Benefit and Budget Cuts kick in, any views?

When I was young and broke, I was pretty socialist Opinions certainly change over the years...

But I think if a business owner or someone on what they considered to be a reasonable income fell on hard times, and got to the extreme point of house re-possession, struggling to feed their family etc, then this is exactly what the welfare safety net is designed for.

The difference is, I bet they would fight tooth and nail to return themselves and family back to a self sufficient status, doing whatever it took, downsizing, relocating, re skilling etc.

We need to restore pride and self worth into our society, regardless of political beliefs or family income and stop the engrained reliance on the state.

A significant proportion of benefits are paid to those in work, because their employers pay the minimum wage and know the government will top it up.

A way of reducing the benefits bill would be to insist that all businesses bidding for public contracts pay the living wage which is

The problem you have now is, is that if a job is being offered @

It's sky-high rents coupled with low-paid work that drives up the benefits bill because by far the largest item of expenditure is housing costs. Most people who claim Housing Benefit are working (I think around two-thirds of claimants are employed).

Rather than cut benefit, a sane government would think about introducing rent controls and increasing the percentage of affordable homes built. This government does the opposite -it's required social housing providers to charge more than they used to (so more of their tenants need to claim higher amounts of Housing Benefit); and it's allowed developers to reduce the number of affordable homes they must build when developing new housing estates.

Child Allowance is another benefit that's paid regardless of whether someone's in work or not.

If someone was offered

So what you're saying then, it is for the state to reduce the rental costs of social housing, rather than employers increasing wages? That will cheer up

A far higher percentage of employees' earnings go on paying for their housing costs in the UK than in other countries, whether they're buying their homes or renting them. An increasing percentage of people will never be able to afford to buy their own homes, even if they're on better than average earnings. We have to do something about the housing market because of the social and economic consequences to the UK of unaffordable housing, an extreme shortage of the more affordable homes and the lack of security created by short-term tenancies.

To try to make work pay and ensure people don't lose the homes they rent (privately or from social landlords), the state pays Housing Benefit where tenants' earnings - or benefits - are insufficient for them to meet their basic living costs as well as pay rent. Rents have risen far more rapidly than inflation because affordable housing is in such short supply - it's a landlords' market - so taxpayers' contribution to Housing Benefit has also gone up as rapidly.

It'd be great if employers increase employees' earnings and it would reduce the amount of Housing Benefit paid. I'm doubtful, though, whether most employers could afford to provide pay increases large enough to offset the rent hikes. The only way out I can see is for adequate rental controls to be put in place.