Unemployed earning more than working households

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I wish someone would explain how they are getting this amount of money - unless they are including housing benefit in areas where housing is very expensive. In St Albans (my home town), you can't rent a plain old 3 bed house for less than 1200/month.

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Hell yeah, I cannot move for luxuries and warm rooms.

WM www.critest

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The real question, is, why is the average wage so low?

WM

I had never thought about the funding of care in a comparative way. But well done if you can give some a better life.

Yes he is, I expect he complains when his neighbour makes a claim on his car insurance too. He is effectively an insurance sponger, he wants his iinsurance payments back when after a period of time he did not have an accident or need to claim.

He's a profesional sponger, scum of the earth.

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Easily enough, even with housing benefit only paying 600 a month. Even an average sized family of 4 with no disabilities could get close to 20,000:

IS/JSA(IB): 4900 Child tax credit: 4700 Child ben: 1600 Housing benefit: 7200 Council tax ben: 1200 Free school meals:500 Free prescriptions/dentist:100

That's over 20,000 for a average family with no disabilities. Then add disability premiums, or additional children, and it's possible to get much more.

You mean NI? I don't think many people will be getting 20,000 from contributory NI benefits, mostly it'll be means tested benefits which don't require you to have paid any "insurance premiums" at all.

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I must admit I thought the figure for families was on the low side - and you have just ably demonstrated why.

However there are some of these benefits you have listed that the reference family on average income would also get either in part or in whole in addition to their average income.

Neb

Hell yeah, I cannot move for luxuries and warm rooms.

WM www.critest SO how do you like living in something that costs the same as student diggs when you are meant to be at your prime?

You live in a dream world Alan where every benefit claimant is an honest person desperately looking for work. The fact is that today's benefit system has had an appalling effect upon the country and created huge incentives for many people *not* to seek work. Young girls deliberately get pregnant so that they can claim benefits and housing. People are quite capable of working are claiming incapacity benefits for spurious reasons such as 'stress' and 'back problems'. Once they are in receipt of these (tax free) benefits there is no incentive to seek work because many of them are incapable of obtaining work that would provide them with as much take-home cash as they get on benefits. The system is crazy and desperately needs root and branch reform. Frank Field was the man that Tony Blair asked to 'Think the unthinkable' and reform the system. When he did he was removed because Nulab wouldn't permit the gov't to bring in these desperately needed reforms. So things have gone from bad to worse.

Ret.

LOL What double standards! The Police often retire on 'ill health' grounds due to stress and bad backs.

Fair point. OK, let's do it properly....

Compare with someone in work on an average salary:

Wage: 25400 Tax: -3873 NI: -2279 Travel to work (assume 3 a day): -720 Child tax credit: 1618 Child ben: 1600 (Income too high for any WTC, HB or CTB)

Total: 21746. Compared with 20200 on the dole.

True. There is also the fact that once on the benefit, employers are unlikely to give them a job, because they could be the type that drops you in the shit at a whim. Unfortunately, only constant employees are constant employees, paying for all the genuine benefit takers, and all the scrounging layabouts.

And will get worse until someone has the bottle to stand up and be radical. Once certain groups get more voting power, then politicians are unlikely to be rocking the vote. Maybe soon Grate Britain will be full of white layabouts claiming benefits, and foreign workers in slave wages.

You are presuming for the worse case scenario? There are plenty of people who are unfit for certain work, who are perfectly capable of getting a job.

One of the big problems is that people give up hope, due to shortsighted employers choosing from the 'safer' pool of fit labour, instead of fit for purpose.

Frank Field is the only politician who talks any sense about benefits. I'd even consider voting Labour if he was the leader...

So which part of Alan's post do you have reasoned objection to, instead of the usual stock attitude that all benefit claimants are scroungers? In fact, although many disabled people claiming invalidity benefit could work, few employers are prepared to be flexible enough to employ them. I know that asking an ex-policeman to use his brain rather than his prejudice is a forlorn task, but just *think* for a change. If a disabled person presents himself for interview and it is disclosed that his disability is such that he is fit to work three days a week but he can't predict which those days will be, would you employ him, knowing that he would be so unreliable? What sanctions would you apply to that employer to force him to employ that disabled person? Are you prepared to allow feckless inflexible employers deny employment to disabled people? In short, do you want to do something positive or do want to spout ignorant bollocks. You're a policeman, so I guess I already know the answer to that!

Most are and unlike you they haven't sponged off the taxpayer all their lives

you are a very nasty small minded creature

Well said. Most of the do gooders here haven't a clue how many people sit on their arses living off our taxes.

Where did he say *all*?

The fact is that the means tested structure of the benefits system encourages "scoungers", or rather acts as a disincentive for claimants to try to support themselves (see my post with figures). But that doesn't mean all claimants are in fact "scroungers" and I've yet to see anyone claim that - it's a strawman.

The benefits system also is not flexible enough to allow that to happen. Try claiming IB and doing the occasional bit of paid work - the hassle you'd get with benefits is simply not worth it. I know someone who suffers from paranoia and wouldn't be able to hold a full time job down, but he's an excellent programmer. So much talent is being wasted because clueless politicians can't see alternatives to means testing.

Depends how good they are, and providing the employer has the right to only pay for the work produced. But employment laws are no more flexible that benefit rules.

Flexibilty has to work both ways.

Maybe if you reply to what he actually wrote instead of what you're pretending he wrote you'd have a point to make.