Bolitics The New Condem Government

[leviramsey]

My kids' taxes will probably be funding the nurse who wipes your arse and pays for your meals on wheels in years to come.

Compulsory private health care in Holland, no NHS here.

Apart from that....spot on :?

As I said, I don't have enough money for kids so I put some away for a rainy day or when i get old. What's wrong with that, I don't want to get stuff for free when I could work hard and earn it.

The logical solution is to get the state out of funding care for the elderly.

Indeed. Send for the beadle to give the blighters a sound thrashing before escorting them to the workhouse. Like in the good old days, before all this state funded socialistic nonsense reared its head.

The vast majority of Britons, I suspect, are able to save for their older years. Replace the standard pension schemes with means-tested anti-poverty schemes to serve the minority that don't.

In general, old-age pensions are a wealth transfer from the less well-off to the more well-off (example: the median household net worth of a Social Security recipient is approximately twice the median household net worth of the US as a whole).

[snowychap]

These cuts are actually very badly thought out, almost as badly thought out as my original argument .

Ha ha, no worries.

As for mine and jellybean's finances being seperate, they weren't, but they are know as we split up last week.

:oops:

Size 12 foot into size 12 mouth. Sorry.

[claret75]

These cuts are actually very badly thought out, almost as badly thought out as my original argument .

Ha ha, no worries.

As for mine and jellybean's finances being seperate, they weren't, but they are know as we split up last week.

:oops:

Size 12 foot into size 12 mouth. Sorry.

Don't worry about it, funny thing is, we might have got things back on track since my last post.

[peterms]

The vast majority of Britons, I suspect, are able to save for their older years. Replace the standard pension schemes with means-tested anti-poverty schemes to serve the minority that don't.

Save, yes, save enough, no. The cost of being old, and being cared for while old, is getting mad. Pushing £1,000 a week, for some people, for example. Little chance of saving that much, if you might need 20 years support. Hence my previous points about the ageing population.

Is it better for the economy that people save their income against a rainy day, or spend it on generating economic activity? Both are necessary, in fact.

In general, old-age pensions are a wealth transfer from the less well-off to the more well-off (example: the median household net worth of a Social Security recipient is approximately twice the median household net worth of the US as a whole).

Is that a comment on the partial coverage of the US system, or what?

Can you link to data for those odd figures?

I should think that common sense, comparing old age before pensions with old age after, would rebut your claim. Have you read Mayhew, on the pathetic and impoverished lives and deaths of poor people before the welfare state? Though I suppose since the US is recreating this anew each year, perhaps you get to view it first hand, not read about London a century and a half ago.

[snowychap]

as for the capping of benefits at £26k after tax...

you mean people were getting more than this level before!!! :shock: that is disgraceful.

about time common-sense prevailed.

It would be helpful to see how many, and in what circumstances.

It would also be helpful to know in respect of what they were getting this funding, and who was the actual beneficiary.

I've been reading a couple of interesting blogs/articles on it and a few seem to think that the actual number that would survive to be affected badly by the £500/wk cap would be rather smaller than some may have initially thought; most would actually already be likely to be caught by the change from the median rental rate for LHA.

On the subject of out of work benefits, though, this is an interesting piece (and yes it is a 'left wing blog' before anyone goes on about bias):

Last May, ministers arrived in Whitehall convinced there were vast savings to be made by cutting exorbitant out-of-work benefit payments.

Knowing without needing to look at the figures that Labour had allowed these benefits to ‘explode’ during its time in office, dazzled by the £200 billion total for welfare expenditure (oblivious to the fact that most of this went on pensioners and children) and enchanted by the prospect of mobilising populist grievances against claimants, they demanded that government statisticians torture official data to produce evidence of Labour’s profligacy and the workshy underclass which had benefited from it.

Week after week over the summer recess, tabloid journalists were briefed with ‘new’ statistics ‘unearthed’ by Chris Grayling showing how Labour had allowed a ‘Shameless’ generation of workless households to flourish – statistics to which the Department of Work and Pensions seemed strangely reluctant to accord an official press release and which were not made available to the general public through its website.

