Pammie1
* It's a mistake to think people are being "topped up". The Universal Credit element most people receive is for rent. The Local Housing Allowance has just been raised (about time!), but that money is paid by the claimant to the landlord.*
But they ARE still being topped up. If employers were paying a decent wage there would be no need for UC at all - rent element or otherwise. What might help is a cap on the rents landlords are able to charge at the expense of the tax payer. Most elements of the benefit system are means tested, so why not means test landlords by clarifying how much of the rents they are charging are actually justified and how much is profit. IMHO landlords are taking the piss out of the benefit system at the moment but no-one seems to want to address the problem. But then I suppose, realistically, we can’t expect a Tory government to do much about it.
Agreed. It doesn’t matter where the money goes, in this context. It would make as much sense to say that food manufacturers profit as people have to eat.
I should have remembered that I would be picked up for not stating that VAT is, of course paid by everyone, although when it comes to a conversation about employers benefiting from ‘the system’ by allowing the government to spend public money to pay some of the expenses of the low paid, that is irrelevant, surely?
In any case, when non-earners pay purchase tax it is the equivalent of children buying parents presents with their pocket money - it recirculates the money but is not adding to the household income. Again, not particularly relevant in this context, but maybe worth saying.