Inside Housing: Workers Forced Onto Housing Benefit, Says Unison.

[CrashConnoisseur]

'Workers forced onto housing benefit, says Unison':

http://www.insidehousing.co.uk/news/care-and-support/workers-forced-onto-housing-benefit-says-unison/6513177.article

Low wages and high rents are forcing hundreds of thousands of workers onto housing benefit, a trade union has warned.

Unison said a ‘toxic cocktail’ of low pay and rising rents means more people are turning to housing benefit to keep a roof over their head.

Union leaders also warned that these new claimants would be hit hard by cuts to the benefit, which start to come into effect from April.

On average, more than a quarter of housing benefit claimants are in work. The union called for fair pay and rents, and urged the government to build more affordable homes.

Dave Prentis, Unison general secretary, said: ‘The Tories like to paint a picture of work-shy scroungers, living it up in massive mansions at the taxpayers’ expense, when the reality is very different.

‘Their own statistics show that hundreds of thousands of workers across the UK are so low paid, they are forced onto housing benefit to keep a roof over their heads.’

[Inca]

State is once again subsidising employers in paying crap wages

[DarkHorseWaits-NoMore]

State is once again subsidising employers in paying crap wages

Yes and more taxes end up in the pockets of the private rented sector property owner, as rents are high maintained by massive gov't props under an overvalued housing market... saver/taxpayers/workers are crushed whilst landlords/bankers/elites/politicians/feckless wasters are doing nicely thank you. Grrr! :angry:.

[ChadzKhan]

State is once again subsidising employers in paying crap wages

No Tax payers subsidise the low wages business pays!!

[interestrateripoff]

No Tax payers subsidise the low wages business pays!!

Nope it's more complex than that. The two are interlinked, once the connection has been made it isn't broken until the state fails.

[Democorruptcy]

State is once again subsidising employers in paying crap wages

State is once again subsidising landlords.

[Harry Sacks]

Duh!

It's called the gap between income and prices, and is a symptom of the current monetary system - nothing else.

[miko]

Its called lieing about numbers

The numbers do not add up , inflation lies have kept wage rises down for years now which has led to wages not paying basic costs . The hen is coming home to roost.

[Harry Sacks]

Its called lieing about numbers

The numbers do not add up , inflation lies have kept wage rises down for years now which has led to wages not paying basic costs . The hen is coming home to roost.

Yeah, again that's a symptom of the way the monetary system works. See the bigger picture.

[miko]

Yeah, again that's a symptom of the way the monetary system works. See the bigger picture.

I do

[leicestersq]

This is to be expected.

Private sector wages are moving backwards in many areas, making it more and more necessary to seek out benefits that are moving forwards.

The result of this is that the strain on the public sector finances will grow, as tax on the private sector can no longer support benefits that are growing both in value for the individual, and the total amount of benefits being awarded.

This is not sustainable, and will end soon. The government should be making plans now for the effective ending of the welfare state.

[leicestersq]

Bond Yields on the PIGS appear to be down today.

Nothing to do with the ECB just printing and buying all the PIGS bonds of course.

.

[Executive Sadman]

I dont buy into all this low wages stuff.

We cant expect to keep having slave labour 3rd world pricing on electronics, consumer durables and so on and also expect to be paid tens of times the rate they are paid for our jobs.

Living on a shoestring isnt difficult, but for taxes and housing costs.

Wages dont need to rise, houses and taxes need to fall.

[Executive Sadman]

Anyway, what do the bean counters at unison suggest? let me guess, throw more money into the housing market through housing benefit, that should help drive rents down

[miko]

Wages dont need to rise, houses and taxes need to fall.

But they don't fall , hence the situation.

Wages also need to keep up with rising travel costs, insurance and food costs , but again they don't.

[eric pebble]

Its called lieing about numbers

The numbers do not add up , i..//......]

. The hen is coming home to roost.

The whole house "price" ponzi/pyramid thing has been built up on

LIES.

PREDATORY LIAR LOANS.

The Greatest Fraud EVER in history.

---------------

Fraud

"One of the foremost experts on structured finance and derivatives - Janet Tavakoli - says that rampant fraud and Ponzi schemes caused the financial crisis.

