Tuesday 11 August 2015

Throwing the baby out with the bathwater

From the BBC:

What is the government doing?

Ministers want EU migrants to live in the UK for four years before they can claim benefits. However, without EU treaty change such a move could be deemed discriminatory and breach EU law.


Not a problem, says the government, let's kill two birds with one stone and f--- over some random group of younger people as well, few of them bother voting and those that do certainly don't vote for us.

One option is to implement a four-year residency rule for all benefit claimants. This could mean Britons, even if they had lived in the UK all their lives, from their 18th birthday would be ineligible for the benefits for four years until they reach 22.

The changes would affect working tax credits and housing benefits. About 50,000 UK citizens under the age of 22 receive tax credits. Most of them have children. The proposal is currently being discussed by ministers and senior officials.


And as we well know, it was the 18 to 22 age group which caused the financial crisis... seven or eight years ago.



5 comments:

SumoKing said...

Most people under 22 have children?

WTaF?

I thought half were in some sort of University/College/conscription arrangement then

Mark Wadsworth said...

SK no! It's most of the few who claim tax credits

Random said...

S,
"The changes would affect working tax credits and housing benefits. "

SumoKing said...

ah

Rage and typing, ever my downfall

I'm not sure why the UK struggles to make this work and the rest of europe doesn't seem to face the same problem. Maybe we just stop handing out cash to people for managing to leave school with 2 A levels and primary 5 level of reading.

Possibly sending 50% of population to UNI in an age of high tech engineering is not the worst idea. Beats the "train everyone as a plumber and hope shit keeps blocking the drains" plans that seem to have prevailed for the last 40 years

Lola said...

Whatever. The whole benefits / tax system and their interaction is in bloody awful mess. IDS is on the right track with UB but none of them will take the next logical step.