The Student Room Group

Worth working anymore? - Tories mandate to make work pay

Given that austerity didnt make it beneficial to work as opposed to choosing welfare clearly it didnt really exist in the first place so the question remains why bother working when welfare is a better option than average income jobs. Look at the current situation:

Vast swathes of the UK population have never worked for decades choosing welfare as the default option on leaving school. You could concurrently get housing benefit, a nice flat plus guaranteed tax free plethora of benefits. The so called welfare reforms havent changed that one iota. There are still millions of workless households in the UK.

Why is it that large sections of Central London e.g have generations of welfare claimants who have never worked in their life living in high value properties in high value areas such as Chelsea, Fulham, Westminster etc that a working family could never afford to live in. Is this the reward for working? So called austerity or welfare reform has not changed this if working people cant afford to live in Central London why should welfare claimants be living there, what a situation currently where hard work is punished yet laze is rewarded.

Until the caps came in it was commonplace in London for 100K rent bills being paid by the state for families to stay in mansions at taxpayer expense. The caps are way too high as people forget benefits are tax free and guaranteed to be paid out, why bother working when you can just sit at home and claim instead while watching TV all day.

Now Brexit is happening will those people on welfare who havent worked for decades suddenly do those jobs those pesky Eastern Europeans have stolen from them? Hmm I guess I not convinced wonder why!!

Disability benefits being claimed by people with e.g acne is still commonplace (DWP figures fyi) so have the reforms made any difference. Before you could just fill a claim form and bingo you got a nice cash bonus every 2 weeks with no cheques whatsoever. Now when checks were introduced a significant number didnt even bother going to their assessment as they knew the game was up.

So current situation on welfare you get

Rent paid free housing sometimes in Central London that working people cannot ever imagine to afford
No council tax
Tax free benefit buffet to choose from
Subsidised transport (not sure why when can sit at home all day watching tv)
Tax credits even though dont pay any tax - the paradox!

Labour promised them

Unlimited welfare
No checks to see if they can work
Free broadband
Free parking

Am surprised Labour didnt offer them free holidays, free flights, free clothes, free cars etc etc They clearly see them as their core voter base vs fools that work.

Clearly the claim of austerity has done nothing those on welfare know the system inside out such that any attempt to wrestle their cushty benefit cheque away from results in it being wrestled right back with the excuse of 'I have forgotten how to work' or 'work stresses me out' can you imagine it?

The Tories now have the mandate to make work pay. Get rid of this welfare nonsense and ensure that working families who do the right thing can live in nice parts of Central London, why should those who go down the welfare route get this privilege. There needs to be major slashing of the bloated benefit system that pays people a LOT of money to stay at home.
(edited 4 years ago)

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Can you please link me to the dwp figures showing people claiming pip or esa because of acne?
Reply 2
Original post by borisj
Vast swathes of the UK population have never worked for decades

[Citation needed]
Vast swaiths? Seriously? Have you tried living on benefits? What an ignorant and arrogant thread.

It does my head in that we choose to villify the poor whilst celebrating the rich who do not pay their fair share. You find me someone who earns over a million a year and pays higher rate income tax on their earnings. And the likes of Richard Branson pay no tax in this country at all. And yet someone who receives £50 a week in benifits is draining the country. How peverse.
Original post by ByEeek
Vast swaiths? Seriously? Have you tried living on benefits? What an ignorant and arrogant thread.

It does my head in that we choose to villify the poor whilst celebrating the rich who do not pay their fair share. You find me someone who earns over a million a year and pays higher rate income tax on their earnings. And the likes of Richard Branson pay no tax in this country at all. And yet someone who receives £50 a week in benifits is draining the country. How peverse.