University of Texas economics professor James K. Galbraith agrees: You had fraud in the origination of the mortgages, fraud in the underwriting, fraud in the ratings agencies".

http://www.housepricecrash.co.uk/forum/index.php?showtopic=156946&st=0

http://georgewashington2.blogspot.com/2009/10/ongoing-cover-up-of-truth-behind.html

http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=15676

Edited January 12, 2011 by eric pebble

[wonderpup]

This is not sustainable, and will end soon. The government should be making plans now for the effective ending of the welfare state.

If the welfare state ended, it would take the economy with it as everyone stopped spending and started saving, for old age, for possible unemployment or illness.

The welfare state and the 'consumer' are interdependent to the degree that the willingness to spend today is based in part on the confidence of state support being there if really needed. Take that safety net away and the psychological conditions required for the consumer society are gone- and with it much of the demand for goods and services.

China has no real welfare system and consequently a weak internal market- knowing they are on their own if things go wrong, their population is not inclined to spend money on the tat it manufactures.

Ironically , many of the same people who demand the west dismantle it's own welfare systems as unsustainable also call on China to create one for their people, to encourage exactly the profligate borrow/spend behaviour that has messed us up.

[crash2006]

Nope it's more complex than that. The two are interlinked, once the connection has been made it isn't broken until the state fails.

There is a way, to build more social homes to help reduce private rental costs, but will they do it? cheap rents = economic consumer boom, high rents = economic consumer crash

Edited January 12, 2011 by crash2006

[leicestersq]

If the welfare state ended, it would take the economy with it as everyone stopped spending and started saving, for old age, for possible unemployment or illness.

The welfare state and the 'consumer' are interdependent to the degree that the willingness to spend today is based in part on the confidence of state support being there if really needed. Take that safety net away and the psychological conditions required for the consumer society are gone- and with it much of the demand for goods and services.

China has no real welfare system and consequently a weak internal market- knowing they are on their own if things go wrong, their population is not inclined to spend money on the tat it manufactures.

Ironically , many of the same people who demand the west dismantle it's own welfare systems as unsustainable also call on China to create one for their people, to encourage exactly the profligate borrow/spend behaviour that has messed us up.

WP,

in the long run, what can be afforded by way of a welfare state, has to balance tax receipts.

We are now in a situation which is snowballing out of control. At the margin, it is better to claim benefits or work in the black economy, than to work in legitimate employment. Everyone who makes the decision to move out of legitimate employment, or claim extra benefits, places more tax strain on the smaller group now left paying for everyone else, which in turn creates a greater incentive for the next person to opt out of the legitimate employed/no benefits group.

With a fiscal deficit wildly out of control, there has to be a moment of reckoning. Last reported month, which was for November, didnt we borrow something like £25billion as a PSBR. Wow, that is £416 per person. I dont have the figures, but I guess that comes to over £1k per person working in the private sector, which is tax that will have to be levied at some later point, or the extra debt will have to be defaulted on. Clearly this is not sustainable. And this is just for one month.

And looking at the breakdown of government expenditure, and taking account the extra retirees about to hit their pension books on the Post Office counter, there is going to be no end to this expanding demand for handouts.

If you can see a way out of this imbalance, without at least a severe pruning of the welfare state, I would like to hear it.

[northwestsmith2]

The increases in claims for Housing Benefit are coming from those Working, newly unemployed or on low incomes and going to private

landlords.

LandLords win again!

[fellow]

But they don't fall , hence the situation.

Wages also need to keep up with rising travel costs, insurance and food costs , but again they don't.

Housing costs don't fall because the government is plugging the gap between what renters can afford and what landlords want. Take this away and there is only one loser.

[wonderpup]

WP,

in the long run, what can be afforded by way of a welfare state, has to balance tax receipts.

We are now in a situation which is snowballing out of control. At the margin, it is better to claim benefits or work in the black economy, than to work in legitimate employment. Everyone who makes the decision to move out of legitimate employment, or claim extra benefits, places more tax strain on the smaller group now left paying for everyone else, which in turn creates a greater incentive for the next person to opt out of the legitimate employed/no benefits group.