Details of a handful of families and individuals receiving high levels of payment found their way into the public domain and were shamelessly exploited by ministers and their rent-a-quote allies in the Taxpayers’ Alliance. Broadsheet commentators fell into line:

“There must be no sense that one group is exploiting others: the rich the poor, or the poor (through welfare) everyone else.” – Julian Glover in The Guardian (July 4 2010)

The obvious question that hardly ever seems to have been posed was just how much Labour had wasted during its out-of-work benefits spending spree. It is not a difficult question to answer: there is a wealth of detail on benefits expenditure available on the same DWP website which failed to offer a home to Chris Grayling’s more feverish claims about ‘intergenerational worklessness’. This chart summarises the data on how much was spent on the working age client group from DWP’s expenditure tables:

Source: DWP expenditure tables – includes expenditure on in-work benefits such as housing benefit (about £3bn) and Disability Living Allowance as well as other elements which are not out-of-work benefits; does not include child tax credits to out-of-work families but this expenditure (about £4.5 bn) is easily outweighed by the elements which are not out-of-work benefits, so these figures can be taken as a (slightly overstated) proxy for out-of-work expenditure on the working age client group.

Measured as a proportion of GDP, expenditure on the working age group fell sharply under Labour and even with the onset of recession has never recovered even to its 1996/7 level, let alone the peak of 4.5 per cent of GDP it reached during the last recession. Measured in real terms, expenditure is very slightly higher than in 1996/7 – the level in 2009/10 was £1.6bn more, hardly an explosion and roughly equivalent to growth in expenditure on statutory maternity pay and maternity allowance, which are included in these figures.

Rather than representing the mythical ‘one in three of every pound we spend’, working age benefits account at present for 7 per cent of public expenditure. This is the expenditure which George Osborne, Danny Alexander and David Cameron describe as “out of control”.

Over the last 24 hours the shape of the coalition’s approach to welfare reform has become clearer. We now know that Iain Duncan Smith’s proposals for a ‘Universal Credit’ – a policy floated by Labour in government and a logical development out of the last 13 years of welfare reform – will not be implemented this parliament. Instead, we will get George Osborne’s ‘cap’ on benefits.

Payments will be limited to reflect the ‘principle’ that “no family should get more from living on benefits than the average family gets from going out to work”: a populist gesture against a shadowy target appealing, of all things, to the ‘British spirit of fair play’ and delivered with a frankly embarrassing posture of historical destiny:

“Money to families who need it – but not more money than families who go out to work. That is what the British people mean by fair – and we will be the first Government in history to bring it about.” – George Osborne, today

The model for this bizarre claim is presumably Gordon Brown, who was also sometimes given to grand historical claims: but the contrast between aiming to be the first government to end child poverty, a real and massive social problem, and aiming to be the first government to stop benefit recipients from getting more than working families – an artefact constructed out of spite and ignorance- could hardly be more striking.

Given the choice between an incremental but challenging reform programme in clear continuity with the policies of its predecessor and a brazen appeal to the politics of grievance, the coalition has made its choice. “We’ve got to be tough but fair,” said the Chancellor today. There is nothing tough about stoking grievances against those with the least opportunity to defend themselves, and nothing fair in trying to implicate those at the sharp end of the coalition’s expenditure cuts in the state of the public finances.

Toughness would be to tell the Conservative party conference, as Keith Joseph did a generation and a half ago, that much of what they believed about the benefit system and its users was nonsense. In the present day, that would mean telling them that there has been no spending spree on out-of-work benefits, that individual cases of high payments tell us nothing about the situation of most claimants or about trends in expenditure, that the UK has a particularly ungenerous system of out-of-work benefits, and admitting that tax credits, the minimum wage and Sure Start have improved labour market outcomes for hundreds of thousands of families.

There are plenty of things to criticise in Labour’s record, but letting out-of-work benefits get ‘out of control’ is not one of them. As long as the coalition continues to allow policy to be guided by mean-spirited fantasies about what has happened to welfare expenditure over the last 13 years, it does not deserve to be trusted on the serious business of welfare reform.

[leviramsey]

The vast majority of Britons, I suspect, are able to save for their older years. Replace the standard pension schemes with means-tested anti-poverty schemes to serve the minority that don't.

Save, yes, save enough, no. The cost of being old, and being cared for while old, is getting mad. Pushing £1,000 a week, for some people, for example. Little chance of saving that much, if you might need 20 years support. Hence my previous points about the ageing population.

Is it better for the economy that people save their income against a rainy day, or spend it on generating economic activity? Both are necessary, in fact.

In general saving is better than spending as it reduces the cost of capital and thus aids the reallocation of capital to more productive uses; that's the underpinning of economic growth.

In general, old-age pensions are a wealth transfer from the less well-off to the more well-off (example: the median household net worth of a Social Security recipient is approximately twice the median household net worth of the US as a whole).

