Roz I am not getting at people who have suddenly be plunged into redundency. These are people who have worked and in most cases want to work.

I am refering to the great non working class ( you know they exist Roz )

Surely if previous generations have paid enough, we would be sitting on a budget surplus, not defiit.

Non-working class is increasing not because they do not want to work, but because there is less and less work around. Ever increasing unemployment figures may be a clue. Redundancies are all around us. There is also hidden unemployment of families who are forced to give up jobs to look after their children, as help towards childcare is reduced, and it becomes uneconomical to work.

Now I would expect that these families are facing disproportionate hardship, and then somehow priority for government is to reduce the highest rate of tax.

There is no strategy in the budget of how unemployment will be reduced. On the contrary it is expected to increase further.

So make sure you are not the unfortunate one to lose your job. How long can you manage before you are forced to sell your home, because of temporary unemployment?
If you are a pensioner, you’ll be all right. You have paid all your dues and the state should look after and protect you from the hardship everyone else should endure.
If you are rich, we want to encourage you to become even more rich and throw in some tax cuts for you.

It is nice to know that We are all in this together

The economic situation isn't getting any better and many people are still either facing redundancy, facing potential redundancy and therefore killing themselves trying to impress, or have been out of work for some time. Having been unemployed recently for almost a year I can say with honesty that there is no dignity in claiming benefits hence I cannot see how anyone could conceivably get away with not trying to find work. There are however in parts of the country areas where few people have ever worked. See the programme Bottom Line which was on Thursday evening with Mary Portas to see the effects of long term structural unemployment on particular localities. Those areas suffer disproportionately due to the loss of our manufacturing base. In those areas I can believe that many have never worked and see no point in searching as there simply are no jobs out there. When I was unemployed it was the deepest part of the recession and there was nothing to apply for. As a highly skilled professional I applied for jobs as a lollipop lady and exam invigilator, amongst many others, however was successful on one not the other however I couldnt afford to take up either really as neither job would cover my childcare costs so I would be working at a loss. Much as I am now really with three young children where I subsidise my employer in many ways, in time where I often work hours for free just to keep my outputs up and to meet impossible deadlines caused by incompetent management and also in transport costs where they make it nigh impossible to claim travel expenses and it comes back so late anyway, I hardly bother any more. I think people like me might one day wake up and see how theyve been taken for fools. If I lost my current job I am really not sure whether I would actively look for another one like I did last time, as its so darn difficult making the books balance with childcare demands, and also the compromised parenting that that involves. I'd be honestly seeing what the benefit system would offer me and dont mind admitting that.

There are many jobs that the native population refuse to do.

I saw today that in the so called boom years from 2002 to 2007 under New Labour , Welfare budget increased 40% , yes 40% in boom years.

Perhaps Mr O should put all benefits back to 2002 plus CPI , that would save us a fortune. Why in a so called boom time was benefits soaring

An additional £10 billion cuts in 'benefits', on top of the £18 billion already announced/being implemented vs 5% tax break for the richest (supposedly it would've been 10% but Oik Osbourne got talked out of it)

It is clear the welfare budget has got out of control and also hardly an incentive to get some people to work , or save

We need to do what Canada did about 20 years ago. Assume no benefits then look at each item to ensure it is essential.

For gods sake, make sure you dont lose your job, otherwise with Brian in charge, we would all be back in the Work houses, as long as he is alright jack, thats all that matters, he has his nice big final salary pension ecah month, so that means everyone must be ok

I do not have a final salary pension scheme as I did not work for the public sector or a large private company

I had to pay into my own pension that is NOT index linked

Do not jump to conclusions.

What was so bad about 2002 . I am only saying go back to the time before the grey man from Kirkaldy wanted 90% of the population on benefits.

My question , which you have as usual completeley ignored was in the boom times from 02 t0 07 why did the welfare budget increase 40%.

Brian - apologies for jumping to conclusions, I really have no idea why it jumped to 40% during the golden years, if this is true, then maybe thats why the UK is now almost bankrupt. I can also see your point that you have paid in all your working life, and now get very little back, whilst others who have paid in b****r all, reap the benefits

FHB
Thanks for your comments

Gordon Brown increased public expenditure as a percentage of GDP from 40% to 52%. Then he borrowed more and more money to finance this expenditure.

I have looked in vain for an explanation of this figure of a 40% increase in 'welfare' (? = social security, including e.g. retirement pensions, housing benefit, disability benefit? Does it include tax credits?). The best I can come up with is this, which doesn't actually give an answer, but suggests that the increase is nothing out of the ordinary compared with the long-term trend. Indeed, it suggests that for the particular period 2002-2007 which has been mentioned, there was actually (unusually) a fall. ‘By the 40% standard, welfare growth has never been under control for any sustained period since the modern welfare stare began, with the exception only of the six years from 2001-2 to 2007-8.’

Perhaps someone else can provide better information.

This post was last modified: 27-03-2012 03:38 PM by robin orton.

I believe I read in The Telegraph or Times

Would imagine would include tax credits.

I see we agree welfare budget out of control.

You're putting words into my mouth, Brian - as should be clear from my punctuation, 'welfare growth has never been under control...' was a quote from the BBC article.

'Out of control' begs lots of questions. Social security spending, unlike other kinds of Government expenditure, is necessarily largely demand-led.

I have no idea but wonder what percentage of their budget welfare is in say
Japan , China , Taiwan , Malaysia

I've no idea either. My guess would be that it's a lot lower than ours. That's one of the (many) reasons I'm glad I live here.

Yes but they are our competitors.

"Japan's welfare spending, which includes pensions and health, is expected to reach nearly £888bn in the current fiscal year, around 22 percent of GDP".

In the UK a similar figure for welfare, pensions, and health would be £363bn. Since Japan has a population approximately twice that of the UK, this means that they spend more per person on welfare, pensions, and health (roughly 20% more).

sources:
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2012/01/31...0H20120131
http://www.ukpublicspending.co.uk/year_s...40#ukgs302

Japan has particular problems with an aging population and a decade of stagnation, but it is certainly not the only developed country with higher welfare spending than the UK (northern Europe particularly).

I'm not convinced that the UK economy is geared to directly competing with Malaysia. If it is a competition, then it should not just be about who has the lowest wages and welfare costs, we should be competing to give the general population a better quality of life - that should be the primary aim of all governments.

We do not compete with China, Taiwan or Malaysia. We make completely different things. They send their children to our universities and buy our aeroplane engines. We buy their manufactured goods and spend money there on holiday.

What happens when they build their own aeroplanes and open enough of their own quality universities.