With a fiscal deficit wildly out of control, there has to be a moment of reckoning. Last reported month, which was for November, didnt we borrow something like £25billion as a PSBR. Wow, that is £416 per person. I dont have the figures, but I guess that comes to over £1k per person working in the private sector, which is tax that will have to be levied at some later point, or the extra debt will have to be defaulted on. Clearly this is not sustainable. And this is just for one month.

And looking at the breakdown of government expenditure, and taking account the extra retirees about to hit their pension books on the Post Office counter, there is going to be no end to this expanding demand for handouts.

If you can see a way out of this imbalance, without at least a severe pruning of the welfare state, I would like to hear it.

There are other options out there-

In an article in today’s Guardian, Professor Greg Philo, Research Director and one of the leading lights of the Glasgow Media Group asks why – amidst all the discussion of the deficit – there has been so little discussion in the media of how much wealth we have in Britain. The truth, of course, is that we are the sixth richest nation on earth with total personal wealth of £9,000bn. As Philo points out, this sum dwarfs the national debt.

Naturally, this wealth is overwhelmingly concentrated at the top. The richest 10% of Britons own £4,000bn, an average of £4m for each of the richest households. The poorest half own less than 10% of Britain’s wealth between them.

Most of the wealth owned by the richest 10% is held in property and pensions that would be relatively easily taxable. So Philo proposes a one-off tax on the very wealthy to wipe out the national debt. A simple 20% would do the trick. It would raise £800bn (the size of the national debt) and since much of the deficit is made up of interest on the national debt it would certainly help there

http://labour-uncut.co.uk/2010/08/16/a-one-off-wealth-tax-is-radical-but-astonishingly-popular-says-john-underwood/

But, of course, this would involve the wealth being shared about a bit- not something popular with those with the power to do it.

But my point was that even if you find the idea of eliminating the welfare state deeply appealing- as many seem to do- it's impact on the economy would be to switch us from a spending population to a saving one, which might be a good idea if we were not so dependant on internal demand.

The Chinese use vendor financing to make their economy work, but now find they have trapped themselves because the lack of social welfare prevents their domestic market from developing, while their massively indebted customers can no longer keep their end of the bargain.

So eliminating the welfare state would create mass unemployment which would- in the absence of any social support- lead to chaos.

Yes. it's true to say that eventually we might emerge as an island sweatshop where the desperate unemployed work for peanuts- but there would be no real middle class any more, since there would be little internal demand for the goods and services they provide.

The notion that welfare provision is a kind of luxury that the modern western economies can no longer afford is simplistic because it fails to admit the degree to to which the existence of the welfare state made this kind of complex economy possible in the first place.

[miko]

Housing costs don't fall because the government is plugging the gap between what renters can afford and what landlords want. Take this away and there is only one loser.

NO not always the case , if the landlords can find someone to pay the higher rent the current person living there who cannot match the price loses the home .

[erranta]

There are other options out there-

http://labour-uncut....john-underwood/

But, of course, this would involve the wealth being shared about a bit- not something popular with those with the power to do it.

But my point was that even if you find the idea of eliminating the welfare state deeply appealing- as many seem to do- it's impact on the economy would be to switch us from a spending population to a saving one, which might be a good idea if we were not so dependant on internal demand.

The Chinese use vendor financing to make their economy work, but now find they have trapped themselves because the lack of social welfare prevents their domestic market from developing, while their massively indebted customers can no longer keep their end of the bargain.

So eliminating the welfare state would create mass unemployment which would- in the absence of any social support- lead to chaos.

Yes. it's true to say that eventually we might emerge as an island sweatshop where the desperate unemployed work for peanuts- but there would be no real middle class any more, since there would be little internal demand for the goods and services they provide.

The notion that welfare provision is a kind of luxury that the modern western economies can no longer afford is simplistic because it fails to admit the degree to to which the existence of the welfare state made this kind of complex economy possible in the first place.

In China as soon as the downturn hit many newly created Millionaire bosses of clothing companies etc break in and take all company accounts over a weekend, flog their cars then disappear to an Asian country after transferring as much cash as they can out of China (inc the company lolly) - leaving thousands of workers without months of pay and no company/job the following Monday.

[exiges]

"Low wages and high rents are forcing hundreds of thousands of workers onto housing benefit, a trade union has warned."

If only there was a way of lowering rents to meet income.. I dunno, it's a crazy thought I know, but maybe lower house prices would make rents lower..