Original post by borisj
Given that austerity didnt make it beneficial to work as opposed to choosing welfare clearly it didnt really exist in the first place so the question remains why bother working when welfare is a better option than average income jobs. Look at the current situation:

Vast swathes of the UK population have never worked for decades choosing welfare as the default option on leaving school. You could concurrently get housing benefit, a nice flat plus guaranteed tax free plethora of benefits. The so called welfare reforms havent changed that one iota. There are still millions of workless households in the UK.

Why is it that large sections of Central London e.g have generations of welfare claimants who have never worked in their life living in high value properties in high value areas such as Chelsea, Fulham, Westminster etc that a working family could never afford to live in. Is this the reward for working? So called austerity or welfare reform has not changed this if working people cant afford to live in Central London why should welfare claimants be living there, what a situation currently where hard work is punished yet laze is rewarded.

Until the caps came in it was commonplace in London for 100K rent bills being paid by the state for families to stay in mansions at taxpayer expense. The caps are way too high as people forget benefits are tax free and guaranteed to be paid out, why bother working when you can just sit at home and claim instead while watching TV all day.

Now Brexit is happening will those people on welfare who havent worked for decades suddenly do those jobs those pesky Eastern Europeans have stolen from them? Hmm I guess I not convinced wonder why!!

Disability benefits being claimed by people with e.g acne is still commonplace (DWP figures fyi) so have the reforms made any difference. Before you could just fill a claim form and bingo you got a nice cash bonus every 2 weeks with no cheques whatsoever.

You are both over doing it. One thing that universal credit has done is got more people than ever out into work as life on benefits is tough (and so it should be as you are living off me you shouldn’t be able to go on holiday ect).

Also the top 1% pay over a quarter of the tax in the uk from memory so your statement is also grossly overstated.

As for the few who don’t pay tax in the UK a lot of it is deferred so while dubious they will pay tax on their income when they want it just not immediately
Reply 5
Original post by Drewski
[Citation needed]

https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmentandemployeetypes/bulletins/workingandworklesshouseholds/apriltojune2019

2.9 Million households not in work, you kidding me? And this is after so called welfare cuts and austerity! Clearly so called cuts are a joke and dont go far enough.

https://www.thesun.co.uk/archives/news/802529/lazy-benefit-cheats-give-people-like-me-a-bad-name/
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/9963012/900000-choose-to-come-off-sickness-benefit-ahead-of-tests.html

So we have 10 people who claimed disabilty benefits for 10 years because of acne!! Another 900 for varicose veins any wonder they didnt bother going for sickness tests.
Before you just filled a claim form in and let other peoples cash roll into your bank account. Shambolic. Now because checks are being made these folk are being awoken from their slumber and realising the game is up finally!

Come on Boris you have clear mandate now to go after this lazy underclass once and for all and cut their umbilical cord of other peoples cash permanently. Whatever cuts you want you can pass.

The welfare budget needs to be slashed infinitely the only way to get these people off their butts is to hit their back pocket - essentially work or nothing.

I remember morning after the election Labour were going on about how people had lost hope and bs poverty etc No those people had lost hope as they realised the welfare gravy train wasnt going to be extended back to their glory days of 100k rents being paid by the taxpayer etc
Reply 6
Vast swaiths? Seriously? Have you tried living on benefits? What an ignorant and arrogant thread.

It does my head in that we choose to villify the poor whilst celebrating the rich who do not pay their fair share. You find me someone who earns over a million a year and pays higher rate income tax on their earnings. And the likes of Richard Branson pay no tax in this country at all. And yet someone who receives £50 a week in benifits is draining the country. How peverse.



No we vilify those who choose a life of welfare over work, if that means they are poor whose choice is that?

Why is is that thousands of workless folk are living rent free in Central London with a nice 2 weekly tax free cash handout when working people can only ever dream of living in Kensington and Chelsea etc When you have millions of people getting free handouts every week then yes you are collectively draining the country of working peoples cash.

If you choose not to work you shouldnt be getting rent free housing and a tax free cash handout ever period.