Is that a comment on the partial coverage of the US system, or what?

Can you link to data for those odd figures?

From 2004 (most recent Census data)

Median net worth

Overall: $80k

65+: $154k (near enough to double)

Percentages of households with a given net worth

[table]

[row][mcol]Zero or negative[mcol]$1-$5k[mcol]$5k-10k[mcol]$10k-$25k[mcol]$25k-$50k[mcol]$50k-$100k[mcol]$100k-$250k[mcol]$250k-$500k[mcol]$500k+

[mrow]All American households[col]15.6%[col]9.1%[col]4.1%[col]6.3%[col]7.4%[col]11.6%[col]19.6%[col]13.4%[col]12.8%

[mrow]65 and over*[col]7.0%[col]6.4%[col]2.6%[col]4.0%[col]6.0%[col]12.4%[col]26.0%[col]17.8%[col]17.9%

[/table]

*: 65 being the age at which one typically starts collecting Social Security (though recipients can elect to delay collecting in exchange for greater payments (not surprisingly the wealthier one is, the more likely they are to take advantage of this provision))

Additionally, because the funding for SS is from a somewhat regressive tax (as it's a tax on the first $90k-ish of income) it's even more a redistribution from those on lower wages to the idle rich.

I should think that common sense, comparing old age before pensions with old age after, would rebut your claim. Have you read Mayhew, on the pathetic and impoverished lives and deaths of poor people before the welfare state? Though I suppose since the US is recreating this anew each year, perhaps you get to view it first hand, not read about London a century and a half ago.

Social Security has essentially eradicated poverty among the elderly, it is true, perhaps at the expense of increased poverty among the young.

The question is why simply being old entitles you to payments from the state. Why should someone who is rather wealthy (nearly 50% more likely than the general population to have sufficient net worth to guarantee an above-poverty-level income without selling assets) be receiving any funds intended to eradicate poverty?

[snowychap]

Liam Fox mentions defence and interest spending.

Here's the graph since 1979:

Source: ukpublicspending.co.uk

[Awol]

Liam Fox mentions defence and interest spending.

Here's the graph since 1979:

Source: ukpublicspending.co.uk

If you look at that period in terms of GDP spent on defence it looks a little different though, 5.9% in 1979 down to 3.2% in 1996, 3.1% in 1997 down to 2.9% in 2009. Clealry thatis now going to fall even further, possibly even below 2%.

Sorry, I can't find a pretty graph

[blandy]

as for the capping of benefits at £26k after tax...

you mean people were getting more than this level before!!! :shock: that is disgraceful.

about time common-sense prevailed.

It would be helpful to see how many, and in what circumstances.

It would also be helpful to know in respect of what they were getting this funding, and who was the actual beneficiary.

My guess is that we are talking about a tiny number of large households in Inner London who are homeless, who the local authority can't find housing for because of government policy preventing them building housing, and so the council have had to enter into a private sector leasing arrangement.....The recipient of the money is the landlord, who may be an individual, a company, an offshore trust, or whatever. But it's the family who lives there that is assumed, falsely, to be getting the benefit of the money, when in fact they just pass it to the landlord.

This kind of case is meat and drink to the tories because it fuels the ignorant prejudice that there's a load of people out there, mainly immigrants/asylum seekers, living a life of luxury at our expense....

I take the point and the sentiment. Nevertheless there are some other things to be considered.

Something like 28p of every pound the Gov't spends is on benefits and pensions. That figure is too high and unsustainable, given needs in other areas.

The benefits system is very complex and therefore open to fraud and also expensive to administer.

26 grand (the proposed cap) a year is the equivalent of someone in work earning around 45 grand a year and paying tax. Whatever the rights and wrongs, even in London, there will be people in work having to get by on less than that, having to pay rent and having to put up with the same problems as people claiming benefits. They have to pay landlords too. No one says "oh, they don't actually earn 45 grand, because some of it goes to a landlord".

Regarding councils having insufficient housing for people without homes, yes I agree. Equally, if there is insufficient housing, then it's not always possible to build more homes in that area. Maybe building them in a cheaper area for less cost, or people moving to an area where rents are lower is a perfectly feasible palliative. At some point, society has to require that people make an effort to help themselves, and if that someone (and their family) can't get by on a hand-out that is the equivalent of a 45 grand a year wage, then, hey, they have to move to a less expensive area - like people in work have to.

