When IDS first announced the idea of rolling lots of different little benefits into a "Universal Credit" with a "Single Unified Taper", I thought that this sounded like an important first step towards a full Citizen's Income-type welfare system.
Either I've missed something important or somebody didn't read the memo properly, "universal" appears to include everybody except...
Pensioners with savings or other income.
Higher earners esp. those who would become step-parents.
People with large families.
People who work part-time.
People under 21.
People who are under 25 or who can't find work.
People who refuse to work for free.
People who drink or take drugs.
People with disabilities.
Anybody else to whom the computer says no.
Thanks to Bob E for help in compiling this list.
Tuesday, 13 November 2012
I didn't realise that this is what "universal" means...
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12 comments:
Told you 3 years ago.
It's just a name that sounds good. The Universal Credit is no more universal than Universal Studios.
RS, and you were right. I did hold out a glimmer of hope.
B, ta, maybe it was me who didn't understand the memo properly.
But is it going to be less costly to administer?
That might make it small step in the right direction.
BJ: "But is it going to be less costly to administer?"
I'm falling about laughing at that one. It's your dry delivery which kills me.
BJ, A simple idea, developed by civil servants into an extremely complicated one; what do you think?
Bayard,
I think I my have heard somewhere that there may be a few problems with the computer systems, but one doesn't like to make assumptions.
Have you seen the proposals for UC and the self-employed? They're going to base the award on an income floor rather than the number of hours worked (arguments both ways I guess) but they're also making s/e people produce monthly accounts - bearing no relation to either the tax year or their own HMRC accounting periods. I think it's calendar months. You have just seven days to get the accounts in. Losses in one month aren't carried over to smooth profits in subsequent months. Imagine the shopkeeper with quarterly rent. Or the cabbie with an MOT, annual hire and reward insurance (cos it's cheaper than monthly) and a breakdown meaning the car's off the road for a week in the same month.
Sounds like a good system to get all those awkward self-employed people off the books.
Jill, no I missed that one. Sounds disastrous, but that appears to be the whole intention.
B, that is the end game here, isn't it?
IDS was lost as soon as he bought the argument of his civil servants that they needed £10 billion to implement this "simplofication". He's too nice. You need a bastard like Pickles to get one over on them.
AC, yes, but at least IDS started off in the right direction and got bogged down by the bureaucrats.
The Morbidly Obese One would have set out to make as many exclusions as possible from the start because he is basically the Daily Mailexpressgraph personified. Wrapped in lard. And so by now, you'd be ineligible for benefits if any one of your grandparents was born abroad. Or slim and good looking.
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