8 ms·

In practice the UK already pays the price for a universal basic income. Most poor people get some sort of tax credit and/or housing benefit. What we don't do i

In practice the UK already pays the price for a universal basic income. Most poor people get some sort of tax credit and/or housing benefit. What we don't do is allow people to use it to rise out of poverty. A disabled lady thought saving some of her disability was the responsible thing to do, despite further impoverishing herself, once she built up some savings she was prosecuted for fraudently claiming benefits while having savings. There is this tremendous destructive fear that no one should build up any capital with the help of benefits when this is precisely what would lift people out of poverty long term and reduce the costs on society.

frankbreetz 5y ago
What you are describing is very different from UBI. With UBI everyone gets a certain amount no matter what. There is nothing universal about what you are describing.
- wizzwizz4 5y ago
  That's the point of the comment. The UK pays the price of UBI without getting the benefits of UBI.
  - leadingthenet 5y ago
    Well, no. Only a small minority of people are on Universal Credit. I don’t get how this follows, at all.
    - waheoo 5y ago
      What don't you get? They pay the price of it but don't get it, may as well pay the price of it and get the benefits it provides.
      - vageli 5y ago
        All things being equal, wouldn't that greatly reduce the benefit amount per person?
        Turing_Machine 5y ago
        I don't know about the UK, but in the US a substantial portion of the budget is spent on bureaucrats ("caseworkers" and the like) who would be unnecessary with UBI.
        wizzwizz4 5y ago
        According to the radio (BBC), a substantial portion of the budget is going to contractors who've started rejecting perfectly good applications.
        _qwfv 5y ago
        Administration costs go way down. We're spending a ton on making sure that only the "right" people get benefits and policing the poor.
    - neom 5y ago
      If you take out pensions(~100b gbp), the UK spends (very) approx. 100 billion pounds a year on social assistance. I think OP is suggesting taking that 100 billion and dividing it evenly among the people of the UK vs specifically to the folks who have applied.
      - woko 5y ago
        > specifically to the folks who have applied I like how you distinguish between the people who are eligible and the people who have applied, because some eligible people do not know they are and therefore do not apply. It is brought up in the press [1] from time to time, and the percentage in France is somewhere between 40% and 50% of the eligible people, which is huge! [1] in French: https://www.leparisien.fr/economie/votre-argent/aides-sociales-un-francais-sur-deux-ignore-ses-droits-14-11-2017-7391007.php https://www.leparisien.fr/economie/votre-argent/aides-social...
      - vageli 5y ago
        Is there surplus in these social assistance budgets going unused? How could you expect to spread the same budget over the entire population while maintaining the quality of benefits?
        neom 5y ago
        There is no surplus in the social assistance budget that I saw when I went and looked over the budgetary documents to post my original comment. I'm not an expert and I didn't dive deep, I just wanted to look for the numbers that the UK is associating to "welfare" and "social assistance". As far as I saw, the majority of the benefit is via tax rebate, tax reductions, and in some instances direct payment, so in that light, I'm not sure "quality" is much of a factor? The UK already has social healthcare iirc. I think in the UBI world, everyone pays tax normally, and then that money is distributed evenly vs specifically? (Edit: removed my math as it is wrong, as usual)
      - chrisseaton 5y ago
        Why not include pensions? Since your pension could be replaced by your basic income. But if you do, it's about £3.5k a year each I think. Not a lot of money. Certainly not enough to live on for a basic standard of living in our society.
    - pjc50 5y ago
      Universal Credit is very far from universal, of course. It has some deliberate bugs, like a lag in payments that drives people to loan sharks.
kebman 5y ago
The laws are like that, because someone feels that it's not in their interest that people actually get out of poverty. The logic behind that interest is simple. You can't make people dependent on you if you simultaneously give them the tools to achieve independence. And these guys love dependent people, because it gives them power. However this attitude is ruining most Western societies.
- shoo 5y ago
  do you have any hard data or research to back that up?
  - monoideism 5y ago
    Hypothetically, if something like that were happening, do you think any of the politicians voting such legislation in, with such an intent, would admit to it in an open forum, for a study?
  - kebman 5y ago
