Moan, moan, moan----get it off your chest or have a chat

[TheOnionMan]

Today is a bittersweet milestone.  It is my 1 year anniversary on SRGC Forum, which I am grateful for, see The "I'm so happy" thread.

On the other hand, I'm reminded about the fact I spent as much time on the forum as I have, due to being unemployed, it's been 14 months so far.  I'm on my "tier 2" unemployment benefit, however it is being cut short by 3 weeks (as of next week), and my eligibility for Tier 3 unemployment (13 more weeks) is suspended, all of this held up by pure politics, the Republicans in the US Congress steadfastly blocking and holding hostage any bill the President tries to pass. The legislation to extend unemployment benefits may in fact pass eventually, meanwhile there will be a definite gap in benefits, and at what cost will it be passed?  Our system of government is so broken here.

[Lesley Cox]

So your system is like ours Mark and I imagine like that of just about every other country in that "let's get rid of all the unemployed, the sick and injured, those who live on the streets, those with mental disabilities" and so on, but "let's do it NOW and think later about how those people are to survive." In other words, those affected are dumped by the bureaucracy (always in obedience to the god of saving money) before there are any systems in place to support them. Of course it should be the other way around. Set up the systems THEN present them with the people they're there to support. Govt, or perhaps politics, stinks.

[annew]

It is such a shame that some of our very knowledgable members are unable to find work. I hope that 2011 is a better year for them.

[Martin Baxendale]

Lesley, interestingly there's a report just come out that shows, from polling data, that the UK population is now even less in favour of even mild income redistribution and progressive taxation, and even more anti-benefit claimants than during the Thatcher years - due to successive governments (right and left) continuously  demonising claimants as cheating scroungers, which of course is always a cheap, easy shot to take in the battle for votes; if you want to get votes without having to bother with policies, just get tough on crime and tough on benefit claimants.

58% polled in the Thatcher years thought unemployed benefit claimants generally needed to be treated more sympathetically, and now it's only 27%. And a similar drop in those who thought taxation should be progressive, so the rich pay more than the poor. Yet, ironically, more people in the poll (78% of those polled) now think that there's a serious problem with the ever-growing gap between  the poor and the well-off!!! The researchers put this discrepancy down to "self interest" amongst higher earners. Oh really?

[Tony Willis]

Martin

I find both politics and reports interesting and both equally self-serving particularly in the use of statistics.

Surely in the case you quote ,given that most people fall into the poorly paid category (average income across the whole working population is only £26k and if looked at on a quartile basis most fall into the lowest) if the survey was taken over a representative section of the public then the relatively few high earners would not have been able to sway the result.

 It looks to me as if the result obtained was the one wanted

[Martin Baxendale]

Interesting point. Perhaps what happens to some extent in such surveys is that a lot of people who are actually around or below average earnings don't realise that they are, consider themselves to be relatively high earners with a lot to lose and reply accordingly. I think the average (or mean? never sure which is which exactly) household income was recently given as about £36,000, which when I've mentioned it to friends and family has surprised them - especially those with household incomes below £36,000 who thought they were doing okay for themselves.

The point I found most interesting was the huge drop in the numbers feeling that benefit claimants deserve to be dealt with more sympathetically, which is less directly related to the respondent's own income and taxation level, and I would think is more reflective of a general mood in the country, and one that successive governments have helped create with the way they talk about claimants and use that quite cynically to win votes. 

[Tony Willis]

the latest figures for 2010 are as follows

'The difference between the median level of full-time earnings in the public sector (£554 per week) and the private sector (£473 per week) widened over the year to April 2010, following annual increases of 3.0 per cent and 2.0 per cent respectively.'

Total income is a different matter as many lower paid workers qualify for benefits which bring this up to a higher level.
 
An unemployed single woman in Chorley with three children was reported last month to be receive benefits  of £36000 a year net. She said she needed a job on  £60000 to make it worthwhile going to work.

That is not a criticism just a reported fact.She seemed a thoroughly decent person who was caught by the system.

[Martin Baxendale]

Thanks for those figures, Tony. Is median the same as mean? I understand the difference between the average income (everyone's income divided by the number of people) and the mean income (the income at which 50% earn more and 50% earn less) but what confuses me is when politicians say average, do they mean average or mean? It seems to vary according to whether they want it to be larger or smaller.

I wonder sometimes when the politicians and the press find people on benefits getting so much money just how few people there are like that. The people I know on benefits - unemployment, long-term disability etc - all seem to be getting much less than that. Is it perhaps a reflection of housing costs? I think that's one reason the government are targeting housing benefit for cuts - because the huge rises in property values also pushed up rents to extraordinary levels.