There's nothing wrong with helping people who can't help themselves, that's what should happen. There is something wrong with giving people who don't work a level of comfort not available to many in work.

I think that outright opposition to the principle of putting a limit on the max anyone can get in benefits (when that max is =45 grand a year job) is as equally ideologically driven as any tory aim to squeeze the poor to help the bankers.

[snowychap]

If you look at that period in terms of GDP spent on defence it looks a little different though, 5.9% in 1979 down to 3.2% in 1996, 3.1% in 1997 down to 2.9% in 2009. Clealry thatis now going to fall even further, possibly even below 2%.

Sorry, I can't find a pretty graph

Well it wouldn't make any difference for comparing interest and defence spending, would it? They would both be viewed as a percentage of the same GDP and the relationship (such that there is one) would be the same. The graph would just look a little different and perhaps be a little more appropriate but as Fox was talking in terms of numbers rather than proportion of GDP, I thought I'd keep it in line.

Anyway, here's a pretty graph (from the same source) :winkold::

[Awol]

If you look at that period in terms of GDP spent on defence it looks a little different though, 5.9% in 1979 down to 3.2% in 1996, 3.1% in 1997 down to 2.9% in 2009. Clealry thatis now going to fall even further, possibly even below 2%.

Sorry, I can't find a pretty graph

Well it wouldn't make any difference for comparing interest and defence spending, would it?

No, I was just noting that the apparent rise in defence spending over that period can viewed in a different light to the upward curve in your first graph, not a comment on the debt situation - which is shocking.

Anyway, here's a pretty graph (from the same source) :winkold::

Very nice. :winkold:

[snowychap]

That figure is too high and unsustainable, given needs in other areas.

Why?

That's an opinion not an objective fact.

The benefits system is very complex and therefore open to fraud and also expensive to administer.

Unless this government is planning to go for a citizens basic income then all benefits systems (especially those based on means testing and that will have to apply to a 'universal credit') will be complex.

Indeed, I'd go as far as to suggest that trying to sort out the poverty trap and the marginal rate of taxation so that 'work always pays' will require an extra level of complexity to deal with tapering of benefits for those making it back in to work (unless of course, Duncan Smith's whole idea in making work pay is just to drastically reduce the amount that anyone on benefits will receive - as opposed to the maximum that a very few might).

Systems which apply to large numbers of people are complex. I cannot see how any system is likely not to be expensive to administer.

Anything and everything is open to fraud and more so to waste.

There seems to be an obsession with fraud in the benefits system even though the DWP figures for '08/'09 suggest that their estimate of the level of fraud lies at just over £1,100 million (and even the most obsessed can only get up to their figure of £3,500 million by shoving a finger in the air and accusing a third of IB claimants of being fraudsters - here).

None of what I am saying is excusing the fraud or suggesting that ways of trying to reduce it (and errors) ought not to be looked at, just that the figure in question is not as important in the 'grand scheme of things' as is made out.

It isn't even that important in people's minds, I don't think - what is important are the individual examples of excess (or even apparent excess) that are wheeled out whenever someone feels the benefits narrative is going off message.

Whatever the rights and wrongs, even in London, there will be people in work having to get by on less than that, having to pay rent and having to put up with the same problems as people claiming benefits. They have to pay landlords too.

Housing benefit is not just an out of work benefit.

26 grand (the proposed cap) a year is the equivalent of someone in work earning around 45 grand a year and paying tax.

Where do you get the £45k figure from, Pete?

[snowychap]

No, I was just noting that the apparent rise in defence spending over that period can viewed in a different light to the upward curve in your first graph...

Which is fair enough. Interestingly, it wasn't what Fox chose to say in his little conference thingie as he preferred to just directly compare interest spending with defence spending (by saying something along the lines of 'for this £43 billion [sic.], I could have bought x infantry, y aircraft carriers, z smart bombs').

I thought I'd look at the comparison between the two over the duration of the last two blue/red governments' stints.

I wonder how many infantry, aircraft carriers, &c. the interest spending in 1979 (or 1997) might have bought?

I just think it was a spurious comparison which probably suggests more that Fox has been bashed in to line by Cameron, Osborne et al. (and, maybe, struck a deal on Trident) and told to stick to the narrative.

Very nice. :winkold:

Ta.

Not my own work, though - that website does it for you.

[blandy]

That figure is too high and unsustainable, given needs in other areas.

Why?

That's an opinion not an objective fact.

