I don't like the term 'benefits'. It's patronising; the term social security is correct, in my opinion. So I use the term 'benefits' reluctantly, but as it works in the above title I'll use it for now.
And since the Institute for Fiscal Studies have provided an answer I'll use their data:
This is who benefits from benefits, lest we forget.
So where are the scroungers?
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As your graph shows the elderly, who have paid into the system, gain from the benefits system. I think at present their figures should be removed. I am sure by 2043 when I am supposed to retire, there wont be a state pension for me.
The elderly get a huge chunk of the social security budget and we cannot assume that all of them “paid into the system”, there was unemployment in the ‘good old days’ too.
Even if we were to remove the 42.3% on the assumption that the elderly ‘deserve’ benefits more than others the unemployed would still only account for 4.51% of the benefits pie.
I much prefer the term social security because it is providing the security that companies and employers refuse to provide. The social security subsidises employers’ needs to pay better wages (through tax credits) and provide fair and decent pensions (through state pension).
With an ageing population the only way to ensure longevity for pensioners a mind vulnerable people is to increase the basic rate of tax can’t have your cake and eat it
The best way forewords would be to leave the corruption riddled democratically deficient eussr, and save all the money that our government gives away for no benefit every year, the money saved would easily pay for the benefit system and pensions to be run properly.
Where are the landowners with their grants and subsidies taken from our taxes? Where are the corporate spongers to whom we hand over billions and supply free staff from our young and unemployed? Where are the Royals? Why does the term benefits cover such a narrow range?
Indeed, where are the:
1. Public money used in privatisation processes.
2. Public money used to fuel housing bubbles
3. Public money going to useless job centres (proven to be ineffective) and companies benefiting from the ‘hounding’ of the ill.
4. Public money used to support failing rail companies
5. Public money used to support then banking system.
The list could go on – we need a reverse socialism pie chart -anyone got the stats? No? –quelle surprise!
Spot on Simon.
Lisa – the sick and disabled, the unemployed, families on low pay – all have paid tax – should they be removed too?
No I was saying that Pensions should be another section outside benefits. As we have seen on the Eu grants to farmers etc.
But, have the elderly paid enough into the system though?
If they had done, then there wouldn’t be such an issue with debt/deficit in the first place.
If they’d paid more in, more would have been directed into the pockets of the wealthy few. That’s what the economy does, it’s designed that way. It doesn’t matter then in that sense how much has or hasn’t been given. It’s stopping it being taken out unfairly (and secretly) that we ought to be concerned with for now.
Some people who paid into the system through State Earnings Related Pension Scheme (serps) . I don’t know if this is included in the above figures. I am sure Richard will say so soon. Of course this changed in 2001.
However some people could opt out and therefore pay less NI, however earn no SERPS.
This is what I meant with paid in.
My then financial advisor was independent of everyone, he advised me to not opt-out of the second pension.
Looking at the disaster that the pension industry is fast becoming it looks like low-cost advice.
If it wasn´t for the tax relief the pension industry would be very like the 2008 banking industry.
It all comes down to poor financial management by all governments.
With the performance of the [private] pension system it matters not. Unless you are paid enough to invest enough in your [private] pension, it is not going to support you. Even compulsory private pensions are not going to solve the pension problem for the low-paid (and low paid means much below 25K!).
Quite frankly, the pension industry is as useless as the banking industry: for the end user!
It is hard to see the mandatory pension saving as anything other than a guaranteed payday for the pension industry, where the charges will continue to increase and the investment/s will continue to atrophy, caught in an endless loop of offshore profit hiding, large piles of cash in the bank and minimal returns for those investing in the companies.
I note another bank scandal starting….to mirror the PPI scam/scandal….shifting people into charged bank accounts and increasing charges to astronomical levels yet again.
Remind me…who saved their little fat a###s last time they screwed-up?
Pensions should not be included with the benefits, it is stupid to say have they paid in enough to get a pension because todays prices and costs are so much higher than when they started paying into the system with much lower incomes, I wonder how far the money I paid in on my first wage of £11.40 a week in 1972 would go towards paying a pension now?
