The Welfare State we’re in
Gearing up for their share of Gordon's profligacy
When you think of welfare and poverty, what comes to mind? Do you think of people down on their luck? Perhaps job losses? Caring for the disabled? Human rights? Keeping “hard-working families” afloat?
Or do your thoughts turn to words like “chav”, “dole-bludger” or “benefit cheats”? Do you have visions of a large group of clinically obese, lager-swilling blimps clad in football strips, gathered around the 50″ plasma telly?
As with most things, the truth is a strange admixture of the two, with the notional idea of dole-bludging being a lot less prevalent than the Daily Mail likes to make out and the idea of keeping families afloat much more common than most people think. But for all that I say this, my personal experience is that I know more people who are blatant dole-bludgers than I know families kept afloat by welfare, probably because those being kept afloat by welfare are not proud of that situation and don’t brag about it.
My total ignorance about the welfare system was a point of pride for me, but the outrage over Mr Osborne’s proposed cuts and caps to the welfare system have, to a small extent, lifted the scales from my eyes.
The “social housing” scam of allowing people on benefits to rent the home of their choice from the market has created a secondary market where people on benefits can live in homes that are far superior to the homes of the people paying them to do so.
Because “social housing” doesn’t cover a deposit, the landlords jack up the price by enough to cover the deposit in a single contract term. After that, they’re making a profit over and above the market rate. Having people who aren’t working living in a given area also pushed the rates up for working people in that area.
George Osborne has decreed that from now on, housing benefits will be capped. Claims in the Independent and the Guardian of “exporting poverty” out of London.
There has been much wailing and gnashing of teeth about the “draconian” cap of £400 a week or £20,800 a year. And this was the point at which my head threatened to explode.
I now live in a reasonable four bedroom home. I have mortgaged it quite heavily, although I’ve managed to stay “equity positive” all the way. And my mortgage payments are less than this housing benefit cap!
£20,800 a year is a pretty penny, it’s certainly way above the breadline. I pay my mortgage, as I paid rent before I got on the property ladder, out of my post-tax income. At no point have I ever been fortunate enough to live in a place that cost me £400 a week. If I was able to pay my mortgage off at £20,800 a year, I’d be able to pay it off within a decade, rather than around the time I retire.
And yet I am supposed, out of the goodness of my heart, help subsidise millions of people who do not and have not ever contributed to the common weal, to live in place better than I can afford?
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1
June 28, 2010 at 07:44 -
I sold up last year and have been renting….3 bedroom house, detached, commuter belt in a well to do town. £700 per month is the market rent. Less than half the proposed cap. Where are some of these people living?
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June 28, 2010 at 08:26 -
While Labour squeal ‘Its Not Fair’ at every turn, the brutal reality that most of us have spent a lifetime supporting two other classes the Sans Cullottes and a political elite. Both have similar traits, a propensity to having rights , entitlements and privilges. They also expect us to uncomplainingly fund this sixty year old scam.
The faux outrage of being asked to consider moving from economic deserts to places where at least jobs are more plentiful was an object lesson, that these people would quite happily sit in a real desert demanding that water was brought them, because looking for water would mean leaving their friends and family behind
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June 28, 2010 at 08:58 -
Superb piece Thaddeus, superb.
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June 28, 2010 at 09:01 -
Thank you, Anna. I kneel at the feet of my mistress.
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June 29, 2010 at 21:12 -
Huh ! In your dreams, boy-oh !
Anyway, Thaddeus : a jolly good article.
My question is this : given that the deficit and accumulated national debt are attributable to Labour’s having given out tax-payers’ money — or at least promissory notes signed by tax-payers — why are so many surprised that, when this activity ceases and the doling out is cut, the ‘poor’ (sc. the lower orders hitherto the beneficiaries of Labour’s largesse) are the ones whose benefits &c. are cut ? It’s entirely logical to me : if the problem arise from giving too much to one group, the solution must surely reside in giving it less.
ΠΞ
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June 28, 2010 at 09:05 -
Ditto Thaddeus. I’ve never (as yet) paid more than 40% of that cap on my mortgage and I had to stretch at first to make the monthly repayments. I sometimes look at moving to London but I still couldn’t afford to do so. Moral? If you cant afford to live somewhere then live somewhere were you can!
Here’s hoping that cap gets brought down even further sooner rather than later.
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June 28, 2010 at 09:26 -
Many people I know are seemingly “trapped on benefits”.
They want to get off benefits, yet as soon as they start finding paid work here and there, they get grassed up for taking benefits and working at the same time and then are given big fines.
Obviously the next step is depression. Without exception, the people I mentioned are all kept whacked off their faces on NHS funded Prozac.
Labour has presided over a system, which in the name of “caring” has trapped ever increasing numbers of people who want to work and crushed their spirits.
Let people help themselves – because when the government does too much, it smothers people.