    Well, if you're willing to look for it, there does exist research within political science that shows that "the elites" are systematically favoured in representational democracies, as far as policy implementation goes. In short, these analysis show that policies that has the favour of the elites gets voted in far more often than policies that only has the favour of the regular population. Two great outliers here are of course the vote for Brexit, and the election of Trump. The elite hated both of those. An interesting paper would thus be to compare the contentedness of these "factions" with their political system between countries that have representative democracy, vs. countries that have a more direct style of democracy such as Switzerland. Speaking purely from logic, neither the political nor the monetary elite would rationally want regular people to get a possible advantage over them. Moreover, they want people that are dependent on them, because that makes them far easier to control. You do that by making sure they only ever get enough money for their daily bread, without getting so much as to cut into what keeps the elites rich, which is a combination of real estate, banking and industry ownership. This means both some right leaning, but also left leaning parties, might want to ensure that regular people are never given more than exactly enough for mere survival, but not a penny more. This also goes for education, btw. You don't want to over-educate these guys, lest they become a competitor to the job you're looking for. If you give them any less, you'll have riots on your hand. If you give them any more, you lose control over them.
anovikov 5y ago
Except there is not enough redistributable capital around to let it happen. Even if all U.S. capital stock ($70T) was distributed to everyone evenly, it won't let people out of poverty (sustainable income derived from this will equal to about the minimum wage per adult). So even the most terribly unfair capital redistribution imaginable will ok, maybe pay for food stamps for everyone, but hardly much more.
- smaryjerry 5y ago
  In the last year 33.8% of all personal income in the US came from the government. It’s crazy to think that number could go much higher but no wonder we are experiencing shortages of just about everything and inflation.
  - vegetablepotpie 5y ago
    That is incredible, do you have a link by chance?
    - Pfhreak 5y ago
      I'm guessing it's a cherry picked statistic that is using covid relief to paint some broader picture that doesn't exist. Of course I'd expect government assistance to increase during the worst pandemic in a generation.
      - smaryjerry 5y ago
        How is that painting a picture that doesn’t exist? I never said that was in normal times. I said in the last year.
    - smaryjerry 5y ago
      https://twitter.com/biancoresearch/status/1389376827915919361 https://twitter.com/biancoresearch/status/138937682791591936... Can’t find a link to an article but here is a writer for Bloomberg with reference to his graphs from Bloomberg.
ktzar 5y ago
What is outrageous if that the UK prevents you from getting any benefit of you have any savings. It's basically encouraging you to not save any money.
- dazc 5y ago
  Not true. Job Seeker's Allowance is not means-tested. https://www.gov.uk/jobseekers-allowance/eligibility https://www.gov.uk/jobseekers-allowance/eligibility If you are still unemployed whan that runs out your savings are taken into account but you can still have £16K. https://www.gov.uk/universal-credit/eligibility https://www.gov.uk/universal-credit/eligibility
  - NohatCoder 5y ago
    Not good, but at least that limit is better than the 10k DKK limit in Denmark, you basically can't even have a proper rainy day fund or own a car.
- mattowen_uk 5y ago
  This is not true. The new universal credit rules allow you a certain amount of savings. A member of my family has just been on universal credit due to the pandemic impacting her work sector, and they still gave her benefits even with her having savings, it's slightly adjusted down, but she still got payments.
pbronez 5y ago
Do you think it’s honestly that sophisticated and malicious? Public policy is hard. Adjusting benefits appropriately as people climb out of poverty is a known challenge. It’s called a “welfare trap” and has its own Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welfare_trap https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welfare_trap
- te_chris 5y ago
  Yes, it absolutely is that sophisticated and malicious. Have you seen the political environment in the UK?
  - atc 5y ago
    Do not confuse the political environment with the media interpretation of public policies. Read something other than The Guardian or BBC. Thanks.
- joeberon 5y ago
  Yes, there is a huge sentiment among the conservative public in the UK that people should not use benefits to gain capital or for social mobility. This isn't just a policy issue, it does come along with a commonly held attitude.
  - belorn 5y ago
    Can there be social mobility that is independent of social social status, or does "social mobility" have a literal definition where if someone gains social status someone else must by definition be lower on the social ladder. If one follows that definition it seems not too strange logic that social support should go towards those at the bottom of the social ladder, and if you change the social ordering then who receive support will also change. One way to resolve the problem seems to be to decouple benefits from social status and instead see them as human rights. Health care is not something that you buy, but rather a service that the government provide to every citizen equally. The top 1% get the same cancer treatment as the homeless and both pay zero. Decouple benefits from social status does not seems to be strictly a left vs right issue, at least not here in Sweden. Is the UK different here?
dalbasal 5y ago
This is true, or arguably true, but we need to remember that real-life policies are never clean, blackboard examples. They're not going to just swap out social welfare and council housing for UBI. It'll be layered in somehow. Hell... you can "sell" politicians on UBI, have them nod along, and expect them to come back with a proposal for a conditional UBI. They like your idea, it just needed to be optimized it so that only those who need it get it. That doesn't mean I'm against this. I think it's a positive development, for the reason you outline and others... just mitigating expectations.
