[Closed] Cost to the nation of the unemployed.

5plusn8 - Member

Otherwise what does min wage mean if not just enough to keep you out of poverty?

The minimum wage isn't calculated based on need or the cost of living, or to keep people out of poverty.

The Living Wage (not Osborne's bullshit but the actual living wage) is currently £8.45 per hour.

So the min wage is below poverty then? (Mine was an assumption - that the "minimum" part of the concept being the minimum needed to survive, it is a shame that I am wrong in that assumption.)

I do have a story from an old job where the Director played golf with the Directors of other small business. They all passed made up invoices for smallish sums to each other, the invoices disguised cash withdrawals that went to the Director as an untaxed bonus. In the grand scheme of things it was low sums of a few hundred pounds a time.

I don't get how this would work? Tax would be paid on the invoiced income whether it was corporate or personal.

[i]I also think it is safe to assume* that tax avoidance by corporations smashes benefit fraud into financial insignificance.
*(assuming as I do not have facts, but happy to be corrected)[/i]

Difficult to have facts as you're looking for things that someone has hidden.

I do have a story from an old job where the Director played golf with the Directors of other small business. They all passed made up invoices for smallish sums to each other, the invoices disguised cash withdrawals that went to the Director as an untaxed bonus. In the grand scheme of things it was low sums of a few hundred pounds a time.

Companies were all small enough that auditing of accounts was minimal and it never cropped up when the accounts were sent off each year.

No idea how common that is, VAT fraud is probably more common, but again how do you know, run a new laptop through the company and not pay VAT as it's a "work" item, despite being given to Directors son for University work.

I don't get how this would work? Tax would be paid on the invoiced income whether it was corporate or personal.

That's because it's a [i]story[/i]

For anybody that can look at things objectively, without prejudice, unemployment costs are clearly a non-issue.

Having zero unemployment would be far worse with staff shortages, increased wages etc,. Exactly why we rely on immigration already.

Backed up by the report out today that we actually need immigration of 200,000 but nobody wants to tell the people who don't want to listen.

I don't get how this would work? Tax would be paid on the invoiced income whether it was corporate or personal.

Fake invoice matched to cash wiwithdrawal - director doesn't pay tax on the "bonus" as no one ever knows he got it.

Company paid £300, for example, on Grounds Maintenace. Company is profitable so there's no effect on the overall figures.

Company remains small enough to qualify for audit exemption and as it's a Private Limited Company where the Director is the sole Shareholder the Shareholder won't be asking for an audit.

Small scale but like the storys of benefit fraud I have no idea how common it is.

That's because it's a story

Same kind of [i]story[/i] as you disfuntional, multiple disablility, rpaidly breeding familiy 🙂

They're all atories.

Having zero unemployment would be far worse with staff shortages, increased wages etc,

Far worse for who exactly?

The industry I worked in had a shortage of qualified staff in the 90's and 00's. Loads of jobs, good payrises, rapid promotion and being in the position to say "**** you" and walk away from a job you didn't like.

It was very good.

There is still a staff shortage but not as it was.

Fake invoice matched to cash wiwithdrawal - director doesn't pay tax on the "bonus" as no one ever knows he got it.

The person that issued the invoice has to pay tax on the payment of the invoice. If the director thinks that under an investigation that won't get found out, he may as well just cash £300 and put it down to petty cash or sundries. It doesn't sound like a real tax scam.

For anybody that can look at things objectively, without prejudice, unemployment costs are clearly a non-issue.

aving zero unemployment would be far worse with staff shortages, increased wages etc,. Exactly why we rely on immigration already.

Backed up by the report out today that we actually need immigration of 200,000 but nobody wants to tell the people who don't want to listen.

IDK.

In 6 months I lost out on about £15,000, HMRC lost out on another £10,000 or so (PAYE + employers NI). An employer didn't make any money out of my time at $110/hour (more to HMRC, and paying for all the support staff like managers, HR, secretaries, catering, cleaners).

Now there's reasons beyond the UK government why I was unemployed (other governments policy mostly), but the cost to the economy of me being unemployed makes the £73/week pale into insignificance. Back of a fag packet that's about £85k of lost GDP, which would be almost entirely exported. I doubt there was much of an economic upside to me being unemployed.

I agree that unemployment will never hit 0%, but that's because the market won't let it (wages rise, leading to greater automation or un-competitiveness, immigration goes up attracted by wages etc) but it shouldn't be policy.

