I notice that the Devil and Obo are criticising the level of benefit claimants in the UK.
It’s very easy when you have work to be critical and to make the kind of comment that Furor Teutonicus does in the comments.
Scrap the lot. NILL benefits for ANY one for ANY thing.
You want unemployment/sickness/ “benefit”, doctor/dentist/hospital/school, etc, go out and find a private insurance/health/education company with a policy/service to suit, DON’T come snivelling to me, through the tax office, for a hand out.
Well, firstly, that ain’t gonna happen. Secondly, having paid in all these years – thirty plus – I have no objection to the safety net principle. I despise insurance companies and avoid any insurance that is not actually forced upon me by law. Also, being self-employed, such insurance isn’t exactly cheap. And I fail to see why I should pay it on top of what the state already takes from me, because that is the reality. I have paid handsomely for that safety net, so I am not snivelling to you at all. They are my taxes that I am asking for. When the tax system is slashed so that we can afford private insurance, then fine. Until then, I fail to see why we should be expected to pay twice over.
FT is not alone in making such observations. As I’ve mentioned before, I am currently claiming JSA. And attempting to get some help with my council tax. A commenter at the time made similar observations about my claim at the time.
Maybe you should ask a realistic price for your house in France? Equity is realisable wealth. Why should we pay for you to have two houses?
My reaction to this sanctimonious piece of arse dribble was understandably angry (we are asking a realistic price). I have worked consistently for over thirty years. On the occasions in the past when I have lost work, I’ve registered with the agencies and gone temping until something came along. This time, however, that hasn’t worked. It is easy from the comfort of full employment to pour scorn on those of us who have no work. It is easy to make cheap remarks about your taxes supporting us. You are not spending your days phoning contacts, trawling the agency websites, sending off applications for minimum wage jobs and hearing nothing back – all the while trying to hold everything together on an income that is less than your outgoings and hoping that the telephone will ring, or the post will come, with that offer of work – to be disappointed for another day. Before you know it another week has passed and nothing has changed and the bills still aren’t being paid.
Yes, there is a problem with so many claiming benefits, but we are in a deep recession and finding work is not easy, of course the number of claimants will be high. I’ve been trying to find new work since April last year. Do not presume that you are paying for the pittance that I receive in the meantime. I have already contributed my fair share. Now I’m asking for a bit of it back while I try to get back on my feet. I did so having exhausted every penny in my bank account and having reached the extent of my overdraft. Then, and only then, did I swallow my pride and go to the benefits office. From April until November, I was effectively unemployed (apart from the odd day here and there) yet claimed not one groat from the public purse. Then I took temporary Christmas work with the Royal Mail for little more than minimum wage for ten days to get off benefits for a while.
One thing I have learned – painfully – is that I will take a somewhat different view of those who go through this misery day in, day out, watching their lives slip by with no direction, no meaning or purpose, unable to do anything because they simply cannot afford to do so.
Yes, there are people who game the system. Yes, there is room for improvement in it – a lot of room, frankly. It’s a bureaucratic nightmare. Certainly it could do with simplification. But, please, don’t tar us all with the same brush. Some of us would rather be anywhere than trudging to the benefits office to beg for a few scraps back from the thousands we have contributed over our working lives. And we could do without smart-arses fortunate to be in employment making snarky remarks about their taxes supporting us. Walk a mile in my shoes before you do that.
I haven’t had the time to read the articles to which you link, but would guess that they refer to the need to reduce the State Benefit bill because it is unaffordable. What could be an easier target than the workshy? There are plenty on “Jobseekers’ Allowance” who aren’t actually looking for work. Alas, they tend to cause all the recipients of that allowance to be unfairly tarred with the same brush.
But the shouters at the workshy are missing the biggest target for reducing the “benefits” bill – the retired. It is clear that State Pension accounts for a vast part of the bill. And if you reckon you are entitled to a safety net of job seekers allowance when temporarily out of work (and I agree that you are), then how much more am I entitled in a few years time to draw State Pension as I reach 65. For the “contributions” have been extracted from us by legal coercion throughout our working lives.
The root cause of the problem was laid down by Labour when they drew up the present arrangements immediately post war, and made them a current account system that turns out to be little different from any other general taxation. The system is so deeply flawed, that I think total collapse is inevitable. I just wish “they’d” let it happen quickly, then we can get on with sorting out the mess ourselves.
Don’t disagree with any of that. Unfortunately, some of us are trapped in the system. It is, after all, my money…
As for retirement, my plan is to keep on working in some capacity or other. Preferably part time consultancy, but I’ll be flexible. Full retirement doesn’t appeal. I’ve just had a taste of it.
The main reason for me not to claim the dole is because it’s such a miserable experience, and thus to be avoided if at all possible. However, if it can’t be avoided, I will do so, and have done, based on the justification that the bastards took a generous slice out of every pay packet I’ve earned, so I’ll get some back.
So don’t worry, man. Life’s full of these ‘learning experiences’.
Funnily enough, just finished reading the same sort of article on an American blog. Most would be happy to quit paying into the unsustainable Ponzi scheme that is state benefits and pension.
As Yokel points out, the problem is not those who work intermittantly, but those who have NEVER worked.
I almost admire the hubris of those who obviously believe that no ill will ever befall them, no accident or illness which will leave them unable to earn any kind of living. Presumably if that unfortunate day were ever to arrive, they would stand by their words and never claim a penny or cent from the state?