AlchemistCamp 5y ago
What you describe very clearly isn't universal. One of the major selling points of UBI is that it never disincentivizes recipients from earning, saving or investing in their futures.
- tastyfreeze 5y ago
  A negative income tax would achieve the same goal without giving money to people that dont need it.
OJFord 5y ago
> when this is precisely what would lift people out of poverty long term and reduce the costs on society. How, if you disallow stopping the payment? It seems like what you want to happen is exactly what did happen: she saved, had money, and then the cost on society was reduced.
Al-Khwarizmi 5y ago
In Spain it's similar, we already have de facto basic income, just much more complicated than it should be. When you lose your job you have unemployment payments, when it expires there is a "long-term unemployment aid" that in theory was a temporary measure for the 2008 crisis, but every government has kept extending and no one has dared to remove, even when the right had an absolute majority. And then there are regional aids for "social reinsertion". So basically everyone is covered by a safety net and can obtain some income except for people who actively refuse to do so. Still, actual UBI here is an unpopular idea with most of the population, who say that people need to work for a living, that it's a "handout" for lazy people, it will make people stop working, etc. Funny when the two largest problems of our society are probably unemployment (lack of work for people who do want one) and lack of children. And both are problems that ask for less total hours worked, not more. To me, it's a purely moralistic issue (and based on quite outdated morals). If we are already putting in the money to ensure that people have some basic needs covered, from a rational point of view I don't see the problem with turning it into an automatic right instead of something that people need to apply for and that we pretend is "temporary" (but not even the political right will remove it, no one wants the streets full of people with nothing to lose). And as a side effect, we could get rid of a lot of bureaucratic overhead in the process, plus no longer needing minimum wage and making the job market more dynamic. I guess logic will triumph in the end, although it's difficult because there is a lot of purely irrational thinking. For example, most of the people who furiously oppose an UBI because in theory everyone should have to make an effort and earn a living for themselves are also the people who furiously oppose taxing large inheritances...
hogFeast 5y ago
> A disabled lady thought saving some of her disability was the responsible thing to do, despite further impoverishing herself ??? So if I earn £100k/year, and I choose to save all of my income then I am impoverishing myself. Do you understand what saving is? The UK has this terrible habit, like the US, where people are infinitely jealous of other people. Any benefit that someone else is getting, I want it. You get tax credits, I want them too (even though I am making £50k/year). The result of this situation was/is a "welfare" state that primarily gives money to those who don't need help. Yes, if you have £18k in savings...you don't need help. Do you understand what being poor is? You are not poor if you have £18k in savings. In the pandemic, it was utterly appalling to see middle-class people who earn substantial amounts of money complain about not being able to claim benefits. How greedy can you possibly get? And then the Tories bring out a huge wage subsidy scheme that lavishes support on the middle-class support, not five or so years after they tried to squeeze £100/week out of people dying of cancer or who literally cannot work to feed themselves. £4000/month to a middle-class person on hard times...no problem. £70/week to someone dying of cancer or someone is homeless...what a scrounger, unbelievable scrounging, greed. I am British but Britain is a truly amazing place. In the US, everyone seems to think they are middle-class, even if they are in a two-person household earning $400k/year, they seem to resent being forced to pay for anything. The UK is heading this way quickly but from the other way: Blair introduced universal benefits, everyone has their hand out now, no matter how wealthy. Also, the purpose of benefits is not to get someone out of poverty. It is to help people who need help. The system has been totally debauched by middle-class people who think it is their "leg up". It is not. Spending should be focused entirely upon people who cannot help themselves (for whatever reason).
- zozbot234 5y ago
  > Yes, if you have £18k in savings...you don't need help. Do you understand what being poor is? You are not poor if you have £18k in savings. Savings is not income. One is a stock, the other is a flow. People might be in need of income support even if they've been saving responsibly for a while.
  - hogFeast 5y ago
jscholes 5y ago
> A disabled lady thought saving some of her disability was the responsible thing to do, despite further impoverishing herself, once she built up some savings she was prosecuted for fraudently claiming benefits while having savings. I don't know the specific case you're referencing, and it's possible that they were charged with fraud in relation to a benefit which does come with a savings/income cap. However, the two main disability-related benefits in the UK (Disability Living Allowance and Personal Independence Payment) are paid regardless of personal wealth. I don't disagree with the general gist of your comment, and as I say it's likely that the person was claiming additional benefits where your assets are taken into account.