It is. It's my opinion. Factor in health, education, transport and all the rest and for me, it's too high for society to continue with.

The benefits system is very complex and therefore open to fraud and also expensive to administer.

...Duncan Smith's whole idea in making work pay is just to drastically reduce the amount that anyone on benefits will receive - as opposed to the maximum that a very few might).

....I cannot see how any system is likely not to be expensive to administer.

Anything and everything is open to fraud and more so to waste.

There seems to be an obsession with fraud in the benefits system even though the DWP figures for '08/'09 suggest that their estimate of the level of fraud lies at just over £1,100 million (and even the most obsessed can only get up to their figure of £3,500 million by shoving a finger in the air and accusing a third of IB claimants of being fraudsters - here).

None of what I am saying is excusing the fraud or suggesting that ways of trying to reduce it (and errors) ought not to be looked at, just that the figure in question is not as important in the 'grand scheme of things' as is made out.

It isn't even that important in people's minds, I don't think - what is important are the individual examples of excess (or even apparent excess) that are wheeled out whenever someone feels the benefits narrative is going off message.

Firstly, on the fraud. Over a billion quid - that's a shit load of fraud every year. I doubt that any gov't of whatever colour would be able to prevent all of it, but it's right to try, and for me simplification and transparency are a valid part of efforts to reduce fraud.

I don't know what IDS's motives are - whether they are to make all benefit payers get less, as you claim, but I doubt that's his motive. I would imagine a more likely motive is to get the overall cost down.

Whatever the rights and wrongs, even in London, there will be people in work having to get by on less than that, having to pay rent and having to put up with the same problems as people claiming benefits. They have to pay landlords too.

Housing benefit is not just an out of work benefit.

Yes. I fail to see the relevance of that point. I'm trying to put over the idea that a cap on the max amount of benefits someone can recieve, at the 26 grand a year, is not a "bad" thing. That many people get by on a lot less than that, that a figure in that area is not going to leave anyone on the breadline or below.

[snowychap]

Firstly, on the fraud. Over a billion quid - that's a shit load of fraud every year. I doubt that any gov't of whatever colour would be able to prevent all of it, but it's right to try, and for me simplification and transparency are a valid part of efforts to reduce fraud.

Is it really a shit load of fraud?

I agree that it's right to try and reduce it and tackle it (as I said so).

'Simplification and transparency'? What exactly do you mean by that?

I don't wish to appear rude but they sound like political/office speak buzz words which don't actually apply (but do sound good on the surface).

As I said, how on earth would you 'simplify' a system that deals with such numbers of people without either transferring to some kind of basic income scheme or reducing the numbers that are dealt with (i.e. by actually taking x amount of people out of that system)?

As for transparency, I have no idea what you mean with regards to benefits systems.

I don't know what IDS's motives are - whether they are to make all benefit payers get less, as you claim, but I doubt that's his motive. I would imagine a more likely motive is to get the overall cost down.

And there only two ways really to do that - firstly by reducing the amount paid to people on benefits or reduce the number of people on benefits.

The second thing will only happen with a substantial increase in jobs (something which I suggest is not going to be covered even by the government's estimates of growth as a lot of that is likely to be covered by the spare capacity within the economy).

Housing benefit is not just an out of work benefit.

Yes. I fail to see the relevance of that point. I'm trying to put over the idea that a cap on the max amount of benefits someone can recieve, at the 26 grand a year, is not a "bad" thing. That many people get by on a lot less than that, that a figure in that area is not going to leave anyone on the breadline or below.

The relevance is that the statement, "We will cap benefits at £500 per week, that's £26k a year..." puts in people's minds that it's just indolent layabouts getting a weekly giro (BACS transfer in these modern times) for this money and rocking on with their comfortable 'lifestyle choice'.

Firstly, as indicated it might be a rather moot point because of the changes already due to occur to LHA; secondly, those in work also receive benefits which do greatly affect their nett income level (with a few sketchy calculations - including on the tax credits website - it would appear that the equivalent of this cap for a two parent family with two kids with one parent working would represent something closer to about £30k due to tax credits and child benefit); thirdly, those whom it is likely to affect most drastically are the kind of family where both may have been working and both lose their jobs (indeed, in that case, I have seen some people suggest that to avoid breaching a cap, they might look at splitting up - there's irony for you).

Lastly, and this was the point that I was making earlier and, I think, Peter has also partly made, the consequential increased costs to local authorities of emergency housing due to their statutory obligation to deal with homelessness don't appear to have been thought through (unless they have and they have been factored in to this benefit cap and the government think that this will overrule the local authorities obligations).

