The UK welfare state..one-third of ALL homes dependent on gov for income...

[Manedwolf]

I had no idea it was that bad. Gun bans, big-brother cameras everywhere, tolerance of violent jihadis, and now this?
More than seven million households are getting most of their income from government handouts.

So how long does it take for a failed society to implode?

I just keep picturing a half-ruined dystopian London with third-world squalor...and the islamic call to prayer from loudspeakers on Big Ben.


From the Telegraph:

One third of homes dependent on benefits

By Brendan Carlin, Political Correspondent
Last Updated: 10:42am GMT 12/02/2007

One in three households across Britain is now dependent on the state for at least half its income, it emerged today.

Official government figures showed that more than seven million households are getting most of their income from government handouts.

The figures also reveal the huge gulf in welfare dependency between single parent and two-parent households.

The report is scathing about how New Labour welfare policy has been designed to "create beholden voters rather than independent people".

In many single-parent homes with two children, the proportion of families that would be financially crippled without state support is now as high as 61 per cent. That compares with just nine per cent in a two-parent home.

The figures, prepared by the Department for Work and Pensions but cited today in a new report from the Civitas think-tank, paint a stark picture of how Britain's dependency culture has grown over the last few decades.

Gordon Brown has been repeatedly attacked for building up a society heavily reliant on tax credits and other state aid. The Chancellor's tax credits scheme was "only the most prominent example of welfare policies intended to create a grateful electorate rather than free-thinking citizens", the report says.

But it suggests that David Cameron's Conservatives are worried about seeming uncaring, and therefore not ready to take drastic action and copy American-style policies that have produced huge drops in benefit claims in the United States. The claim was denied by a spokesman for the shadow chancellor, George Osborne, who said the Tories were developing policies to reduce the size of Mr Brown's state.

According to David Green from Civitas, the author of the report, data on the real scale of state dependency have only been collected for the last five years or so. But he estimated that the proportion of households dependent on the state for at least 50 per cent of income had been probably as low as five per cent in the 1960s.

It rose during the 1970s and 1980s, especially because of soaring unemployment under the Thatcher government.

His report in the current issue of Civitas Review makes the wider point that conventional politics is no longer providing the answers to Britain's problems. The Blair years had "tested to destruction" the notion that big spending on health, education and welfare was the answer.

There was a widespread perception that high crime, failing schools, unsustainable immigration and the low quality of the NHS were "not being properly confronted by our political leaders".

Labour might embrace the "terminology of markets", such as choice competition, but "political discussion of public services like health and education still seems stranded halfway between the age of collectivism and a more consumer-friendly alternative".

But Mr Green went on: "Even Conservatives who are concerned about the failure of public sector monopolies in health and education are slow to criticise the Blair Government's approach".

That was because "they know that calling for a reduced role for the state in health and education is to invite being caricatured as uncaring". Mr Green urged the Tories not to accept the modern view that individual action and liberty were the same as "selfish individualism".

A government spokesman last night defended the scale of state help, saying: "It is thanks to our system of tax credits and the New Deal that we have two million more people in work than in 1997. We have also raised hundreds of thousands of children out of poverty."

The analysis of benefit dependency, based on the latest DWP statistics, will strike a chord with a report from the Reform think-tank.

Last year it warned that the Government had created a benefits regime that "actively dissuades millions from bettering their position".

Frank Field, the Labour former welfare minister, has also called for the system to be reformed "in a way which turned the world upside down".

Welfare should be "a floor on which people built and not a ceiling which made it impossible for them to pass through", Mr Field said. Last night David Laws, the Liberal Democrat's welfare spokesman, also accused the Chancellor of helping to bolster the dependency culture.

The shadow chancellor Mr Osborne said: "Under Gordon Brown the role of the state has multiplied and government has got bigger and bigger.

"This is exactly the opposite of what a competitive enterprise economy needs.

"As taxes rise to pay for this I think it is legitimate to ask should people earning over £50,000 be able to claim means tested benefits like tax credits?"

[RadioFreeSeaLab]

Keep an eye on the UK.  We're seeing the inevitable results of big government.  We'll be next if we don't get a handle on things.

[Cromlech]

Wow, that is pretty shocking.

[Matthew Carberry]

Wow, that is pretty shocking.

What I love about the Brits is their endless capacity for understatement... 

I assume you should feel proud of how you are supporting two families.  That's caring right there.  If you can find the folks your taxes support maybe you can make them wear your name, like an endorsement deal. 

[MillCreek]

Absolutely amazing, but I would be interested to see the figures for some of the other European countries.  I wonder if some of the Scandanavian countries are equal or higher on this metric.

[MechAg94]

But they just need help temporarily until they get back on their feet.  It isn't their fault.   

So how long does it take for a failed society to implode?

Apparently longer than most think.

[Standing Wolf]

The report is scathing about how New Labour welfare policy has been designed to "create beholden voters rather than independent people".

Lyndon Johnson spins in his grave.

[gunsmith]

We ought to heavily advertise how good "poor" people got it over there.
I couldn't believe it when I lived in Ireland (which has basically the same deal)
These hippies I lived with, all got free rent plus about one hundred bucks a week for food (cash).
There is a whole bunch of people who travel around Ireland, pretending they can not read, and instead of signing for the dole,  they "leave their mark" ...yup...they get around 500 bucks or more a week for writing X
on their form.
They put this in a credit union, (which gives out great loans)  and save up for cars,homes, and land, get "vacation" pay, and free medical.

They also work off the books.

I suggested that people work a real job but they rationalized it as "it would cost more for the gov't to train me to work then it would to just collect the dole"

We ought to tell our welfare cheats that they can get a much better deal over there.

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

Wow, that is pretty shocking.

