Is The Public Expecting Too Much Financially From The State In Benefits And Services?

[dave50]

Is the level of spending on everything from welfare and public services unsustainable? It seems everyone now expects the state to cough up whenever any kind of misfortune comes knocking their their door. 

[naomi24]

I'd say a three bed terraced house is pretty ordinary, untitled.  It's certainly not a mansion.  I'd hate to live in your world - and I'd hazard a guess that if it ever became a reality you would too.

[Khandro]

NJ: Is the asking price of that house a joke ?

[naomi24]

Not at all, khandro.  It's in London.

[Untitled]

It's in zone 1 naomi! 

[Untitled]

all these spoiled boomers looking at a three bed with a garden in zone 1 and insisting it's "nothing special" lol. you're out of touch. 

[newmodarmy]

I'd have expected it to be quite a lot more than that.

But it doesn't mean that 2 pensioners living in it must be so wealthy they do not need / should be denied the state pension they were expecting. They may have no other income.  They may be too frail to move- but entitled would expect them to choose between selling up or starving/freezing. But if they do sell up and pocket the £1m and then rent then under untitled's regime they'd get the pension. Doesn't make sense.

[naomi24]

It's not me who's out of, untitled.  When oldies bought houses like that there was no zone 1.  They weren't posh houses when they were built and they still aren't.  Your Marxist ideals don't work - which is why they're not universally embraced.

[newmodarmy]

In untitled's world a homeowner living there would be wealthy and undeserving even if they had no other income or savings and couldn't afford heating, furniture or carpets, sleeping on a damp mattress

[Untitled]

this has nothing to do with marxism naomi. you don't know what that word means.

[naomi24]

I think I do.

[Khandro]

It happens (I know) that you can be house rich a be cash poor.

Yes, you can sell your house, but then you have to buy something else at these inflated prices.

Answer: Sell house & move to somewhere else - preferably abroad, where you will get better health care, climate, food and drink, etc. 

[Untitled]

newmodarmy

i don't know why i have to keep explaining this to you but i do not wish to means test the state pension because i do not think such a policy is likely to succeed. here's me all the way back on page 2:

i have not suggested removing such people from eligibility because politically it would be impossible to achieve. any government that did it would expose themselves to litigation on a huge scale and probably lose.

please learn to read. the only policy i have advocated for on this thread is freezing the state pension and ending the triple lock.

the original question is about people expecting too much from the welfare system. i think the most egregious example of that is to be found in wealthy people claiming state pensions--payments which are increasing by a minimum of 2.5% every year and are due to do so in perpetuity while we have a growing population of pensioners, many of whom are very well-off. i attracted the ire of many people (whom i suspect belong to exactly that population) for saying so.

i really will stop now, i promise! you can talk about another part of the welfare system now, though i suspect they will be dwarfed in size by the state pension.

[douglas9401]

Working on that.

[newmodarmy]

No, I'll try again.

Untitled, you said: "about 1 in 4 pensioners are millionaires. this does not necessarily mean they are splendidly wealthy but it does definitely mean they don't need the state pension. if one quarter of the annual pensions budget goes to such people then that is £37.5 billion that is being given to people who do not need it. "

So are you suggesting the government should seek to save this £35b pa by stopping these state pensions for these so called millionaires, or are you saying it's not an appropraite use for tax payers money but we can't do anything about it? If the latter, then I don't get why you even mentioned it.

[Untitled]

the original question is about people expecting too much from the welfare system. i think the most egregious example of that is to be found in wealthy people claiming state pensions.

[newmodarmy]

But your definition of wealthy is people who live in a house worth more than a million. That's a weak proxy for not needing the income a state pension gives. It seems an odd suggestion. There's a much easier way of assessing the need the pension- that's to look at total income and/or to use the tax system to redistribute.