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- Doctor Fate
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29 Mar 2013, 11:53 am
rickyp wrote:The surge in disability claimants is because these obese people genuinely can't do their jobs anymore, not that they don't want to do them.
Um, so if there is more of an obesity problem, have you made the logical connection between that and the increase in disability numbers?
No, you have not.
Furthermore, I guarantee you've not read the MIT study I linked.
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- bbauska
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29 Mar 2013, 12:13 pm
http://scienceblogs.com/thepumphandle/2012/12/14/construction-workers-in-central-texas-successfully-tie-living-wages-to-big-business-tax-breaks/Look! Obese Construction Workers! It can be done!
Not all disabled are freeloading.
Not all disabled are worthy of disability payments.
Find a way to deal with the latter. It is not that difficult. I am sure that unannounced visits to payees would surely weed out a great many... Perhaps paying citizens to turn in evidence on those who are bilking the system... Just a couple of ideas.
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- danivon
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29 Mar 2013, 12:52 pm
Ah yes, paid State snitches. The East German solution to social deviance!
You guys want to address RJs and my suggestions?
Bbauska - no. Our population has increased, and the workforce is ageing, so I would expect an increase. Also, we were in the process of implementing 'care in the community', or closing institutions where disabled people were residents and letting 'society' take care of them. They would have been adding to the entitlement.
I wonder, did the US do the same? It would also explain some of an increase in the number of people with mental disabilities claiming.
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- bbauska
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29 Mar 2013, 2:52 pm
Godwin...
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- danivon
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30 Mar 2013, 4:59 am
So as a conservative, you suggest that people are to be paid by the government to snoop on and report their fellow citizens, right?
As so often before, I understand your desire to stop people who don't deserve it from claimimg. But whatever you propose should bear in mind those who do deserve it (and so not be an unwarranted intrusion or blight on them), and should not end up being more costly than the problem you want to fix.
Hence trying to get a better view of the true extent of the issue, and looking at how much of the increase is genuine.
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- Sassenach
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30 Mar 2013, 4:31 pm
Our population has increased, and the workforce is ageing, so I would expect an increase. Also, we were in the process of implementing 'care in the community', or closing institutions where disabled people were residents and letting 'society' take care of them. They would have been adding to the entitlement.
All of these things are true, but I don't think either of us believes that they explain the level of increase. Moving people onto disability benefits has been a handy way for successive governments to massage the unemployment figures. I think this in large part explains why we've turned a blind eye to it for so long, although not entirely. It's part of a wider pattern of expansion of the benefits system as well.
We now not only have millions more disabled people who are 'unable' to work, we also have a massive system of tax credits that pay out billions each year to people who are in work. It's getting to the point, if it isn't there already, where a clear majority of British households are recipients of benefit payments of one kind or another. This definitely needs to change. I certainly don't agree with the newe government about everything they're doing, far from it, but they're absolutely right to try and drive down the cost curve in the benefits system.
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- bbauska
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30 Mar 2013, 4:56 pm
So snooping doesn't work for you. What about the unannounced visits?
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- Doctor Fate
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30 Mar 2013, 4:57 pm
Sassenach wrote:We now not only have millions more disabled people who are 'unable' to work, we also have a massive system of tax credits that pay out billions each year to people who are in work. It's getting to the point, if it isn't there already, where a clear majority of British households are recipients of benefit payments of one kind or another. This definitely needs to change. I certainly don't agree with the newe government about everything they're doing, far from it, but they're absolutely right to try and drive down the cost curve in the benefits system.
Imagine a political system wherein politicians are free to promise financial rewards to their constituents--rewards on a scale that allow them to stop working.
Now, imagine a system in which the people receiving those rewards vote for a government that will cut them off.
We are getting nearer that unimaginable, unsustainable situation every single day.
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- danivon
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31 Mar 2013, 7:23 am
bbauska wrote:So snooping doesn't work for you. What about the unannounced visits?
In modrration, it can be a useful tool.
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- Rudewalrus
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02 Apr 2013, 6:42 am
bbauska wrote:So snooping doesn't work for you. What about the unannounced visits?
I for one would support the idea, and would like to see it implemented.
It's quite a bit simpler to propose the principle, however, than to implement the practice. For all of the talk of loafing government workers, all the ones I personally know work pretty hard. Introducing a mandate that the office that administers Disability conduct unnanounced visits would almost certainly require creating a corps of inspectors of some size if it is to amount to more than token checks. That's more administration cost and further government growth (not to mention travel expenses), in a time when we're supposedly trying to reduce.
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- Doctor Fate
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02 Apr 2013, 6:51 am
Different program, but this does not seem to incentivize work:
http://www.whptv.com/mostpopular/story/ ... cbdvg.cspx For this story, CBS 21 researched what government programs are available to a single mother of two making $19,000 a year. What we found was incredible.
Our family would be eligible for $14,976 in free day care, another $13,400 for Head Start and Early Head Start, $7,148 in housing vouchers, $6,500 for weatherization projects, $400 to pay heating bills, $480 a year for a cell phone, with an extra $230 for a land line, and $182 in free legal advice.
The family would get more than $6,028 in food assistance and another $6,045 in medical assistance. The mother is eligible for $5,500 in Pell Grants for school with an additional $12,000 for the Education Opportunity Grant; SMART Grant; and TEACH Grant.
Our family would also get $6,800 in tax credits, and $1,900 in withholding would be returned.
Add it up and this family can get $81,589 in free assistance.
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- danivon
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02 Apr 2013, 7:06 am
There is also the issue that a fair chunk of the population have an active distrust of government, and especially the Federal version, and may make threat to defend their privacy through force of arms. Of course they should not, and least of all shouldn't carry out such a threat, but that doesn't stop it being a potential problem.
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- danivon
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02 Apr 2013, 7:08 am
DF, did anyone at CBS find a real family actually claiming all of those to the full extent? I note that the income of 19k suggests the single mother would be working.
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- Doctor Fate
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02 Apr 2013, 7:54 am
danivon wrote:DF, did anyone at CBS find a real family actually claiming all of those to the full extent? I note that the income of 19k suggests the single mother would be working.
http://www.commonwealthfoundation.org/p ... ken-system
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- danivon
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02 Apr 2013, 8:39 am
That doesn't answer the question. The woman named is not actually said to be claiming all of those benefits, they just looked at all the potential ones a family like hers could get.
Jusy as today our Tory Chancellor of the Exchequer talked about families in the UK that can get £100,000 a year in benefits. Not a single family can be found that actually does.
