A Life Without Work: 1.5M Britons Haven’T Had A Job Since They Left School

[okaycuckoo]

The cynic in me (actually, me) suspects that the current standing order for the right wing press is to find the maximum number possible of these '73 kids by different dads on welfare and loving it' stories. Thus to stoke up resentment at a supposed army of welfare loungers living in luxury, and get public opinion behind welfare cuts.

How many of these families exist is not recorded. You could simply abolish extra benefits for 4th and subsequent children (new claims, anyway) to stop this, but not many people would be affected. Bringing up 5 kids isn't going to be easy for anyone..

Here are a few more:

http://ourdailydebt.wordpress.com/2010/05/18/the-government-does-the-thinking-for-you/

http://ourdailydebt.wordpress.com/2010/03/09/blairs-babes/

http://ourdailydebt.wordpress.com/2009/09/20/and-the-market-taketh-away/

http://ourdailydebt.wordpress.com/2009/09/18/the-government-giveth/

According to the calculator in that last link, £42k net = £61k gross.

[Clueless_Academic]

According to the "Mirror", (see My link)the benefits paid to the family are broken down as follows:

THE BILL

Income support: £439

Housing benefit: £87

Carer's allowance: £53

Disability living allowance: £119

Child benefit: £99

Council tax benefit: £18

TOTAL PER WEEK: £815

[matroskin]

We need to make it clear to people that if you go onto benefits and then simply continue to have children without ever having a job, you would not get more child benefit, bigger homes, or any other benefit except food money and state schooling. You should have to be in work for a minimum 12 months before more child benefit kicks in etc.

This won't work unless HMG is committed to enforce 1-2 child policy akin to Chinese. And even in China people find ways around it.

It beggars belief that they can afford a Mercedes People carrier! Down the road will others paying tax and working, driving a battered Ford Focus or Escort.

Everyone can too with house+concil tax+TV license paid for and on top of that £42K in discretional spending.

[wonderpup]

The welfare cradle to grave mentality has finished-it has to. Ultimately it will be good for everybody, including the children who won't be born in the benefits culture.

What's interesting at present is how many commentators are urging the Chinese government to introduce exactly these types of welfare systems in order to transform their population from being saving obsessed producers into free spending consumers.

These experts correctly diagnose the fact that people who have no social safety net are unlikely to spend lots of money on consumer good, as they need to save against the possible unemployment or illness or old age that might be in their future.

Yet- strangely- some of these same experts are cheerleading the idea of cutting these systems in the west- which will surely lead to a reduction in demand and further depress the economy.

There are only two possible explanations for this apparent contradiction;

1) The people in question are stupid and cannot see that by attacking the safety net in the west they will frighten the population into saving and out of spending- the exact opposite of what they presumably want to do.

Or

2) The western consumer has in effect been written off as a spent force, with the only extractable value left in the west being the diminishing tax base- in which case one would not like to see this value being wasted on the population- far better it be redircted to the bond holders and their bankster friends.

I would guess at option 2. Why waste valuable tax income trying to prop up the confidence of a burnt out debt saturated western consumer base whose only asset is an overpriced house?

The future lies with all those bright and shiny virgin consumers in the east- it's their confidence that needs to be boosted, so that they will feel safe to start spending their lovely unencumbered money.

So even as we dismantle the social protections in the west, there will be increasing calls from our beloved leaders for these social protections to be erected around the Chinese people, so they too might partake of the joys of consumer spending their way into debt slavery.

[SMAC67]

Are MP's, members of the Royal Family, and the rentier class included in these figures?

[winkie]

We could watch TV all day, although what we'd be watching and where the power would come from I have no idea.

There wouldn't be TV unless prepared to do it voluntary, not that I would miss it......