The ideal (IMO) would be stable short term unemployment with very low long term unemployment. People will always be losing their jobs, but you want an equal number being created and a quick turnarround for those affected.

Now in a different system, say with an unlimited budget for re-training I could probably have done an MSc in something related but different enough to my old job, and gone back into the workforce at even better pay and probably pay off the investment in qualifications in ~6 months of tax. Whereas now I'm doing a lowest common denominator job (no qualifications required, just intelligence) for a friend of a friend and paying only about £200 in tax each month. so overall the economy is losing out as a result of only paying £73/week.

Nasty vicious officious bastards at Jobcentre+, you say?

https://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/a-8ff7-Benefits-boss-lauds-Wild-West-sanctions-targets#.WR7PxtnTVnE

So the min wage is below poverty then? (Mine was an assumption - that the "minimum" part of the concept being the minimum needed to survive, it is a shame that I am wrong in that assumption.)

Correct.

The minimum wage was just what was a normal low paid job at the time IIRC. Subsequently charities have calculated what they call the 'living wage' which is how much you actally need to live on. Something like £10/h in London I think.

Now, under pressure to raise the minimum wage to the living wage, Osborne put the minimum wage up slightly and rebranded it the living wage, despite it still not being the actual living wage i.e. enough to live on.

being in the position to say "**** you" and walk away from a job you didn't like

This is why having a pool of unemployed people helps businesses, and helps keep workers rights down.

Many of us probably know of one or two "undeserving" cases of people that screw the system.

Can't say I do.

Same kind of story as you disfuntional, multiple disablility, rpaidly breeding familiy

If only it was 🙁

I agree with you on the VAT fraud using company assets for personal use and rampant on this forum too. False invoices to get a couple of hundred out isn't worth the hassle or the risk for getting caught usually grassed up by a disgruntled employee like yourself.

I agree with you on the VAT fraud using company assets for personal use. False invoices to get a couple of hundred out isn't worth the hassle or the risk for getting caught usually grassed up by a disgruntled employee like yourself.

I still don't see how it would work, surely the recipient of the invoice has to declare that income, pay corporation tax, vat and everything else before withdrawing the money, just like the original person?

I'm sure most small business owners bend the truth slightly to claim back a bit more (even a work PC used for STW posting and not declared it as being for personal use too?) but getting their overall tax rate down to anywhere near what big corporations manage would be far fetched.

Why don't we all just work 4 days a week and share the work out more evenly?
Who decided 5 days per week was the normal right amount to work?

[i]The correlative of the State’s undertaking to ensure adequate benefit for unavoidable interruption of earnings, however long, is enforcement of the citizen’s obligation to seek and accept all reasonable opportunities of work, to co-operate in measures designed to save him from habituation to idleness, and to take all proper measures to be well. The higher the benefits provided out of a common fund for unmerited misfortune, the higher must be the citizen’s sense of obligation not to draw upon that fund unnecessarily.

This general principle leads to the following practical conclusions:

(i) Men and women in receipt of unemployment benefit cannot be allowed to hold out indefinitely for work of the type to which they are used or in their present places of residence, if there is work which they could do available at the standard wage for that work.

(ii) Men and women who have been unemployed for a certain period should be required as a condition of continued benefit to attend a work or training centre, such attendance being designed both as a means of preventing habituation to idleness and as a means of improving capacity for earning. Incidentally, though this is an altogether minor reason for the proposal, such a condition is the most effective way of unmasking the relatively few persons who may be suspected of malingering, who have perhaps some concealed means of earning which they are combining with an appearance of unemploy­ment. The period after which attendance should be required need not be the same at all times or for all persons. It might be extended in times of high unemployment and reduced in times of good employ­ment; six months for adults would perhaps be a reasonable average period of benefit without conditions. But for young persons who have not yet the habit of continuous work the period should be shorter; for boys and girls there should ideally be no unconditional benefit at all; their enforced abstention from work should be made an occasion of further training.

(iii) The measures for control of claims to disability benefit—both by certification and by sick visiting—will need to be strengthened, in view of the large increases proposed in the scale of compulsory insurance benefit and the possibility of adding to this substantially by voluntary insurance through Friendly Societies.
[/i]

Beveridge Report, 1942

I still don't see how it would work, surely the recipient of the invoice has to declare that income, pay corporation tax, vat and everything else before withdrawing the money, just like the original person?