That's not shocking, that's scary!  One third of the population is dependent upon stealing from their neighbors.  How does that sound as a recipe for social harmony?

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

I suggested that people work a real job but they rationalized it as "it would cost more for the gov't to train me to work then it would to just collect the dole"

Since when is it the gov'ts job to train these people?  If they want training, they need to pay for it themselves.  That's like breaking into someone's house and saying "it'll cost you more for me to steal your car, so you should be happy that I'm taking your jewelry and TV instead."

And the voters put up with this stuff?

(Well of course they do!  Most of the voters are the ones stealing the jewelry and leaving the car and saying that's a good deal for the rightful owner.  Scary.  Very scary.)

[CAnnoneer]

I cannot believe the report is right. It is just too implausible. What kind of taxes do the other 2/3 pay to produce enough for such massive socialism? The Blair gov keeps boasting about a booming economy. That is inconsistent with socialist taxes.

[Manedwolf]

I cannot believe the report is right. It is just too implausible. What kind of taxes do the other 2/3 pay to produce enough for such massive socialism? The Blair gov keeps boasting about a booming economy. That is inconsistent with socialist taxes.

Well, I know that the gasoline taxes there are insane, and the VAT (value added tax) is pretty heavy on most purchased goods. Add to that victimizing "taxing" in the form of speedtrap cameras EVERYWHERE, and even a $14 charge per day to drive into central London, that's a lot of money being sucked out of people's pockets.

Oh, yeah, you also need to pay a government fee for every television set you own every year, too. They literally have snoopers that go around with sensing gear to detect televisions on that might not be paid, though I don't think it works anymore with LCDs.

[Manedwolf]

I cannot believe the report is right. It is just too implausible. What kind of taxes do the other 2/3 pay to produce enough for such massive socialism? The Blair gov keeps boasting about a booming economy. That is inconsistent with socialist taxes.

Well, I know that the gasoline taxes there are insane, and the VAT (value added tax) is pretty heavy on most purchased goods. Add to that victimizing "taxing" in the form of speedtrap cameras EVERYWHERE, and even a $14 charge per day to drive into central London, that's a lot of money being sucked out of people's pockets.

Oh, yeah, you also need to pay a government licensing fee every year if you own any television, too...OTA broadcasts, mind you, not cable. About $260 a year.  They literally have snoopers that go around with sensing gear to detect televisions on that might not be paid, and bang on your door. 

From the British TV Licensing agency website:

A colour TV Licence costs £131.50 and a black and white licence costs £44.00.

Our TV detector vans and enforcement officers are equipped with state-of-the-art detection equipment which can tell in as little as 20 seconds whether you are using a TV.

We have a range of detection tools at our disposal in our vans. Some aspects of the equipment have been developed in such secrecy that engineers working on specific detection methods work in isolation - so not even they know how the other detection methods work. This gives us the best chance of catching licence evaders.    

We can use a hand-held scanning device. These measure both the direction and strength of a signal, making it easy for us to locate TVs - even in the hardest to reach places.

And more details from elsewhere:

If you buy a new television from the shop, they are required to register it and the Licensing authority sends you a demand for License payment. You cannot buy one without giving your name and address for registration. It is also a criminal offense if the shop does not notify the TV Licensing authority of your details within 28 days.

[Cromlech]

Taxes are notoriously high here, to be sure. It was mentioned earlier in the thread, that this welfare state creates 'beholden voters', and I think that is quite right. Labour relies on working class people like me to vote for them, and tries to curry favour with them using things like this. Why vote for someone else when Labour (in reality, your neighbours) are paying your bills!

 

[Iapetus]

Wow, that is pretty shocking.

That's not shocking, that's scary!  One third of the population is dependent upon stealing from their neighbors.  How does that sound as a recipe for social harmony?

I don't know what data and calculations they used, so what follows is just baseless speculation.

It's possible that 1/3 of the population is dependent on getting money from the rest.

But it could also be possible that a lot of those "dependent" on benfits are only require state assistance as a result of the state taking so much off them in the first place.

Take for example the Tax Credits mentioned in the article.  I don't know the exact details of how they work, but basically, rather than the government just reducing taxes, they decided to keep them at a high level, but create a mechanism for (some) people to claim some of their money back.

So while it would be a valid criticism to say this is making people less self-sufficient and more dependent on the government, its not necessarily true that this many people are living at the expense of other people.


As for how much tax we pay:

At the last general election, one of the leaflets I got in the mail from the Liberal Democrats claimed that, after all the various taxes and tax credits are taken into account, the richest fifth of the population pay on average 41.x% of their income in taxes, and the poorest fifth pay 41.y%, where x was slightly smaller than y (I can't remember the exact value).  (They didn't say anything about the middle three fifths).

Of course, that was about two years ago, so they may have gone up since then.  (And I'm not sure how much I'd trust any statistics used by someone trying to persuade me to vote for them, anyway).

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

Yeah, I suppose you could be right.  The gov't steals a major portion of your paycheck, and you have to try to wrangle it back from the government through the political process.  In essence you "buy" back your own paycheck by voting for Candidate X or Party Y.  You get most of your income from the gov't, but it was money that really belonged to you before the gov't stole it from you and gave it back.  Thus it appears from the statistics that you're dependent upon the government for your income, but in reality you could be self-sufficient if the government ever got out of your way.

[Stand_watie]

The notion seems economically very difficult, unless the government had enormous receipts from the upper strata of taxpayers, or a gigantic revenue source (for example a small nation with huge receipts of oil sales revenue).

I'd like to see a breakdown of government receipts vs government expenditures.

[MillCreek]

I think that the UK does indeed earn a lot of money from the North Sea oil fields.