I had a drink in the local pub with a couple of other self-employed workers last night (03/08/22). We talked about many things, not least the problems of the pandemic lockdowns and little or no government support for certain types of self-employed companies, including ours!
We then moved on to discuss the current crisis’ – energy and cost-of-living (CoL). Both of which are decimating the two companies my friends work hard at trying to keep trading.
Then they complained about some of their staff wanting pay rises to cope with their own CoL problems, something that is impossible to do due to cashflow issues and rising costs of their own.
As a consequence some of their employees have left arguing that they would be better of on state benefits rather than having to put up with a low income that’s just above the minimum wage for their particular age groups.
Inevitably we then moved onto how the myriad of benefits people are now “entitled” to is not only undermining bosses of small businesses, but also workers as a whole.
Obviously if you’re earning £50k+ a year you’re probably not all that bothered about what other people earn or receive in benefits. But my two friends don’t earn that much and despite working all hours they can’t always afford to pay themselves a salary and often have to plough that allocated money into paying business bills.
When they heard the news about more government support for those people on means-tested benefits to help with the cost-of-living crisis (worth around £650) with top-ups available for certain other groups, it just made them even more pissed off.
It does seem that living on benefits is the way to go because in times of crisis – Covid, energy, CoL – you’ll more often than not receive a shedload of tax-free money. Whereas if you work but earn a lowish taxable salary or you’re self-employed and struggling, you’re likely to get sweet fuck all again!
I don’t know how many state benefits there are available these days, but in the link below are a few (I don’t include state pensions because they’re definitely not a benefit, but have been earned through a lifetime of paying Income Tax and NI contributions)
Some benefits are means-tested, some are taxable. Quite often if you work and earn a taxable wage that is just outside of any of those entitlements then you’re very much on your own. And that includes the extra Cost of Living handouts (of around £650+), which again is going to those people on benefits. However, those same people who do work and not entitled to anything will be expected to pay for it all through higher taxes and NI contributions sooner or later.
And on the subject of pensions – again if you take out pensions early in your working life because you want to think about a comfortable retirement, you often end up being means-tested come your retirement and your pensions are taxed yet again. Whereas there are many cunts out there (and I know a few) who have never worked but still end up with plenty of benefits when they reach “retirement” age, almost to the point of receiving more money than those silly workers who spent 30-40 years paying into various pensions and taxes and came out worse off!
And more often than not you’ll get the charity groups (you know, those with CEOs and board members earning 6 figure salaries) moaning on MSM and social media that the government isn’t doing enough for the poor and should therefore give all those on benefits extra cash, courtesy of the Taxpayer.
As a consequence, my two friends have said they’ll give it a few more months and if things don’t improve they’ll jack it all in and live on benefits instead (although obviously because they have worked and may have savings they may not be entitled to quite so much compared to some cunt who has never worked but has 8 kids!)
I know I’m making quite a few generalisation here, especially with regards benefit allocation (those genuinely in need due to poor health for example). But the fact is we do seem to be living in a society where living on benefits is now regarded as an essential entitlement (lifestyle choice?) and nothing to be ashamed of, just so long as the Taxpayer doesn’t complain and just keeps on paying more and more taxes to pay for it all.
https://www.gov.uk/income-tax/taxfree-and-taxable-state-benefits
https://enzaferreri.blogspot.com/2014/12/uk-benefits-pay-much-more-than-job.html
(Extra link provided by our resident sociologist, Night Admin – NA.)
Nominated by: Technocunt