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June 28, 2010 at 09:51 -
Spot on.
Any kind of subsidy for housing pushes up the costs for everyone. Buy to let landlords get an above free market rent and therefore outbid first time buyers. So both rents and house prices increase due to housing benefit.
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June 28, 2010 at 09:53 -
“Claims in the Independent and the Guardian of “exporting poverty” out of London.”
Looking at most of those recipients of humongous mansions, we’re actually importing poverty!
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June 28, 2010 at 09:58 -
I loath the left.
I loath what it does to blue collar people – what it turns them into, how it denies them opportunities to make progress
I loath that it demands that hard-working responsible people provide for the feckless and reckless
I loath that it assumes a monopoly on ‘goodness’ and assigns a monopoly of wickedness
I loath that the left misrepresents the truth
I loath that the credo of the left – admit nothing, deny everything, make counter-allegations.
I absolutely fucking loath the left.
p.s.
Good piece.
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June 28, 2010 at 10:05 -
“And yet I am supposed, out of the goodness of my heart, help subsidise millions of people who do not and have not ever contributed to the common weal, to live in place better than I can afford? “
No, you are supposed, under threat of violence from the coercive state, help subsidise millions of people who do not and have not ever contributed to the common weal, to live in place better than you can afford.
While the scroungers must be dealt with, there is a real and present danger that families who are caught in the welfare trap through no fault of their own, and are genuine cases of need (they do exist!), will be punished unjustly for the sins of the chavs, with myriad devastating personal consequences.
Such is the danger of any bureaucracy that treats people as one-size-fits-all humanoids that are inserted into the ’system’ like coins into a fruit machine.
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June 28, 2010 at 10:08 -
£400 a week? Good heavens. I wish I was a landlord getting that.
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June 28, 2010 at 10:12 -
ps. Spiral Architect:
Good comment, but the left don’t misrepresent the truth. They’re completely estranged from it.
One look at any of the Labour leadership candidates will confirm this.
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June 28, 2010 at 10:13 -
The stock of council-owned property was reduced by Thatcher’s “right to buy” legislation – private landlords now profiteering due to insufficient other choices for welfare needs is surely a direct result. What to do? Build more low-cost housing and retain some under council control? Make two (or more) families share these large, expensive houses that cost so much to rent?
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June 28, 2010 at 10:14 -
There is also the blatant profiteering of the landlords.
http://rantinrab.blogspot.com/2010/06/housing-benefit-requires-further.html
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June 28, 2010 at 10:27 -
Your bounty, TJW, must extend far beyond housing. When a household appliance breaks down, you must provide a new one for them. You must in so many other ways provide these people with a decent living. Oh, and we mustn’t forget their dependents in distant lands, must we? They too deserve a decent living.
Making a wild guess, there must be at least a billion people on this planet living a less than satisfactory life. The British taxpayer should be proud to support them all. -
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June 28, 2010 at 11:42 -
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June 28, 2010 at 11:59 -
It’s a bit of a Catch 22. If the low paid could get someone to give them a mortgage, then the monthly repayments would be a lot less than the rent that is charged. Not forgetting also, that it is difficult to save up a deposit when your disposable income is only very small.
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June 28, 2010 at 13:13 -
Saul,
That is exactly what happened with sub prime mortgages. It ended in utter chaos. Owning a property is NOT a right, it is a privilege paid for by applying yourself and taking responsibility, something Labour made damn sure millions of individuals need no longer do.
You can still buy a 2 bed flat for £30K in Scotland. Deposit would be £1500, mortgage payments around £130 a month.
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June 28, 2010 at 12:04 -
The “draconian cap” is three times the rent my son is paying for a 3 year old, 2 bed house in the East Midlands. To be realistic the cap needs to be set at 25% less than the average rent in the local area. Otherwise all the rest of us are doing is to carry on funding a lifestyle we can’t afford ourselves.
Ignore the noise from the Left – it’s just their usual lies. Even after the Emergency Budget State spending is still set to GROW every year for the next 5 years – Boy George has done absolutely nothing to stop the rot…we’re just not sliding down the slippery slope to bankruptcy quite as fast as we were under the monocular mentalist.
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June 28, 2010 at 15:53 -
Ed P,
When I was a lad, it was *very* common for two families to share the large, Victorian houses that made up (along with clusters of “prefabs”) the bulk of council property, before they flattened them all for horrendous, large estates of maisonettes and high-rise flats.
I might add that the house I was born into had no bathroom, nor indoor toilet.
I do, however, believe that people were no less happy and satisfied than they are now.
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June 28, 2010 at 17:15 -
As I am living with my dad as I don’t get paid enough to rent where work, do you think I would be able to claim the £400 pw subsidy, it would be fantastic as it is nearly what I earn.
However as I don’t believe the state should be subsidising people’s life I would rather they sent people back home to their families instead of doling out free housing and let them all support each other like we used to.
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