Benefits or handouts?

The words 'benefits' and 'welfare' have now replaced the phrase 'social security' in the UK. So the social security system (which is what it's called in other EU countries) is now the benefits system, the benefits people get are now called welfare - and it all has that wee suggestion in the press and on TV that what we're talking about here are handouts - something for nothing.

I worked from the age of 15 to the age of 60, paying national insurance, tax, VAT and council tax as I went along. I'm outraged to see that my pension is now referred to as a 'benefit' rather than a form of insurance I paid into for 45 years. And I'll bet the people now having to ask for jobseeker's allowance because they've lost their jobs in the recession are equally mad at being described as 'scroungers' getting handouts.

It looks to me like the people who are getting the blame for everything that's wrong with the UK right now are people who receive benefits and immigrants. I've been reading quite a lot about both sets of people and I've decided there are some whopping great lies being told about them:

It's NOT true that fraud accounts for 27% of benefits claims, as Brits seem to think in opinion polls. The real figure is 0.7%.

It's NOT true that 47% of the total social security bill is for unemployent payments. It's a maximum of 5%.

It's NOT true that the people who get all the benefits are the unemployed. 60% of working families get benefits because their wages are so low they can't live on them.

It's NOT true that people with large families are soaking the state for millions. There are 300 families in the whole UK with more than 12 children. They get additional housing benefit at the moment - but that's about to be capped at £500 a week. And, of course, housing benefit doesn't go to claimants - it goes to their landlords. But don't get me started on housing: we could be here all day discussing the shortage of social housing in the UK, the bedroom tax, etc.

It's NOT true that the UK is over-run by millions of immigrants. Over the past ten years, 10-14
million UK citizens lived outside the UK, while 10-14 million foreigners came here.

It's NOT true that the UK attracts more immigrants than any other EU country. Of the 27 EU countries, the UK is 14th in the table of immigration.

It's NOT true that 2 million Polish people have come to the UK since Poland joined the EU to get benefits. The total number of Polish people claiming jobseeker's allowance is about 14,000. Polish people come to the UK to work.

Yes, we have very serious problems in the UK: for example, too many of our young people (especially boys) leave school without qualifications. Not only are they unable to compete in the EU job market, they can't even meet the entry requirements for the most basic jobs in the UK. We're also exporting far too many of our highly educated young people. We need them working in the UK and paying their taxes here.

We have an ageing population: I'm from the babyboomer generation and worked knowing that my taxes supported the last generation. Now there are many fewer young people working to support me. And it'll be worse for the next generation unless we can find a way to retain our talented young people and some of the immigrants living in the UK now.

The UK is also the 4th most unequal society in the world, with the gap between the rich and the poor growing every year.

So what's to be done? Well, you'll maybe have sussed that I don't think what the Coalition is doing is particularly helpful. Mind you, I don't see that the Labour Party (of which I am a member) has much to offer right now (are they for or against the bedroom tax, for example?). Watching Osborne in parliament delivering his budget I remembered that tired old saying: When you're in a hole, stop digging.....Maybe time to look at what's being done in other countries: Germany, for example, or the USA, Canada, Australia. The first two are recovering well from the recession and the second two avoided the recession altogether.