Quote:
Originally Posted by garinda
A system of welfare benefits, that pays more than working for a living, is wrong.
That wasn't why it was introduced, and is unsustainable.
I've given examples, where people were helped back into work, and chose to go back on benefits, because they were better off.
The system is wrong, not necessarily the people who took advantage of it.
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Undoubtedley it's wrong that someone is better off on benefits than working, if they are able to do so. Poverty was defined by the last Labour Government as a ‘household income below 60% of median income’. The median is the income earned by the household in the middle of the income distribution. I think benefit levels are calculated around this base.
It's easy to see that the problem arises from the choice of 60% of the median household income - those in lower income brackets will undoubtedly be better off on benefits unless two or more people work per household and they have low costs associated with work.
There will obviously be fluctuations in the spending power of money to take into account and the fact that people who work have costs -transport , child-care etc. so it must be quite a hard equation to balance -especially in the recent recession and considering the change in value of sterling etc. I can see that many will be border-line with what they can earn by working or in some cases even worse off...child-care is a big problem especially for single parents and can cost an exhorbitant amount.
I didn't realise that you could give up work and
choose to go back on benefits -I thought that if you voluntarily gave up a position of work you automatically lost your right to any financial assistance, at least for a certain length of time...maybe I'm wrong.
As to the system being flawed that seems to be pretty obvious - in order to make it pay for people to work it is necessary to shift the level of benefits lower than the 60% median income. That would of course lead to an outcry and increased levels of "relative" poverty (absolute poverty as described by Margaret P is much less common than it used to be.)
Hard to know where to start...but those who are able to work and receive benefits should perhaps have to do a certain number of hours a week of something like community service, in any case, to justify at least some of what they receive...