Just checked, by the way, and the survey was the annual British Social Attitudes Survey done by the National Centre for Social Research. They point out that the change in attitudes to benefit claimants indicated by the survey occurred mainly during Labour administrations.

 

[alpines]

Not even sure I should be commenting on the UK now that I don't live there....and the US isn't any better....but in response to Tony's observation about the lady from Chorley, I remember a TV show many, many years ago when, from a group of unemployed people, one participant said it wasn't worth getting out of bed for under 200GBP per week (10,400 GBP per annum). So this isn't something new. This has been going on for years and with the acceptance of numerous governments.
Having been out of work on 4 occasions in the past 40 years....through no fault of my own...I sympathize with the genuine people who cannot obtain work at a decent rate of pay. I have absolutely no sympathy for the ones who turn up for their unemployment check in BMWs....or do they even have to turn up these days?
How any country can even hope to regain a work ethic when they pay people not to work is beyond me. (36 Grand to look after 3 kids.......you've got to be kidding !!!!!)
Still - trying to find jobs for 3 million unemployed rocket scientists is a tall order for any country.

[Tony Willis]

She had a newer car than mine,needed it to take the kids to school. Mine went over 170,000 miles this weekend and I just hope it lasts a bit longer.

Life has its up and downs-I stood in the garden frozen at 2am this morning hoping to see the meteor shower and it was cloudy,on the plus side I had left the electric blanket on which had got hot enough to fry me when I got into bed.

I am back of to the flowers now.

[Martin Baxendale]

I think we'd all agree with  that, Alan. The trouble is that politicians (of left or right) always use the worst examples, and in the end people deserving of genuine sympathy suffer when benefits are cut across the board. I feel it's a bit like the criminal justice system - it's best to have a fair system based on decent principles even if that means a few people will always get away with things they shouldn't. And talking of getting away with things, I'd love to see a government of any political hue (or better still the international community in unison) prepared to get serious about tackling major tax evasion, where some huge companies can get away with paying ridiculously low levels of tax.

[alpines]

..and no doubt the kids had the absolute necessities of life. iPad, iPod, iPhone etc.
And if she had a car to take the kids to school...what the hell was she doing all day long? Not looking for work, that's obvious.
And who pays for this? The British taxpayer as always. And it's refreshing to know that the children are getting a good education....so they can learn from their mother how to beat the system. Wonderful.
OK Mr. Obama...I need a word. Why can't we have something like this in the States?

Martin....I agree that it's always the worst cases that show up and that's why I said I sympathize with the needy.  But this has been going on for years and the government does nothing about it. I absolutely abhor the criminal acts of the so called "student protestors" but no one is listening to the people any more.

[Martin Baxendale]

Tony's gone off back to his plants and I have to get back to work, but first a quick whinge about BT - Hurry up and fix my phone! Over a week recently without broadband thanks to BT and now a week without a phone while their engineer takes his sweet time getting round to visiting! I'm getting reet fed up with talking to people in India about what kind of phone sockets I have, whether things are plug into the 'master socket', if I'm sure the things I'm plugging in are working okay and plugged into the electrical supply, etc, etc. Just come and see for yourselves then go to the exchange/junction box and fix your rubbish wiring....again!!!

[angie]

Same here Tony . Reported our line was down on the 1st December after we had thunder and lighting, did it on-line thinking this would be better than trying to get through to them. Everyday I get a email saying still working on fault. Today I called and after twenty eight minutes got to speak to a nice lady that said sorry but it will be the end of the week before a engineer will be able to see to the job. I explained that my husband is trying to run a small business and it's hard enough at this time of year but she said there are 400 other repairs to be carried out before he gets to us. Anybody want to take a bet that he doesn't manage to get to us before the end of the week.
Maybe they need to employ some more people, by the sounds of it there are plenty of people out there that are unemployed and need a job.

Angle 

[Lesley Cox]

Lots to think about in the above posts and in general, everything said, applies here too. Our average income per household is a lot less but things cost a lot less here. I remember when in the UK and "ordinary" alpine plant at a nursery was about 3 GBpounds, about $3 here and the pound was worth about 2 1/2 dollars. Similar differences for a pint and a baked potato in a pub.

What is very noticeable is the cost of housing now relative to say 10 years ago. Our last Labour govt had a policy of keeping rentals for low income families at not more than 25% of income. It is now, in the majority of cases at least 50% and in many cases up to 80% so that the remaining income can't feed the family. With a conservative govt, especially the previous one, the catch cry of "market rates" was the be all and end all, no matter that it destroyed many families and gave NZ one of the highest rates of child poverty in the OECD, a shameful statistic in the eyes of most NZers.

But yes, there will always be those who know how to milk the system whatever it is, and likewise there will always be the rich who are determined to become richer regardless of whoever else suffers as a result.