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Author Topic: Spending per person in the UK has risen by 60% in 15 years  (Read 14067 times)

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The Prophet

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Spending per person in the UK has risen by 60% in 15 years
« on: March 17, 2015, 09:14:04 am »
Spending per person in the UK has risen by 60% in real terms over the last 15 years.
People are doing less productive jobs. The use of food banks is rising even as unemployment falls. The reason is because most of the benefits bill is going to those with jobs not those looking for jobs. Of the Welfare spending, of £215bn, (12.5% of GDP) £87bn goes to the retired. The next largest amount goes not to the unemployed, unemployable or single mothers etc (£8bn), but to those who are employed £76bn.

Supplementary payments to boost low earned income include tax credits, income support, housing benefit and other allowances. Qualify for one of these and it does not prevent you from being paid the others, leading to some huge benefit payouts to working people.

Designed to help the politician's favourite people "hard working British families" it has now created economically destructive incentives. To get Tax Credits a couple only need to work at least 24 hours a week between them. This has resulted in a third of the population working part-time - 9 million people, with the average hours worked by each of them? You've guessed it, a little over 12 hours a week!

Part-timers earn on average £11.24 an hour. 
This equates to a post tax income of £14,250 for a couple working 24 hours a week.
Even at this level tax credits for a couple with three children would boost disposable income to £35,203 even before any other welfare entitlements such as housing benefit are considered! 
A full time salaried worker would need to earn a salary of £48,500 nearly twice the average, to take home the same disposable income.

Why would anyone put in a 6 day week, doing a semi-skilled job when you could do a couple of hours a day on an easier job and potentially receive twice the money?
Why are our politicians encouraging people to work just 12 hours a week so their household can collect benefits worth four times the poverty line?

Is it any wonder income tax revenues are down?
People are paying less if any income tax and at the same time, the state subsidise their low, part-time incomes.