Now Brexit will result in a foreign worker exodus what excuse have you got to not do the jobs they do? Ah yes but welfare is more lucrative you say well Boris your majority should allow you to cut welfare more and force these people to make a choice in life but not with other peoples cash period!
(edited 4 years ago)
No sources then? Just another ill informed rant.

@borisj if it’s so cushy on benefits then give up work and stop moaning?
Original post by SteveyStack

Also the top 1% pay over a quarter of the tax in the uk from memory so your statement is also grossly overstated.

Dude. If, as an employee I earn £70k, whether I like it or not, earnings over £50k are taxed at 40% whether I like it or not. If I contract and earn £1 million a year, I pay a very good accountant who insures I pay very much less than 40%.

It isn't about how much as a proportion of total tax paid. It is about payong your due. If you earn £1 million ypu shpuld be paying around £400,000 tax just as someone earning £100k pays around £40k tax. If everyone paid fair tax on their earnings we wouldn't need to worry about the whether the very poorest in society are getting by.

If you feel benefit street is so good, I challenge you to live on benefits. And you can choose what you currently get, you can choose what you used to get, or you can choose minimum wage. Either way, you are going to be broke with no prospects of escaping the poverty trap.
Reply 9
Original post by ByEeek
Dude. If, as an employee I earn £70k, whether I like it or not, earnings over £50k are taxed at 40% whether I like it or not. If I contract and earn £1 million a year, I pay a very good accountant who insures I pay very much less than 40%.

It isn't about how much as a proportion of total tax paid. It is about payong your due. If you earn £1 million ypu shpuld be paying around £400,000 tax just as someone earning £100k pays around £40k tax. If everyone paid fair tax on their earnings we wouldn't need to worry about the whether the very poorest in society are getting by.

If you feel benefit street is so good, I challenge you to live on benefits. And you can choose what you currently get, you can choose what you used to get, or you can choose minimum wage. Either way, you are going to be broke with no prospects of escaping the poverty trap.

If benefits street is so bad why are millions so.desperate to stay on them rather than getting a job? Bit of an obvious paradox right?

The poorest in society do very well in this country living off other peoples cash in their rent free central London properties.

Why did corbs promise unlimited welfare as a way of getting the lazy underclass to vote for him? It failed as it infuriated the working population.

Anyway post brexit plenty of jobs vacated by foreigners so then what is your excuse for choosing welfare over work?
Reply 10
Original post by PQ
No sources then? Just another ill informed rant.

@borisj if it’s so cushy on benefits then give up work and stop moaning?

Gave you an ons stat 3 million households where noone works in this country! That not a good enough source from a national authority or is 3 mill not enough to be significant in your eyes?
Original post by borisj
Gave you an ons stat 3 million households where noone works in this country! That not a good enough source from a national authority or is 3 mill not enough to be significant in your eyes?

Please see post #2

You haven’t linked to a single source:bootyshake:
Reply 12
So ons.gov.uk is not a source?
The telegraph that reports on the dwp own report from 2013 that now archived is not a source?
https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/ad-hoc-statistical-analysis-2013-quarter-2
No doubt you are laughing from behind your very large benefit cheque funded by us fools that work.

What people forget is that benefits are tax free and so even more generous than originally thought so a cap of 26k which is supposed to be average working wage is totally false as cap of 26k which is tax free is really around the same as a wage of 40k gross which is insanely high.

Why isnt the benefit cap around 15k or even less? Given e.g their housing is rent free in Central London, free transport etc etc is it any wonder they have no interest in working and happy to cling onto the generous welfare cheque instead? Whereas working people struggle to pay bills the biggest decision this huge population group have to make is which sky package to get.
(edited 4 years ago)
Original post by borisj
So ons.gov.uk is not a source?
The telegraph that reports on the dwp own report from 2013 that now archived is not a source?
No doubt you are laughing from behind your very large benefit cheque funded by us fools that work

You can’t manage copy and pasting to specific sources
Original post by borisj
Given that austerity didnt make it beneficial to work as opposed to choosing welfare clearly it didnt really exist in the first place so the question remains why bother working when welfare is a better option than average income jobs. Look at the current situation:

Vast swathes of the UK population have never worked for decades choosing welfare as the default option on leaving school. You could concurrently get housing benefit, a nice flat plus guaranteed tax free plethora of benefits. The so called welfare reforms havent changed that one iota. There are still millions of workless households in the UK.