frankbreetz 5y ago

What you are describing is very different from UBI. With UBI everyone gets a certain amount no matter what. There is nothing universal about what you are describing.

wizzwizz4 5y ago
That's the point of the comment. The UK pays the price of UBI without getting the benefits of UBI.
- leadingthenet 5y ago
  Well, no. Only a small minority of people are on Universal Credit. I don’t get how this follows, at all.
  - waheoo 5y ago
    What don't you get? They pay the price of it but don't get it, may as well pay the price of it and get the benefits it provides.
    - vageli 5y ago
      All things being equal, wouldn't that greatly reduce the benefit amount per person?
      - Turing_Machine 5y ago
        I don't know about the UK, but in the US a substantial portion of the budget is spent on bureaucrats ("caseworkers" and the like) who would be unnecessary with UBI.
        wizzwizz4 5y ago
        According to the radio (BBC), a substantial portion of the budget is going to contractors who've started rejecting perfectly good applications.
      - _qwfv 5y ago
        Administration costs go way down. We're spending a ton on making sure that only the "right" people get benefits and policing the poor.
  - neom 5y ago
    If you take out pensions(~100b gbp), the UK spends (very) approx. 100 billion pounds a year on social assistance. I think OP is suggesting taking that 100 billion and dividing it evenly among the people of the UK vs specifically to the folks who have applied.
    - woko 5y ago
      > specifically to the folks who have applied I like how you distinguish between the people who are eligible and the people who have applied, because some eligible people do not know they are and therefore do not apply. It is brought up in the press [1] from time to time, and the percentage in France is somewhere between 40% and 50% of the eligible people, which is huge! [1] in French: https://www.leparisien.fr/economie/votre-argent/aides-sociales-un-francais-sur-deux-ignore-ses-droits-14-11-2017-7391007.php https://www.leparisien.fr/economie/votre-argent/aides-social...
    - vageli 5y ago
      Is there surplus in these social assistance budgets going unused? How could you expect to spread the same budget over the entire population while maintaining the quality of benefits?
      - neom 5y ago
        There is no surplus in the social assistance budget that I saw when I went and looked over the budgetary documents to post my original comment. I'm not an expert and I didn't dive deep, I just wanted to look for the numbers that the UK is associating to "welfare" and "social assistance". As far as I saw, the majority of the benefit is via tax rebate, tax reductions, and in some instances direct payment, so in that light, I'm not sure "quality" is much of a factor? The UK already has social healthcare iirc. I think in the UBI world, everyone pays tax normally, and then that money is distributed evenly vs specifically? (Edit: removed my math as it is wrong, as usual)
    - chrisseaton 5y ago
      Why not include pensions? Since your pension could be replaced by your basic income. But if you do, it's about £3.5k a year each I think. Not a lot of money. Certainly not enough to live on for a basic standard of living in our society.
  - pjc50 5y ago
    Universal Credit is very far from universal, of course. It has some deliberate bugs, like a lag in payments that drives people to loan sharks.

kebman 5y ago

The laws are like that, because someone feels that it's not in their interest that people actually get out of poverty. The logic behind that interest is simple. You can't make people dependent on you if you simultaneously give them the tools to achieve independence. And these guys love dependent people, because it gives them power. However this attitude is ruining most Western societies.

shoo 5y ago
do you have any hard data or research to back that up?
- monoideism 5y ago
  Hypothetically, if something like that were happening, do you think any of the politicians voting such legislation in, with such an intent, would admit to it in an open forum, for a study?
- kebman 5y ago
  Well, if you're willing to look for it, there does exist research within political science that shows that "the elites" are systematically favoured in representational democracies, as far as policy implementation goes. In short, these analysis show that policies that has the favour of the elites gets voted in far more often than policies that only has the favour of the regular population. Two great outliers here are of course the vote for Brexit, and the election of Trump. The elite hated both of those. An interesting paper would thus be to compare the contentedness of these "factions" with their political system between countries that have representative democracy, vs. countries that have a more direct style of democracy such as Switzerland. Speaking purely from logic, neither the political nor the monetary elite would rationally want regular people to get a possible advantage over them. Moreover, they want people that are dependent on them, because that makes them far easier to control. You do that by making sure they only ever get enough money for their daily bread, without getting so much as to cut into what keeps the elites rich, which is a combination of real estate, banking and industry ownership. This means both some right leaning, but also left leaning parties, might want to ensure that regular people are never given more than exactly enough for mere survival, but not a penny more. This also goes for education, btw. You don't want to over-educate these guys, lest they become a competitor to the job you're looking for. If you give them any less, you'll have riots on your hand. If you give them any more, you lose control over them.

