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Every time I write about welfare scroungers or fraud I am accused of being a heartless, pampered Tory boy by a range of deluded lefties. I just do not understand this. For starters I am not a Tory. When they stopped believing in low taxes, a small state and started cowering to every EU diktat I gave up on them. Secondly I have worked for everything I have, I am not a beneficiary of inherited wealth. And thirdly if being heartless means objecting to those who work hard having to support either thieves or those who opt not to work hard, sure I am heartless. I believe in a welfare system that acts as a safety net but not in one that becomes a lifestyle choice. To me it is heartless to take away money in tax from those on low incomes to redistribute it to criminals or those who opt for idleness. Het I am not Scrooge but equally I do not see why all those who have been naughty should get Christmas presents paid for by those who have been god. Do you?
There was a damning statistic or two out this week. Firstly we learned that one third of the money collected in income tax is spent on welfare payments. That is an extraordinarily high number. And it is calculated that c 7% or 8% of those payments are made to fraudulent claimants. More damning still was that 43% of those claiming benefits and not working had in fact never worked in their lives. They are on a career of welfare dependency.
There will be those on the left who say “there are no jobs” thanks to the wicked Tories/banksters and of course Margaret Thatcher. That is simply not true. You do not have to speak with an Eastern European accent to work in Starbucks, MacDonald’s, etc. It just seems that way. The reason that this occurs is that whereas you are better off working in Starbucks UK than having a better than MacJob in Poland, we have created a welfare system in the UK and a moral climate where there is no shame in being welfare addicted so many native born Brits folks opt to stay on welfare rather than take a MacJob.
When RMPC advertised for a waitress a year ago we had 100 applicants. A handful were from British born applicants. We shortlisted one Brit. She failed to turn up for an interview. So we have a lovely, hard working Polish waitress. We offered a good job in a City where there are 200,000 potential British applicants currently claiming benefit. But they are not interested. Every day you hear stories of folks declining jobs because they might have to start at 8 AM or travel a few miles.
This sort of indulgence might be considered sustainable in a land where the Government was not running a huge budget deficit and borrowing beyond its means. But the UK is not in that sort of position. As a country we have to make big cuts in the amount our Government spends. And frankly I’d rather see those cuts being made on forcing those on welfare to accept jobs they do not like or want and so starting to pay taxes rather than just bleed the system, rather than on, say, closing my local Hospital. Is that so unreasonable?
If we wish to reduce the welfare budget it is not hard. And whilst it might cause resentment among those who believe, erroneously, that they have a right to a life on welfare, the 29 million of us in employment feel rather differently. I say it is not hard. It is not. Here are four easy steps.
1. As of tomorrow any new applicant for welfare (wherever they were born) will not receive a penny unless they have paid five years NI contributions.
2. In two years time no-one will receive welfare unless they have paid 5 years NI.
3. The thresh-hold at which anyone pays income tax should be increased to £20,000. That makes taking low paid work far more attractive.
4. Housing benefit payments should be capped at a level equating to 75% of the average rent bill in the UK. This will force some claiming vast amounts to live in London to move. That will in turn remove an artificial stimulus to rent ( and housing prices) in London so making housing more affordable. At the same time any Local authority house or flat left unoccupied for more than 2 months should be sequestrated and auctioned so that it joins a growing private sector rental market. Councils are just inefficient landlords. An efficient and low cost private rented sector in housing will allow greater labour mobility so those in the Grim North who claim there are no jobs can get on their bikes to move to where there are jobs.
5. Those found guilty of welfare fraud should have all of their assets equivalent to 150% of the amount stolen removed and they should receive a lifetime ban on receiving any state benefits at all. No custodial sentence is needed. My solution offers the chance of financial recompense for the taxpayer and would, I suggest, act as a real deterrent to the fraudster.
Easy. Welfare would remain a safety net for those between jobs. But it would cease to be a career path. Welfare crime would not pay. It would be simpler to move to find work and lower paid work would be financially far more attractive than they are now. And the taxpayer would be far better off.
Is this heartless or just common sense?
This article originally appeared in Tom Winnifrith’s bi-weekly Tomogrpah newsletter which contains links to all of his articles on 10 leading UK and US financial websites plus original exclusive content. Click HERE to sign up for this free bi-weekly newsletter where the midweek edition also contains a free share tip.
…Common sense..
Thought about running the Country – or going for President?!!
You’d probably have to brush up on your PC’ ness tho – although it is refreshingly colourful.
Cheers
You make a good point in that those who don’t wish to work shouldn’t get benefits just for being lazy, which is essentially what you’re saying. But unfortunately you assume many on welfare are either between jobs or lazy. This isn’t so.
For a start, many are people who cannot work for whatever reason. My girlfriend is medically unable to work at the moment. Yet to look at her she’s no different from anyone else on the street. She’s not lazy, she wants to work, and even attempted University as a way to move into the job market. She was forced to give this up because her conditions prevented her from being able to go to classes. She’s not going to ever pay 5 years into NI, should she be, essentially, put to death because of health reasons? Because if you prevent her having an income, when she’s already prevented from working due to her health, that’s what will happen.