Why is it that large sections of Central London e.g have generations of welfare claimants who have never worked in their life living in high value properties in high value areas such as Chelsea, Fulham, Westminster etc that a working family could never afford to live in. Is this the reward for working? So called austerity or welfare reform has not changed this if working people cant afford to live in Central London why should welfare claimants be living there, what a situation currently where hard work is punished yet laze is rewarded.

Until the caps came in it was commonplace in London for 100K rent bills being paid by the state for families to stay in mansions at taxpayer expense. The caps are way too high as people forget benefits are tax free and guaranteed to be paid out, why bother working when you can just sit at home and claim instead while watching TV all day.

Now Brexit is happening will those people on welfare who havent worked for decades suddenly do those jobs those pesky Eastern Europeans have stolen from them? Hmm I guess I not convinced wonder why!!

Disability benefits being claimed by people with e.g acne is still commonplace (DWP figures fyi) so have the reforms made any difference. Before you could just fill a claim form and bingo you got a nice cash bonus every 2 weeks with no cheques whatsoever. Now when checks were introduced a significant number didnt even bother going to their assessment as they knew the game was up.

So current situation on welfare you get

Rent paid free housing sometimes in Central London that working people cannot ever imagine to afford
No council tax
Tax free benefit buffet to choose from
Subsidised transport (not sure why when can sit at home all day watching tv)
Tax credits even though dont pay any tax - the paradox!

Labour promised them

Unlimited welfare
No checks to see if they can work
Free broadband
Free parking

Am surprised Labour didnt offer them free holidays, free flights, free clothes, free cars etc etc They clearly see them as their core voter base vs fools that work.

Clearly the claim of austerity has done nothing those on welfare know the system inside out such that any attempt to wrestle their cushty benefit cheque away from results in it being wrestled right back with the excuse of 'I have forgotten how to work' or 'work stresses me out' can you imagine it?

The Tories now have the mandate to make work pay. Get rid of this welfare nonsense and ensure that working families who do the right thing can live in nice parts of Central London, why should those who go down the welfare route get this privilege. There needs to be major slashing of the bloated benefit system that pays people a LOT of money to stay at home.

You really are an ignorant scrote.

UC for an adult is
Single claimant aged under 25: £251.77 per month.
Single claimant aged 25 or over: £317.82 per month.

Average salary in uk is is £28,677 after tax that means £1,931 per month.

What do you think it is easiest to survive on?
UK unemployment rate according to ONS is at record lows.
That 2.9 million number includes all the disabled who genuinely can't work (and are being messed over by the system, people are dying because of this back to work system by the way.)

I'm going to level with you, my chap. I don't care if 50% of those households are scroungers who could, and should be working. I would not want a single person who should be entitled to their societal benefit to not have it. I don't want any people starving or dying because the system is designed to trick them out of benefits.

In fact, I don't mind if people who are not working are living on benefits. My problem comes if those people are profiting off the system. I genuinely don't care if there are people out there who are living their lives living only off the government's handouts. Why should we vilify these, genuinely pitiful, people (who obviously lack any drive to improve their own lives) when we could be far better off cracking down on the super rich who are not paying their fair share?

In my mind we should all be paying more tax. Everyone over-consumes as it is, and if we all pooled together we could have good schools, a good health service, and maybe even good public transport!