[Awol]

Not wishing to disturb the interesting debate between Blandy and Snowy but just want to add:

1.1 billion pounds (at the minimum) is the equivalent total annual Income Tax and NI paid by 165,000 people on £26k per year, or 5.5 X the population of Lichfield having their contributions stolen.

That IS a lot of fraud.

[snowychap]

Not wishing to disturb the interesting debate between Blandy and Snowy but just want to add:

1.1 billion pounds (at the minimum) is the equivalent total annual Income Tax and NI paid by 165,000 people on £26k per year, or 5.5 X the population of Lichfield having their contributions stolen.

That IS a lot of fraud.

It's also the one tenth of the nominal GDP of the DRC.

As a number, it's a big number; as a proportion of benefit spending then it isn't insignificant (though it is suggested that it's considerably less than administrative error); as the thing to concentrate on (when the supposed savings from the CB change is about that figure - before we factor in the married rebate :winkold:).

[snowychap]

Just another point on the £26k figure.

As it would seem sensible to believe that this would generally only apply to people in the capital (with the repeat of the previous rider about LHA), it's interesting to have a look at the workings, methodology and details concerning the calculation of the London living wage (endorsed by Boris, obviously).

All data and quotes are taken from here.

Specifically looking at the basic living costs approach (and therefore not the one which is actually used to calculate the London living wage, which is higher), the document says:

The FBU (family budget unit) calculated the expenditure required to achieve what it defines as a Low Cost but Acceptable (LCA) standard of living for a range of 'typical' families.

This wage level is not the same as a minimum wage. It is defined by the FBU as a wage that achieves an adequate level of warmth and shelter, a healthy palatable diet, social integration and avoidance of chronic stress for earners and their dependents.

It looked at warious working patterns as well as these different ranges of families.

Their calculation (table 2.1) is as follows:

For a couple with children:

[table]

[row][col]Spending type[col] 2 ft[col]1 ft 1 pt[col]2 pt[col]1 ft[col]1 pt

[row][col]Shopping basket costs[col]196.56[col]196.56[col]196.56[col]196.56[col]196.56

[row][col]Housing[col]93.31[col]93.31[col]93.31[col]93.31[col]93.31

[row][col]Council Tax[col]25.27[col]25.27[col]25.27[col]25.27[col]25.27

[row][col]Total transport costs[col]53.52[col]53.52[col]53.52[col]26.76[col]26.76

[row][col]Childcare costs[col]221.94[col]106.86[col]106.86[col]0.00[col]0.00

[row][col]Total[col]590.69[col]475.56[col]475.56[col]341.90[col]341.90[/table]

For a lone parent:

[table]

[row][col]Spending type[col] ft[col]pt

[row][col]Shopping basket costs[col]148.76[col]148.76

[row][col]Housing[col]93.31[col]93.31

[row][col]Council Tax[col]18.95[col]18.95

[row][col]Total transport costs[col]26.76[col]26.76

[row][col]Childcare costs[col]221.94[col]106.86

[row][col]Total[col]509.81[col]394.68[/table]

So, whilst I accept that these figures are used to look at earners and therefore there are costs associated with their lives which may not be quite so high (or incurred at all) by those out of work, I was particularly interested at the figure for the working lone parent with two children.

The LCA for this household (though not actually used in their calculation, I think, but just in for reference) is just over £509.81 per week.

All of this has to take in to account, too, that the methodology for the calculation of housing costs is to look at the median rents in the social housing sector (both council and local housing association).

Apologies for any copying errors (and not having the time at the moment to check them over fully) and there's probably a lot more in that document that might have relevance. I just found it very interesting to look at the very basic costs associated with 'poverty threshold' expenditure in that there London (in relation to the proposed benefits cap).

[leviramsey]

At the same time, consider who benefits from generous housing allowances.

* Landlords

* Employers of low-wage/low-skill labour (e.g. foodservice & retail, janitorial, etc.)

It's at least as much a subsidy for those groups as it is for the poor.

[snowychap]

At the same time, consider who benefits from generous housing allowances.

* Landlords

* Employers of low-wage/low-skill labour (e.g. foodservice & retail, janitorial, etc.)

It's at least as much a subsidy for those groups as it is for the poor.

Often true, I think, as Peter(ms) suggested earlier.

Perhaps we ought not to have scrapped rent controls. :winkold: