A Labour government would have made a mess of covid too.

Growstuff securer than a high street bank. Remember Northern Rock? The proceeds from the recent sale of a house were sitting there when it collapsed. Luckily I was able to transfer it by being on my computer at 7.55 am. But the govt stepped in anyway, which I knew they would.

Weirdly, I'm eligible to apply for the government's Help to Save scheme for people in receipt of Universal Credit, which pays 50% (yes! 50%) interest if I invest for four years. I won't have to find extra money because I'll transfer savings from my current deposit account.

I am absolutely flabbergasted. No wonder the benefit bill is so high.

GrannyRose15, how many people on UC can save do you suppose? Very few. Most stagger from week to week

Ilovecheese

I will bet that Rishi Sunak will announce something similar in the budget.

I really hope that he will, since the Conservatives are the ones in power and able to do it.
I would definitely go for those bonds.

PippaZ

GrannyRose15

tickingbird

GrannyRose15 is right. Just printing more money is far too simplistic as it leads to hyperinflation. The ones that put this forward as a solution are naive. It’s not Monopoly.

Thankyou

Except it isn't right, is it. Just saying you agree, without sharing any knowledge that backs this up does not turn an opinion into a fact - well in Trump World perhaps it does and to some extent in the old Brexit World but not in real life where continuing to repeat something shown to be untrue often has another name.

Could you just back up your opinions with some known experts saying the same thing, perhaps?

I cannot understand why people have to be so rude. You know very little about me or my politics.

Just because you think you know doesn't turn your opinion into a fact.

It is quite obvious from the way this thread has turned out that the OP doesn't have any interest in hearing what other people think. - it was simply an excuse to let us know her opinions.

I have read them. I don't agree with them. I think some people are wrong.

And when met with such intolerance there is no need at all for me to explain myself further.

GrannyRose My understanding is that the benefit bill is really not that high once pensions are excluded.

Welfare payments in this country are not generous and I think people who view those on Universal Credit as being anything like comfortably off are misguided. If there are some who can save a little on the pittance they get, they really deserve a fantastic rate of interest, in my opinion.

Eloethan

GrannyRose My understanding is that the benefit bill is really not that high once pensions are excluded.

Welfare payments in this country are not generous and I think people who view those on Universal Credit as being anything like comfortably off are misguided. If there are some who can save a little on the pittance they get, they really deserve a fantastic rate of interest, in my opinion.

I challenge anybody to live on Universal Credit for more then a few weeks! I have to dip into savings every month.

The Help to Save scheme is actually nuts, but I'm not complaining. I couldn't believe that I'm actually eligible for it because every time I read about some good deal, I get to the "small print" and realise I'm not.

The reason I can claim is because I have a few thousand pounds in savings and can transfer those to the new scheme. I wouldn't be able to save "new" money. The savings threshold Universal Credit is £6000 before benefits are affected and anybody with more than £16,000 can't claim anyway.

To be eligible for the savings scheme, claimants have to earn over £605 a month in just one month, which I did last month - for the first time since the start of the pandemic.

My state pension starts in six weeks. If my one month of "high" earnings had been after the beginning of April, I wouldn't have been eligible.

I can't invest more than £50 a month (£2,400 in total) anyway, so it's not a fortune, but it should be enough to buy myself a new car in four years when my current one dies.

It sometimes pays off to read Martin Lewis' website.

PS. I'd rather have the income to pay for some of the things I see people on this site can afford than be eligible for a fantastic interest rate.

Eloethan You're right. The "benefits bill" is peanuts compared with what is paid out for pensioners and associated benefits. Pensions are usually included whenever the media jumps up and down about how high the benefits bill is.

GrannyRose15

PippaZ

GrannyRose15

tickingbird

GrannyRose15 is right. Just printing more money is far too simplistic as it leads to hyperinflation. The ones that put this forward as a solution are naive. It’s not Monopoly.

Thankyou

Except it isn't right, is it. Just saying you agree, without sharing any knowledge that backs this up does not turn an opinion into a fact - well in Trump World perhaps it does and to some extent in the old Brexit World but not in real life where continuing to repeat something shown to be untrue often has another name.

Could you just back up your opinions with some known experts saying the same thing, perhaps?

I cannot understand why people have to be so rude. You know very little about me or my politics.

Just because you think you know doesn't turn your opinion into a fact.

It is quite obvious from the way this thread has turned out that the OP doesn't have any interest in hearing what other people think. - it was simply an excuse to let us know her opinions.

I have read them. I don't agree with them. I think some people are wrong.

And when met with such intolerance there is no need at all for me to explain myself further.

The way money flow works in a country with a sovereign currency is fact. Disputing that isn't an opinion - it's just wrong, but one the public has been duped into believing.

growstuff

Eloethan You're right. The "benefits bill" is peanuts compared with what is paid out for pensioners and associated benefits. Pensions are usually included whenever the media jumps up and down about how high the benefits bill is.

As pension comprises 55%* of the benefits bill I would hardly call the 45%, peanuts. However, it is certainly true that less than half of the benfits bill goes to anything other than pension (pre Covid). These are the latest figures I could find:

The largest benefit is the State Pension at £96.7 billion in 2018 to 2019, a rise of £1.2 billion in real terms since last year. It is paid to 12.7 million people.

£69.2 billion is forecast to be spent on income-related benefits and personal tax credits, compared wth £71.8 billion in real terms since 2017 to 2018.

£52.7 billion is forecast to be spent to support disabled people and people with health conditions, compared with £53.1 billion in real terms in 2017 to 2018. The fall is partly the result of the devolution of Carer’s Allowance expenditure in Scotland to the Scottish Government in September 2018.

It would be interesting to know which area people of the same opinion as GrannyRose15 "I am absolutely flabbergasted. No wonder the benefit bill is so high." might just let us know who they think should starve in this country as we are so very close to ensuring that larger and larger numbers in our population do.

* Latest available government figures www.gov.uk/government/publications/benefit-expenditure-and-caseload-tables-information-and-guidance/benefit-expenditure-and-caseload-tables-information-and-guidance

I’m not convinced the state pension should be included in the benefits bill. I worked from age 17 to 62, with 18 months as a mum not working outside the home. I worked part time for the next six years, paying tax, NI and what was called ‘full stamp’. Older women at the first office I worked in aged 18 (just married) advised me never to pay ‘married women’s stamp’, because I might not always be married.
I’d have worked to 64 if health issues hadn’t got in the way.
I don’t see my state pension as a benefit, it’s savings.
Child benefit is future proofing.
People who can’t work or struggle to find employment should receive benegits

I could also point out, GrannyRose15, that this thread has wandered a long way away from the question I originally asked. A question to which I got few relevant answers, btw, and which I asked in order to try to understand what people were basing their statements on. Not for a political argument.

On the question of how an economy works 'opinion' is about as relevant as having the opinion that a car is powered by 100s of hamsters in exercise wheels. What I, and others, have said about the issue of currency and the way it circulates in a country's economy is observable fact. A fact agreed not only by 'economists' but backed up by the Bank of England which actually issues our money. It is absolutely non political.

The way that a country's economy is actually run is, of course, deeply political. As are the falsehoods promoted by parties to gain voter consent to policies such as austerity, and to damage their political opponents.

GrannyRose15

PippaZ

GrannyRose15

tickingbird

GrannyRose15 is right. Just printing more money is far too simplistic as it leads to hyperinflation. The ones that put this forward as a solution are naive. It’s not Monopoly.

Thankyou

Except it isn't right, is it. Just saying you agree, without sharing any knowledge that backs this up does not turn an opinion into a fact - well in Trump World perhaps it does and to some extent in the old Brexit World but not in real life where continuing to repeat something shown to be untrue often has another name.

Could you just back up your opinions with some known experts saying the same thing, perhaps?

I cannot understand why people have to be so rude. You know very little about me or my politics.

Just because you think you know doesn't turn your opinion into a fact.

It is quite obvious from the way this thread has turned out that the OP doesn't have any interest in hearing what other people think. - it was simply an excuse to let us know her opinions.

I have read them. I don't agree with them. I think some people are wrong.

And when met with such intolerance there is no need at all for me to explain myself further.

I am not being intolerant of a person, only of the fiction repeated.

I made no reference to anyones personal politics only to the politics that have turned useful lies into truths.

Given knowledgable sources of information, and the will to become informed, anyone can understand.

I was not being rude. I was challenging the premise of your argument. We should not believe anyones opinion is a fact unless they can show why it is fact; that is debate; this is not a "Chat" thread.

I'm afraid that even where someone thinks others are wrong, they still need to show why they are wrong (or be of such high standing in that field that we accept what they say). Show me blue cheese brought back from the moon and I will look into the current knowledge that proves it is made of metal and rocks. Tell me that is what someone believes because this is what an unreliable source told them and I will tell you that this argument (not the person) is faulty.

Pointing out in a discussion that the reasoning behind a view is faulty and that this, therefore, makes your argument invalid is not "rude". It still allows you to return with accurate and supported reasoning to show the first premise is right and others are the ones with a fallacious argument.

I think you then come down to the meaning of the word "benefits" Iam64. Sadly, those who can't work, etc., do not now receive "benefits" in the la la land that is Conservative News Speak, they receive "welfare". That pejorative word has crept back in over the last 10 years and is used by the right-wing press and MPs in a subtle undermining of the poor and less able.

Back to 'benefits'. I think it would have been used in the same way that we will see it written into an insurace policy or a private pension when it lists the 'benefits' you will gain. Again, because the idea that people can justly recieve a benefit from the state in time of need, in return for what they have contributed to the state, has been undermined by false impressions of the number and amount of this "benefit" that goes to the "wrong people".

Nothing wrong with the word ‘welfare’ and in any case it perhaps avoids confusion as the word benefits ( as in universal credit etc) are also given to top up working wages, or pips and so on. The welfare state and the actual word welfare are perfectly good.

MaizieD your thread was born under a wandering star because it’s impossible to know what Labour would have made of managing the pandemic.They may have made different mistakes, or the same mistakes but highly doubtful they would have made no mistakes at all.

People get pensions because they have paid NI contributions and they are entitled to get something back. Without their state pensions many people would be living in poverty.

People get so-called "welfare" because they have paid NI contributions and they are entitled to get something back. Without their "welfare" many people would be living in poverty.

Some people get "welfare" because they cannot support themselves any other way and as a humane society it is our duty to support them.

By separating pensions from "welfare", governments have been spectacularly successful in making the population think that there is something noble in getting a pension but something vaguely undeserving about the people getting "welfare".

I wonder how happy everyone would be if their personal personal pension payed a "welfare" payment each month or their insurance made a "welfare" payment when something that was insured against happened.

We are all "insured" partly by monatory payment and partly by citizenship. Why choose a word that is often now seen to mean payments that have not been contributed to as opposed to 'benefits' which the world of private insurance uses? It has changed over the last 10 years and there must be a reason why that has been done.

What reason do others think this would be?

Alegrias1 Sat 20-Feb-21 09:36:14 ?

lemongrove

MaizieD your thread was born under a wandering star because it’s impossible to know what Labour would have made of managing the pandemic.They may have made different mistakes, or the same mistakes but highly doubtful they would have made no mistakes at all.

I have no problem at all with my thread wandering from its original premise. I was just pointing out that GrannyRose was mistaken in her accusations. It was not started for political point scoring.

Your response, though, has, once again, underlined the fact that the assertion that Labour couldn't have done any better with the covid crisis is completely meaningless as it has no rational basis whatsoever.

I think the word ‘welfare’ is a perjorative term in the USA but perhaps less so in the U.K.
I’m old enough to remember the early days of ‘The Welfare State’ when it was regarded with pride, not used to denigrate sections of the population deemed less deserving than others.
I remember going to the clinic with my mother and baby sister for her to have the usual baby checks and to get our rations of National Dried Milk and National Orange juice. The nurses would let me weigh my doll after my sister had been weighed. The clinic was held not in a shiny new clinical facility, but in the local scout hut. I can smell the disinfectant now.

It seems sad now, nearly 70 years later, that the climate of hope, cooperation and fairness for all seems to have been replaced by one of distrust, suspicion and envy.

Should have added, going to the clinic was referred to as ‘going to the Welfare’. ??‍♀️

pegswoodwelfare.yolasite.com

Another example of a positive use of the word ‘welfare’. We used to go dancing there.

Janeainsworth It is very sad how the climate of hope has changed as wrote. What is also sad is that many of the people who complain about state benefits would have benefited from them in their youth.

Actually, if *lemongrove’ says ‘it’s impossible to know what Labour would have made if managing the pandemic’ she’s exactly right.
It’s impossible to know.