well know. That is because the low interest rates exist in order to foster a "property owning democracy" or some such notion. And house price inflation is not a bad thing for some reason: though all other forms of inflation are seen as bad. We do not hear gloomy announcements that house prices are rapidly inflating: we hear instead warm words like a "booming property market" when they rise. That attitude is nothing to do with "the system": but it does mean that interest rates cannot be allowed to rise, and so make saving a sound financial decision. Look elsewhere for the source of the evils you perceive. I think you will find that the ideology driven decisions, which led to removal of credit control and many other regulations which were put in place after the last debacle generated by just this kind of economic approach, are the reason for most of the ills you perceive.
Sorry I don't see that you are being asked to pay anything at present. You seem to be in receipt of benefits you don't need, actually.
Speak for yourself
I save: I have not been "punished" in any way. That you think you have been is probably a pretty fundamental disagreement
Yes I do think that people should have a decent standard of living within the norms of the mainstream society they inhabit. I believe it because I believe in the social contract. A contract has two parties and they should both meet their obligations. The state has reneged on their side of it, to some extent: and, as Darat pointed out, the other party has partially withdrawn as well, arguably. This is not yet fully fledged, but that is the way we are heading.
Pragmatism. I would prefer it if there was a living wage rather than a minimum wage: but we are not prepared to do that.
The alternatives I can see are these:
1.set the minimum wage at a poverty level which suits business: and avoid starvation by topping it up through benefits. This way we can ensure that employers make loadsa money with businesses that are not viable. What we are doing is not giving money to the poor: we are giving it to the business men: they would prefer you not to notice that, though. This is the option we have chosen and it means the minimum wage is almost equal to benefits, as I have shown above.
2. set a "living wage" and pay benefits below that level. So long as the level of benefits is not lower than the amount needed to fully participate in our society that seems fine to me. ( based on something like Rowntree's work in 1936 and 1950: that was part of the underpinning of the benefits levels originally set (though they cut it below his recommendation): it would do us no harm to repeat the exercise for the modern world) To do this you would have to cap the maximum wage as well, I think. Poverty is a relative concept. The important thing is not the absolute levels of income: it is the disparity. We can cap the maximum wage through the tax system but it is not that effective unless we choose to enforce it: so I would not be averse to the percentage idea: top earners have a set multiple of the lowest earners wages. That would also be open to abuse but all systems are: if we enforce it well enough that is good enough.
3. Set the minimum wage at a medium level (below the living wage but within striking distance of it) and deal with those who find that puts them in poverty, in much the same way we do now: but with fewer needing the benefits top up because of the higher rate
In all three cases there will be no-one in work on less than benefits; but only because benefits will top it up to the benefit level. That is the conclusion from every attempt to avoid the benefits trap. :For myself I would rather see that those in work get more than a straight top up: top up plus, if you like. As we have done that in the past there has always been a tapering problem: but we can lift it to benefit rates and then add a flat rate premium if you like. That woud solve that problem maybe.
The problem is inherently complicated and every proposal has a downside.
Interesting question: I suppose I have a number of thoughts not clearly conceptualised. In the first instance I do not believe we can follow the utilitarians and go for the greatest good of the greatest number: but I think we can go for the least misery for the greatest number. (for certain values of misery: not talking emotions here: a more victorian use of the word, perhaps). But I think my notions is closer to the idea that we treat everybody as "us". That is why your position so enrages me: you seem to want to do the opposite.
I would start with need. That is not an easy thing to determine but neither is it impossible: we have been making inroads into that since at least 1899 when Rowntree produced his first survey. By 1950 it was already more sophisticated than the original conception of an amount needed for physical survival: relative poverty was understood by then an it is an intrinsic part of my conception of need
Once we have established a level of need then everyone should get that level, no matter their circumstances. What else we may decide to do is not so important.
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