anovikov 5y ago

Except there is not enough redistributable capital around to let it happen. Even if all U.S. capital stock ($70T) was distributed to everyone evenly, it won't let people out of poverty (sustainable income derived from this will equal to about the minimum wage per adult). So even the most terribly unfair capital redistribution imaginable will ok, maybe pay for food stamps for everyone, but hardly much more.

smaryjerry 5y ago
In the last year 33.8% of all personal income in the US came from the government. It’s crazy to think that number could go much higher but no wonder we are experiencing shortages of just about everything and inflation.
- vegetablepotpie 5y ago
  That is incredible, do you have a link by chance?
  - Pfhreak 5y ago
    I'm guessing it's a cherry picked statistic that is using covid relief to paint some broader picture that doesn't exist. Of course I'd expect government assistance to increase during the worst pandemic in a generation.
    - smaryjerry 5y ago
      How is that painting a picture that doesn’t exist? I never said that was in normal times. I said in the last year.
  - smaryjerry 5y ago
    https://twitter.com/biancoresearch/status/1389376827915919361 https://twitter.com/biancoresearch/status/138937682791591936... Can’t find a link to an article but here is a writer for Bloomberg with reference to his graphs from Bloomberg.

ktzar 5y ago

What is outrageous if that the UK prevents you from getting any benefit of you have any savings. It's basically encouraging you to not save any money.

dazc 5y ago
Not true. Job Seeker's Allowance is not means-tested. https://www.gov.uk/jobseekers-allowance/eligibility https://www.gov.uk/jobseekers-allowance/eligibility If you are still unemployed whan that runs out your savings are taken into account but you can still have £16K. https://www.gov.uk/universal-credit/eligibility https://www.gov.uk/universal-credit/eligibility
- NohatCoder 5y ago
  Not good, but at least that limit is better than the 10k DKK limit in Denmark, you basically can't even have a proper rainy day fund or own a car.
mattowen_uk 5y ago
This is not true. The new universal credit rules allow you a certain amount of savings. A member of my family has just been on universal credit due to the pandemic impacting her work sector, and they still gave her benefits even with her having savings, it's slightly adjusted down, but she still got payments.

pbronez 5y ago

Do you think it’s honestly that sophisticated and malicious? Public policy is hard. Adjusting benefits appropriately as people climb out of poverty is a known challenge. It’s called a “welfare trap” and has its own Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welfare_trap https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welfare_trap

te_chris 5y ago
Yes, it absolutely is that sophisticated and malicious. Have you seen the political environment in the UK?
- atc 5y ago
  Do not confuse the political environment with the media interpretation of public policies. Read something other than The Guardian or BBC. Thanks.
joeberon 5y ago
Yes, there is a huge sentiment among the conservative public in the UK that people should not use benefits to gain capital or for social mobility. This isn't just a policy issue, it does come along with a commonly held attitude.
- belorn 5y ago
  Can there be social mobility that is independent of social social status, or does "social mobility" have a literal definition where if someone gains social status someone else must by definition be lower on the social ladder. If one follows that definition it seems not too strange logic that social support should go towards those at the bottom of the social ladder, and if you change the social ordering then who receive support will also change. One way to resolve the problem seems to be to decouple benefits from social status and instead see them as human rights. Health care is not something that you buy, but rather a service that the government provide to every citizen equally. The top 1% get the same cancer treatment as the homeless and both pay zero. Decouple benefits from social status does not seems to be strictly a left vs right issue, at least not here in Sweden. Is the UK different here?

dalbasal 5y ago

This is true, or arguably true, but we need to remember that real-life policies are never clean, blackboard examples. They're not going to just swap out social welfare and council housing for UBI. It'll be layered in somehow. Hell... you can "sell" politicians on UBI, have them nod along, and expect them to come back with a proposal for a conditional UBI. They like your idea, it just needed to be optimized it so that only those who need it get it. That doesn't mean I'm against this. I think it's a positive development, for the reason you outline and others... just mitigating expectations.