This is the gambit of the capitalist. Sow discontentment towards your fellow man, so that you never question who your oppressors really are. I recommend Renegade Cut's video on the matter, about the Cult of Work.
Original post by ByEeek
Dude. If, as an employee I earn £70k, whether I like it or not, earnings over £50k are taxed at 40% whether I like it or not. If I contract and earn £1 million a year, I pay a very good accountant who insures I pay very much less than 40%.

It isn't about how much as a proportion of total tax paid. It is about payong your due. If you earn £1 million ypu shpuld be paying around £400,000 tax just as someone earning £100k pays around £40k tax. If everyone paid fair tax on their earnings we wouldn't need to worry about the whether the very poorest in society are getting by.

If you feel benefit street is so good, I challenge you to live on benefits. And you can choose what you currently get, you can choose what you used to get, or you can choose minimum wage. Either way, you are going to be broke with no prospects of escaping the poverty trap.

So you have just ignored the bit where I say that life on benefits is tough and so it should be.

I agree that in a perfect world we would see the rich paying more but the reality is many would move abroad if we taxed them loads.

These people are still net contributors so to villainies them is not brilliant. Also, to suggest they should be paying more tax is one thing. Getting them to is entirely different
Original post by vicvic38
That 2.9 million number includes all the disabled who genuinely can't work (and are being messed over by the system, people are dying because of this back to work system by the way.)

I'm going to level with you, my chap. I don't care if 50% of those households are scroungers who could, and should be working. I would not want a single person who should be entitled to their societal benefit to not have it. I don't want any people starving or dying because the system is designed to trick them out of benefits.

In fact, I don't mind if people who are not working are living on benefits. My problem comes if those people are profiting off the system. I genuinely don't care if there are people out there who are living their lives living only off the government's handouts. Why should we vilify these, genuinely pitiful, people (who obviously lack any drive to improve their own lives) when we could be far better off cracking down on the super rich who are not paying their fair share?

In my mind we should all be paying more tax. Everyone over-consumes as it is, and if we all pooled together we could have good schools, a good health service, and maybe even good public transport!

This is the gambit of the capitalist. Sow discontentment towards your fellow man, so that you never question who your oppressors really are. I recommend Renegade Cut's video on the matter, about the Cult of Work.

While no one should be forced to starve ect. as a result of benefits the fact of the matter is no one in this country does. Also you have gone with the fundamental principle of socialism, blame the rich!
Original post by SteveyStack
While no one should be forced to starve ect. as a result of benefits the fact of the matter is no one in this country does. Also you have gone with the fundamental principle of socialism, blame the rich!

You didn’t see the pictures of Stephen Smith when he was moved from ESA to JSA then?
Reply 19
Original post by vicvic38
That 2.9 million number includes all the disabled who genuinely can't work (and are being messed over by the system, people are dying because of this back to work system by the way.)

I'm going to level with you, my chap. I don't care if 50% of those households are scroungers who could, and should be working. I would not want a single person who should be entitled to their societal benefit to not have it. I don't want any people starving or dying because the system is designed to trick them out of benefits.

In fact, I don't mind if people who are not working are living on benefits. My problem comes if those people are profiting off the system. I genuinely don't care if there are people out there who are living their lives living only off the government's handouts. Why should we vilify these, genuinely pitiful, people (who obviously lack any drive to improve their own lives) when we could be far better off cracking down on the super rich who are not paying their fair share?

In my mind we should all be paying more tax. Everyone over-consumes as it is, and if we all pooled together we could have good schools, a good health service, and maybe even good public transport!

This is the gambit of the capitalist. Sow discontentment towards your fellow man, so that you never question who your oppressors really are. I recommend Renegade Cut's video on the matter, about the Cult of Work.

What you fail to realise is the super rich will leave the country easily so you have a choice of take what they give now which is more than the average welfare claimant contributes i.e zero or they leave the UK and contribute zilch then who will fund the benefits buffet the average person here is so used to!

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