The welfare bludger argument is tired. If you want to argue for some cuts to middle class welfare (which Howard was the master of) I'm all ears. Welfare only becomes a problem when that money is just being banked rather than spent.

:lol:

You're right. How can we avoid the cycle of welfare if we can't pay people enough to survive on welfare whilst also expecting them to be looking for a job?

I'm not against paying people a minimum wage providing it's a net benefit to the tax payer.

I think you will find a lot of people who sponge off government and are heavy users of medicare add no productive capacity to the country. In fact they are making life harder for the millions of people who are working to buy property, service mortgage payments and provide for their families, who see a big chunk of their pay check disappear in taxes. This causes them to save less which means if they become unemployed rather than drawing from their own savings they do so from the taxpayer, they may also have to forego private health insurance which increases their burden on the the public system. We should be skeptical of spurious claims that mass funding of health, welfare and education will lead to great economic heights. Australia is one of the fattest countries in the world, so all this funding going into health isn't necessarily ensuring people stay healthy.:lol:

On behalf of everyone with a serious and life-changing disability/injury I apologise for the inconvenience they cause you :lol:

You are off your rocker if you think that everyone must contribute. Human conception isn't perfect and accidents in life happen.

Should we just kill people who can't work comrade?

Ever heard of UBI?

Universal Business Integration?

No, sorry I am not familiar.

to put things into perspective australia spends 0.7 cents in every dollar on unemployment benefits and 1.9 cents in every dollar on disability benefits

Universal Basic Income

Ah ok. Well I'm not against it if it's going to work out for us in the long run.

The question is though what do you do with people working full time on a minimum wage? Why work for a minimum wage if people get the same amount not working?

[youtube]uSP9UlineZE[/youtube]

Rusty's and Enzo's solution.

It's a minimum.

Switzerland just voted against it interestingly.

Always an emotive subject welfare payments. Not sure there is a simple solution. You get some who genuinely need it and then you get others who abuse the system (pretty much like every aspect of life). Does our welfare system assist in keeping our crime lower (relative to countries such as the USA where social welfare is not so well looked after)???

What do you do with those who genuinely don't want to work? Chances are they won't hold down a job, so this adds a burden to the employers (the individual would eventually burn all their bridges). So now they are unemployable, and receive no welfare. What avenue would most of these individuals take to get an income??

I think the problem is that there is no broad brush solution, and each case needs to looked at on its own merits to determine how to proceed forward (which is hard for a government to campaign on).

Yeh I saw that. I'm ill-informed as to the popular reasons for voting against it.

Our welfare payments are disgraceful though. Whether we have a UBI or not, we need to support people in a way that allows them to survive rather than screwing them.

our minimum wage is 17.7 an hour
if you take sick leave and anuall leave out of the picture you are making 540 a week after tax which is twice what you get on welfare. Thats a pretty big gap!

It would also be hard to monitor and sell to the public.

I couldn't survive on that amount of money per week and I don't even need any kind of medicine/have special dietry requirements.

The mrs is gluten free so she wouldn't have a chance on that paltry amount.

I didn't say that we should kill people :lol: , just the idea that spending more money and welfare equals economic growth is spurious. For example every dollar invested in health is a dollar taken from ones pay packet that would otherwise go into stimulating the broader economy. Or every dollar invested in welfare is a dollar less invested in medical research.

yea I'm more than a little tired of doing your research for you whenever you're too ignorant:

You can start here: http://theconversation.com/factcheck-is-50-of-all-income-tax-in-australia-paid-by-10-of-the-working-population-45229.

look at that little table: Share of personal income tax: 2% of tax is paid by 50%; 28% is paid by , 50% of income is paid by the top 10%.

You want more facts, use that little google thingy.

If you pay people a fair amount to live they can spend money on things the government collects GST on.

Economics......

Talk to Azzamarch on this topic. He has provided some excellent analogies on this very thing. Alternatively, scroll back 60 odd pages in this thread.

yeah you would need both working full time on minimum wage to do well.

Providing I didn't aspire to own my own house...... :lol:

WHAT A CLUELESS FUCKWIT. The only Centrelink payment is the dole, is it?

Ever heard of rent assistance, and a myriad of other payments.

try this: https://www.humanservices.gov.au/customer/services

the catholic church* defines a living wage as three times the cost of food and rent.

I wonder what that would come to in australia. For those who are renting what would your living wage be (if you are married I guess you divide food and rent for the couple by two and multiply by three)

*regardless of what you think of them they do put numbers on a living wage

Edited by grazorblade: 4/7/2016 03:32:00 PM

Why don't you google up how to live on $527 a fortnight while you're at it seeing it's such a 'lifestyle choice'.

As for your tax example what the fuck do you expect in a progressive tax system. The statistics are a fait accompli given that's the system we operate in.

I'd love to hear you explain to me how some bloke on $600 a week fully employed is paying no tax.


Edited by toughlove: 4/7/2016 03:36:14 PM

$130.40 per fortnight for a single person. So add $65 / week to your lifestyle choice.

https://www.humanservices.gov.au/customer/services/centrelink/rent-assistance



Edited by toughlove: 4/7/2016 03:35:43 PM

Utilities allowance. https://www.humanservices.gov.au/customer/services/centrelink/utilities-allowance

Single customers - $608 per year, paid at the rate of $152 per quarter.

So $11.60 a week. Fucking rivers of gold. I'm resigning tomorrow.

loving this :D

Ignoring the idiots on this thread, the question of the Universal Basic Income is fascinating. I do think in the long term it will become commonplace.

However, at present I think that the case makes less sense for Australia than other countries. Our benefits system is extremely targeted compared with other countries (mainly because we means-test a lot of benefits other countries don't).

Therefore, the cost of paying the UBI (particularly those who don't need it) would not be offset by the savings from dismantling the associated govt bureaucracy that would get eliminated if you stopped all other payments.

So I don't think it would really work that well here, as compared to Scandinavian countries who already have universal access to many benefits.

I'm certainly open to the idea in principle though.

Another alternative could be a negative tax rate - eg the govt sets a minimal earnings level per person. If you earn below this, the govt tops you up to this amount, if you earn above this you pay tax as per usual to fund the system. It obviously creates potential for misuse. But its another option.

The UBI could work here if you had an upper level cut off... but then it wouldn't be universal!

:roll:

What people are doing is staying under thresholds so as 1. not lose centrelink payments and 2. not pay tax. I know this because its my job to hire them and they tell it to my face...no more hours please because of 1. and 2.

Its a well established fact that one of the biggest disincentives for women who are able to to work more hours is the loss of Centrelink benefits/ family benefits. Once they factor that in, they might end up effectively working to be a few bucks per hour better off.