I’d be quite happy to stop paying into the Ponzi scheme too. If private cover was affordable and we could pick and choose, thereby keeping costs down, then that would be fine. The reality is likely to be lots of get-out clauses for the insurers, limited payment times and hefty excesses. That’s before we start to deal with the changeover process with those of us caught in the halfway house of currently claiming against what we’ve paid into the state system and having no income are uninsurable.
It would be interesting to conjecture “what might have been” if the Fabian Society and the Labour Party had not grabbed/nationalised unemployment cover, pensions, health care provision, etc to being functions of the State. For there were schemes developing to provide such cover; organised by people who wanted to ensure that their own families would not be left destitute. But instead the State stepped in and said “don’t worry your silly little heads with that, we’ll do it all for you”. A train of thought that leads to some recalcitrants considering the have the right to draw their jobseekers allowance, refuse to find work, and instead to spend it all on booze and partying.
I fear that in my lifetime, we will live to regret leaving everything up to the State to arrange.
Already happening 👿
Like most people I have no objection paying for a safety net, I do object to the safety net being a comfort zone for anyone other than the genuinely disabled and the elderly who have paid in.
Mr Longrider, as a claimant you are hardly an impartial commentator.
The ‘safety-net’ concept of National so-called Insurance, is long gone and in fact NI actually is a National Charity with compulsory contributions, whose charitable works are available only to those who contribute least or not at all.
It should be phased out and replaced by private unemployment insurance. Compulsory or not is a matter of debate to include those not insured to be drafted into National Service for whatever shitty job needs doing at minimum reward.
Meanwhile nobody should get benefits for more than a 12 month period.
LR,
I don’t think that I was bashing those on benefits particularly—merely pointing out that nearly a third of the country are in receipt of some kind of benefit (as Unity pointed out in the comments, there are a great number of pensioners included in that).
As you point out, you have paid National Insurance for just such an eventuality, and you have every right to claim it.
However, many of the people who are on the most lucrative benefits—HB, for instance—have never paid into the system and, in far too many cases, never will.
Paying JSA to people like you, LR, is not the problem we face: it is how to resolve the issue of those others who have never and may never pay in—to balance the social responsibility (horrid phrase, but you know what I mean) between them and the taxpayers.
DK
Neither is anyone who pays into it. As I have experienced both situations, I am more than qualified to comment.
So, because the politicians fucked up the economy, anyone still struggling to find employment after 12 months should what? Starve? Sleep rough? A chap who signed on at the same time as I did yesterday thinks he may have finally got something through an agency. It’s taken him nearly two years. What was he supposed to do for the most recent 12 months?
I’ve no particular problem with a switch to a more equitable system – despite my loathing and mistrust of insurance companies. But we are where we are and simply suggesting that people be left to starve on the streets, which is what your 12 month cut-off will entail, is frankly the height of misanthropy. I thought I was bad, but I don’t come close to that.
DK, no I didn’t think you were bashing all benefit claimants, it was more the underlying tone expressed by FT that irked. He’s not the only one saying it and it’s an easy, cheap shot.
There will always be an element of people who can never work – not even the shitty jobs John B refers to. No insurance company would touch them, just as insurers would penalise those in greater risk of redundancy or loss of work, such as the self employed, those on short term contracts or in high unemployment areas.
I don’t have a pat solution. But equally, I have learned that a good many people are being tarred with a rather broad brush. That’s what’s annoying me here.
Oh, and an afterthought. You mentioned a client state. I doubt I’m alone in being both a claimant and someone who would sooner chop their right arm off than vote for the bastards who created this situation 😉
LR, without getting into some long explanation on here, if you are doing consulting (even occasionally) it might be better for you to apply for tax credits than take JSA.
If I were in your position I’d look into it.
XX DK, no I didn’t think you were bashing all benefit claimants, it was more the underlying tone expressed by FT that irked. He’s not the only one saying it and it’s an easy, cheap shot.
Comment by Longrider XX
I can see, that having paid in, you deserve to get back out of it. Setting up “social security” was not a fast job, and neither will be getting rid of it.
The option to pay in and claim or not pay and go private must be first introduced. Along with a 100% ban, on immigration, for the next twenty or so years, and repatriation of those already here (Because I talk of North West Europe, not just the U.K). *
Rome, and the SS system were not built in a day. You will not be able to dismantle it in a day.
Those that have never worked, tough. Get over it. There are plenty of shelf stacking and burger flinging jobs out there.
XX It should be phased out and replaced by private unemployment insurance.
Comment by John B XX
Soon you will not have that choice. Because you can only tax a population 100%, then its “Goodby Daisy!” Because even at 100%, the day is rapidly coming when there will just not be enough people paying in, for the “Government” to pay out.
Already we will be living on peanuts thrown from the crowd when we get to 65, or whatever they decide the retirement age should be this week.
* The fact that 40% of the ENTIRE SS budget in Denmark and I believe Holland, plus other E.U countries, goes to immigrants speaks volumes. (Not to mention that due to OUR (Germany) “Governments”….philanthropy, the fucking GREEK pensioners will be having no problems getting their weekly allowance!)
I’ll look, but I suspect one day every two or three months is effectively unemployed. I filled out loads of forms and for many of them, I didn’t quite fit. And, to be fair, I am looking for full time work. Employed or self employed, whichever comes my way first.