I'm sure most small business owners bend the truth slightly to claim back a bit more (even a work PC used for STW posting and not declared it as being for personal use too?) but getting their overall tax rate down to anywhere near what big corporations manage would be far fetched.

Assuming the supplier of the invoice would have a similar expense cancelling each other out. A lot of work for not much gain.

I know someone who took the money they got for being a married-but-single-mum to two kids with no house and bought a Audi A3 Black Edition 2.0 TDI and was such a high risk on the finance they had to install a black box she puts a code into every time it starts - the code lasts a month and she only gets another if she pays the finance for that month.

And then was up in arms about how she wouldn't survive when her benefits were to be reduced, and how she wouldn't able to afford repayments on her luxury German car.

Obviously this is the 1% ruining it for the rest, but it certainly doesn't help things.

She was also telling everyone, parents included, that the husband was no longer living with her and supporting the family. He was discovered a few months later fully moved back into their welfare house and had been living there for god knows how long.

Who decided 5 days per week was the normal right amount to work?

God. Well it was 6 actually.

Actual cost = zero.
Opportunity cost = what they could contribute to GDP if they worked rather than just consumed.
Contribution: they are part of demand, remove them and demand goes down, and GDP with it.

[quote=plyphon ]I know someone who took the money they got for being a married-but-single-mum to two kids with no house and bought a Audi A3 Black Edition 2.0 TDI and was such a high risk on the finance they had to install a black box she puts a code into every time it starts - the code lasts a month and she only gets another if she pays the finance for that month.
And then was up in arms about how she wouldn't survive when her benefits were to be reduced, and how she wouldn't able to afford repayments on her luxury German car.
Obviously this is the 1% ruining it for the rest, but it certainly doesn't help things.
She was also telling everyone, parents included, that the husband was no longer living with her and supporting the family. He was discovered a few months later fully moved back into their welfare house and had been living there for god knows how long.

I read that and thought bullshit, but it actually exists...

https://www.thecarfinancecompany.co.uk/pitstop/the-black-box/

and they actively target universal benefit

https://www.thecarfinancecompany.co.uk/pitstop/universal-credit/

n0b0dy0ftheg0at - Member
Remeber also that unemployment is at its lowest level for 40 years accordinvg the government
The problem is, they aren't comparing apples to apples over the last 40 years, IMO. I think I'm right in saying that people on "zero hour contracts" are being classed as employed, for example.

Also, anyone sanctioned by a jobcentre has benefits stopped and is thus removed from the number of 'unemployed', bringing that level lower still.

God. Well it was 6 actuallly

..and he claimed universal credit for it.

nickc - Member
And people like zippy here, are how the bullshit over facts world that we live in now, persists.

POSTED 3 HOURS AGO # REPORT-POST

Obviously this is the [b]0.07% [/b]ruining it for the rest, but it certainly doesn't help things.

Ftfy

Im good friends with two brothers.. both unemployed both late 50s one made redundant when 34 hasnt worked since, doesnt drink or drive mrs works part time live a simple life live in thier own ex council house keep it and garden immaculate. no intention of every working live on what benifits they can get for mrs working and his 'bad back' other brother hasnt worked for 20 plus years been off sick with heart issues.. works doing odd jobs all day everyday doesnt smoke drinks like a fish live in council property.

someone somewhere is supporting these two lads to have literally the best tans in rochdale and the most laid back casual lifestyle i could imagine..

But zippy, if they're workshy, how are they doing a job of removals?

totalshell - Member

Im good friends with two brothers.......

So if thats true, shop them in?

move long nothing to see here. apols.

someone somewhere is supporting these two lads to have literally the best tans in rochdale and the most laid back casual lifestyle i could imagine..

That someone is you, you know who they are.

Guessing you don't really have a problem with them doing it?

Anyway, just my 2p to ensure there is balance on understanding before people vote, which ever way they decide!

You may want to find the correct thread to post all that. This thread is not about tax systems or the election.

Oh, and think about the rich as taking more rather than paying more and you might start to think differently.

If you're envious of the Rochdale lads lifestyle living high on the hog of welfare, why not as someone above suggests and quit working, claim benefits and try to emulate them

they are being vilified and its being implied they should pay for it because they are 'rich', like being so is wrong somehow