Tuesday 30 April 2013

"For a truer picture..."

Woodsy42  left a comment on "Huge families on benefits are no myth... oh, hang...":

"There are 160 families on out-of-work benefits with ten or more children."

I find this very difficult to believe. It's less than one per town. For a truer picture, how about looking at the number of large families that require benefits because, even if someone works, they could not have afforded those children without benefits?


I've linked to my data sources, if anybody wants to have a crack at the numbers, feel free to do so.

But the cost-benefit calculations are all very marginal and there are so many judgment calls to be made that you could come up with pretty much any answer you want, you could come up with a reasonably plausible answer anywhere between "a third of all children" and "hardly any".

And this cuts both ways, I could just as well ask:

For a truer picture, how about looking at the number of retired people (especially early retirees) claiming taxpayer funded pensions (state or public sector) who would still be working and contributing if those pensions weren't on offer?

or...

For a truer picture, how about looking at the number of buy-to-let landlords collecting national wealth privately who would still be working and contributing if we taxed land rents instead of taxing earned incomes?

7 comments:

Lola said...

It gets even more complicated because some of theose penioners drawing state pension benefits are 'working' by providing unpaid (as in not paid by the parents) childcare so that working mums can go out to, well, work.

Mark Wadsworth said...

L, fair comment, but that only applies to a few of them.

Lola said...

Well, not so sure it is 'just a few'. In my experience lots of grannies and grandads do it. It's also 'traditional.

Sarton Bander said...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/meet-mr-money-mustache-the-man-who-retired-at-30/2013/04/26/71e3e6a8-acf3-11e2-a8b9-2a63d75b5459_story.html

Sarton Bander said...

forgot to write...

Example of the second or.

Mark Wadsworth said...

L, maybe it is, maybe it isn't. In the absence of any hard evidence, let's agree that neither of us know and in any even it is none of our business.

SB, from the article:

"Our bread-and-butter living expenses are paid for by a single rental house we own, which generates about $25,000 per year after expenses.

We also have stock index funds and 401(k) plans, which could boost that by about 50 percent without depleting principal if we ever needed it, but, so far, we can’t seem to spend more than $25,000 no matter how much we let loose. So the dividends just keep reinvesting."


Yup, complete and utter rent seeking and if everybody were like him, GDP would fall by about two-thirds.

Sarton Bander said...

So he DOESN'T work and someone else does but spend most of their salary on location.

Double whammy.