Thursday, Aug 27, 2009
Benefit payouts
Telegraph: Workless rate jumps as Labour benefit bill reaches £350 billion
This article suggests that the amount of money pumped into the housing market through LHA and other initiatives from 1998 is 100 billion, which is the first time I have seen it separated out. Unfortunately this is with figures such as 20 billion in council tax benefit... so quite unreliable. (you don't get council tax benefit, you may get a waiver on payment of council tax, but misleading to suggest you receive that as a benefit). I would be extremely interested in total DSS housing costs if anybody knows.
Posted by stillthinking @ 10:38 AM (422 views) Add Comment
3 Comments
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1. mark wadsworth said...
@ Stillthinking.
The total annual headline figure for Housing/Council Tax Benefit is about £18 billion (from memory). It's best to split that up into two quite separate chunks:
1. One third for people in private rented - this is money down the t01let of course and should be scrapped - a) it's a subsidy for private property ownership (Land Value Tax is the least bad tax, therefore subsidies to land ownership are the worst subsidies), b) it pushes up rent levels for tenants in work and c) they could be using that money to build another 100,000 units of social housing every year (to which see below). Or gear up a bit and build half a million units, see if I care.
2. Two thirds is for the eighty per cent of social tenants who receive whole or partial rebates. This is a truly made up figure. as the DWP counts it as an expense and local authorities/housing associations count them as receipts, so it's just shuffling money between government departments. As it happens, social housing is roughly break-even from the point of view of the state, so it's the cheapest and best form of welfare!!
Having thought this through, what we need is a d4mn' sight more social housing - with prompt eviction of nuisance neighbours, that'd solve half our problems!!
PS, I'm right wing - I believe in supply and demand - if there are 1.6 million households on council house waiting lists, then clearly we need more supply - especially if it costs 'the state' i.e. the long-suffering taxpayer, absolutely nothing.
2. stillthinking said...
Thanks Mark. I had a feeling probably you would know the breakdown...
So for 25 million workers roughly 750 a year.
3. mark wadsworth said...
@ st, that's the point - it isn't 25 million @ £750 - it's 25 million workers @ £250 a year for "private tenants", i.e. a transfer of £6 billion from workers to a couple of hundred thousand landlords.
Average net social rents (minus HB and CTB) minus maintenance & insurance etc for social housing is a negligible figure (and may even be a small profit). The £250 I have to pay to subsidise slumlords, which in turn pushes up the rent I have to pay ever so slightly hacks me off no end. The thought that lower and non-income people effectively live for free (but will never make a capital gain) at no net expense to me whatsoever does not trouble me in the slightest. Most home-owners live for free (and make capital gains)!