The majority of benefits don’t go to the unemployed either they go to people in work, inclusive of millionaires like child benefit, and the income from private housing paid for by housing benefits.
There is a huge cost to the taxpayer of having private companies ATOS and Serco dealing with benefits ho cost more to deny valid claims than would have been paid out, thereby leaving the most needy sick and disabled below the poverty line.
Barry
Could I just put another view about your ‘corrupt EU’? The auditors identified a bit less than 4% of the EU budget which they couldn’t sign off. They stressed that not all of that would be fraud-e.g. a lot of money is given to third sector organisations which don’t complete the paperwork in time. This was the case in the UK a few years ago. The sum is about £5-6 billion which spread across the population of Europe (500 million) works out about £10 per head or 20p per week.
As Richard points out with the social security payments, only less than one pound in every hundred judged to be fraud but the media seems to focus on that and ignore the tens of billions diverted-often by the City-to tax havens or otherwise denied to state governments. we need to focus on the main culprits.
Ian the eussr budget has not been signed off for years, because the auditors can’t find where the money has gone and it is well above the 4% you claim, and that is only one part of it that is audited, because when you get past the gross amounts there are the various bodies who can’t explain where the monies went the CAP is particularly bad at this.
Proof?
Ian’s account strikes bells with me
And remember – in the private sector these accounts would have been signed without an eyelid being blinked
It should set off alarm bells Richard, Ian is an eussr apologist trying to paper over the well documented inherent corruption endemic to the eussr. In the private sector there would be legal action taken against companies that year on year failed their audits.
I have made the point already – I do not think the EU would fail a private company audit as the standards required are vastly lower. Don’t you realise that?
I am certain that the eussr would fail any audit, because it loses billions every year, a private company would have gone bust if it misplaced so much money but then the eussr just demands more of our money.
There is probably something else that benefits from benefits – capital itself. Can it not be described as an indirect subsidy to business? No sooner does the recipient get his or her benefit, it is paid straight out again to pay heating, gas, water, phone and gas bills. Probably 99% of it goes straight out of the recipient’s pockets into capital’s pockets.
Probably the most obvious example of this is the payment of housing benefit which just lands up on the pockets of landlords, many of whom charging as much rent as the market will bear.
It also shows the reality that, if benefits are cut or even totally removed, that is less spending money going into the economy.
Yes, it is certainly correct that everybody had to pay bills and there is no real way to get round this, but much of the benefits people receive very much end up benefitting capital.
I think these figures misrepresent the amount that the unemployed receive from the pot. A further 31% is spent on Housing Benefit, Council Tax Benefit, Child Benefit and Child Tax Credits. A chunk of this must have been directed at the unemployed.
It also appears that some recipients of Incapacity Benefit (2.44% of the pot) should have been counted as unemployed, and that recipients of that benefit were often entitled to received Income Support (3.45% of the pot).
God forbid that the unemployed might also be families with children or people on low incomes.
And, please, remember that the underlying data is the product of HM Government, not currently known for missing any opportunity to demonise the unemployed, as your comment suggests you may be wont to do yourself.
I am all too familiar with of unemployment thank you, and am not wont to demonise anybody.
The fact remains however, that the supplied graphic, which came from the Institute of Fiscal Studies, is somewhat misleading if taken at face value.
“A further 31% is spent on Housing Benefit, Council Tax Benefit, Child Benefit and Child Tax Credits.”
Housing benefit is a significant chunk of the benefits budget. And where does much of it go? To greedy landlords charging as much rent as the market will bear, that’s where! The government could probably build quite a few thousand council houses with a quarter of the money that is paid out in housing benefit and make some inroads into the housing crisis at the same time. It seems they would rather pay an indirect subsidy to their mates.
Where is your evidence that, as you infer, most claimants of housing benefit, council tax benefit, child benefit and child tax credits are unemployed?
“Where is your evidence that, as you infer, most claimants of housing benefit, council tax benefit, child benefit and child tax credits are unemployed?”
I made no such inference.
Then read both faces:
http://www.ifs.org.uk/bns/bn13.pdf
Note that some benefits are paid by local councils.