In another issue, I moved to where I am now from an area of the country in which you had to have a car to work a full time job that wasn’t in an office. Said office jobs were so few and far between, and required skills that most people who didn’t have the money for a car didn’t have either. This left buses. Said buses were only good for getting you in for a 9-5 job, which could only be the office jobs mentioned above. The other jobs were all shop jobs which had two options:
1 – Work full time, but you had to get a taxi, costing upwards of £10 per day, home. Meaning you’d spend at least £200 a month on taxis, and over £40 a month on buses to get in… £240 a month on travel = not enough to survive on at minimum wage.
2 – Work part time. There were two ways of working part time in any companies in the area. Some had set hours, however these set hours were never enough to survive on when you consider the huge cost of the buses in and out as they all wanted people in for just a few hours each day. 24 hours a week over 3 days would have been good. The majority were offering 15 spread out over a full 5 days, meaning earn £18 a day, spend about £4 just on travel, means each week you now earn £90 a week, but spend £16 on travel, take into account you now get less money from housing benefit and the end result is worse than if you were on benefits. Which is little help when you’re already struggling to get by.
The other way of part time work is zero hour contracts, which companies LOVE these days… this is not a “job” that can support anyone. Yes there’s a hell of a lot of these jobs out there, but they’re jobs with no actual contract to help the employee, just the employer. Normally an employer needs a true reason to fire an employee. You couldn’t have a disagreement with your manager and be thrown out of the door the next day. Not so with zero hour contracts because they never fire you, they just drop your hours to zero and say they don’t have enough for you. Nothing you can do. And you can’t just have two jobs while on a zero hour contract because the second someone else in the company where the zero hour contract is goes on holiday, you might be asked to do loads of extra hours, which is great for the bank balance during that period, but you need to quit any other job to do it, and what happens if you don’t? Well don’t go expecting any hours for the next few weeks, they’re only for people who care about the company.
So yeah, loads of jobs out there, but so, so many are zero hour contracts, or part time hours, which are useless to so many people who, y’know, want to survive (I’d have had to choose to either not get buses in, which would mean I’d be fired, or not eat, so I’d end up ill and in hospital, and fired as I couldn’t do the job, or not pay my rent, which would mean I’d be homeless, stink, and thus fired for looking like a mess and stinking the place out).
Yes, we need to stop people from committing benefit fraud, and everyone on benefits who isn’t screwing the system wants to prevent others from screwing the system. But that doesn’t mean everyone on benefits should suffer from it, as the majority who are on benefits, whether temporarily, or for life due to illness, would rather not be on them as well, but are forced to be. Why make their lives hell?
Also, your figure about how much is spent on welfare is misleading. It makes out that the majority goes to people on JSA and the like, actually just 3% of the welfare budget goes on JSA claimants, while the majority is spent on Pensions and on those in low-paid jobs who need wages topping up because employers are too cheap to actually pay people a real wage.
So… 3% isn’t a whole hell of a lot to be punishing the entire 100% over is it?
If one kid punches another in class, you don’t give everyone detention during lunch break. Just as if one member of a family steals from a shop you don’t imprison the entire family for it, and that’s relatives and friends. Why should everyone on welfare be punished for the tiny minority who are attempting to claim fraudulently? Everyone has a right to life, not just those who earn tens of thousands per year.
Hi Mike,
Not going to argue with you, but just thought I’d put my own opinion across.
I think Mr W isn’t actually having a go at your own circumstances, nor your partner’s who has a condition which she certainly not would have chosen.
Probably, I feel he may be recognising that this country has been struggling for years to afford a system it can no longer do comfortably from Income Tax receipts alone. And that something needs to be done about it sooner rather than later.
In addition, he refers to an increase in the Tax threshold which would obviously put more money in the pocket of the lower-paid worker, thus allowing a hard-working section of our population a
tax-free existence. We probably wouldn’t see many people arguing with that one.
With great respect I recognise your situation, but I too understand the frustration business-owners feel, by being accused of not paying a
so-called real income, to workers who need better pay.
The past 5 years is more than evidence that it doesn’t just grow on trees, and we aren’t all rich, wealthy and running around in Porsche Boxsters, just because we ‘own a business’. Not that there’d, necessarily, be any shame in being able to afford to do such a thing.
Sometimes we don’t get paid ourselves, and just make do.
A financial mate of mine once told me that he gives advice to ppl who run their own businesses. And from a lot of the businesses he sees fail, he reckons the difference between them failing, or had they kept running… was about £400 per month..!!
Although my views are a little right-wing, I strongly agree in a fair welfare system too.
I started my own business, not for the money necessarily (ha ha!!) but more the freedom from the politics associated with having someone else in this world telling me what to do..!!
I gave up two decent jobs, before I realised I wanted to make myself unemployable. And that is what I am proud of.
A more positive, less reliant, and more honest approach, I feel is the thrust of which the Pizza Man is trying to convey… it’s certainly opened a can of worms..!!!
Radical yeah, let’s do it!
In another issue, I moved to where I am now from an area of the country in which you had to have a car to work a full time job that wasn’t in an office.
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No need to get a car, you could get a moped instead