AlchemistCamp 5y ago

What you describe very clearly isn't universal. One of the major selling points of UBI is that it never disincentivizes recipients from earning, saving or investing in their futures.

tastyfreeze 5y ago
A negative income tax would achieve the same goal without giving money to people that dont need it.

OJFord 5y ago

> when this is precisely what would lift people out of poverty long term and reduce the costs on society. How, if you disallow stopping the payment? It seems like what you want to happen is exactly what did happen: she saved, had money, and then the cost on society was reduced.

Al-Khwarizmi 5y ago

In Spain it's similar, we already have de facto basic income, just much more complicated than it should be. When you lose your job you have unemployment payments, when it expires there is a "long-term unemployment aid" that in theory was a temporary measure for the 2008 crisis, but every government has kept extending and no one has dared to remove, even when the right had an absolute majority. And then there are regional aids for "social reinsertion". So basically everyone is covered by a safety net and can obtain some income except for people who actively refuse to do so. Still, actual UBI here is an unpopular idea with most of the population, who say that people need to work for a living, that it's a "handout" for lazy people, it will make people stop working, etc. Funny when the two largest problems of our society are probably unemployment (lack of work for people who do want one) and lack of children. And both are problems that ask for less total hours worked, not more. To me, it's a purely moralistic issue (and based on quite outdated morals). If we are already putting in the money to ensure that people have some basic needs covered, from a rational point of view I don't see the problem with turning it into an automatic right instead of something that people need to apply for and that we pretend is "temporary" (but not even the political right will remove it, no one wants the streets full of people with nothing to lose). And as a side effect, we could get rid of a lot of bureaucratic overhead in the process, plus no longer needing minimum wage and making the job market more dynamic. I guess logic will triumph in the end, although it's difficult because there is a lot of purely irrational thinking. For example, most of the people who furiously oppose an UBI because in theory everyone should have to make an effort and earn a living for themselves are also the people who furiously oppose taxing large inheritances...

hogFeast 5y ago

> A disabled lady thought saving some of her disability was the responsible thing to do, despite further impoverishing herself ??? So if I earn £100k/year, and I choose to save all of my income then I am impoverishing myself. Do you understand what saving is? The UK has this terrible habit, like the US, where people are infinitely jealous of other people. Any benefit that someone else is getting, I want it. You get tax credits, I want them too (even though I am making £50k/year). The result of this situation was/is a "welfare" state that primarily gives money to those who don't need help. Yes, if you have £18k in savings...you don't need help. Do you understand what being poor is? You are not poor if you have £18k in savings. In the pandemic, it was utterly appalling to see middle-class people who earn substantial amounts of money complain about not being able to claim benefits. How greedy can you possibly get? And then the Tories bring out a huge wage subsidy scheme that lavishes support on the middle-class support, not five or so years after they tried to squeeze £100/week out of people dying of cancer or who literally cannot work to feed themselves. £4000/month to a middle-class person on hard times...no problem. £70/week to someone dying of cancer or someone is homeless...what a scrounger, unbelievable scrounging, greed. I am British but Britain is a truly amazing place. In the US, everyone seems to think they are middle-class, even if they are in a two-person household earning $400k/year, they seem to resent being forced to pay for anything. The UK is heading this way quickly but from the other way: Blair introduced universal benefits, everyone has their hand out now, no matter how wealthy. Also, the purpose of benefits is not to get someone out of poverty. It is to help people who need help. The system has been totally debauched by middle-class people who think it is their "leg up". It is not. Spending should be focused entirely upon people who cannot help themselves (for whatever reason).

zozbot234 5y ago
> Yes, if you have £18k in savings...you don't need help. Do you understand what being poor is? You are not poor if you have £18k in savings. Savings is not income. One is a stock, the other is a flow. People might be in need of income support even if they've been saving responsibly for a while.
- hogFeast 5y ago

jscholes 5y ago

> A disabled lady thought saving some of her disability was the responsible thing to do, despite further impoverishing herself, once she built up some savings she was prosecuted for fraudently claiming benefits while having savings. I don't know the specific case you're referencing, and it's possible that they were charged with fraud in relation to a benefit which does come with a savings/income cap. However, the two main disability-related benefits in the UK (Disability Living Allowance and Personal Independence Payment) are paid regardless of personal wealth. I don't disagree with the general gist of your comment, and as I say it's likely that the person was claiming additional benefits where your assets are taken into account.